Two Journeys

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:42-49. The main subject of the sermon is talking about the features of the resurrection bodies all believers will one day get.

Turn in your Bibles to I Corinthians 15. We come in our study of this magnificent epistle. We come this morning to a detailed description of the glorious terminal stop of our personal salvation, the resurrection of our bodies from the dead. Christ will raise all of his followers from the dead, and by the same power that enable him to create the universe to begin with will transform our lowly bodies and make them like his glorious body, and he can do this. He has the power to do this. His miracles done in his time of ministry on earth that we read about in the gospels, the river of miracles that he did, display effortless power over sickness and suffering and death, effortless power, a paralyzed man healed in an instant; a demon-possessed man healed in an instant; a leprous man healed in an instant; a blind man healed in an instant; a bleeding woman healed in an instant; a dead little girl healed in an instant.

But what then? What happened to each of those people? What happened to all of them? Some other malady or maybe even the same malady later on took them out of this world. But all of these signs and wonders, these miraculous healings point ahead to a comprehensive, a perfect and a permanent healing of the body by resurrection. That's what we get to talk about today, as we look at I Corinthians 15. We get to talk about the description of the resurrection body according to the apostle Paul. What will the resurrection body be like? Look at verse 35, “But someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’” The context is Corinthian doubts or questioning about the resurrection of the body. Look at verse 12, “How can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” There were some people in the Corinthian church that actually didn't believe in bodily resurrection. Paul has to address them, and he has to go to the root cause of their questions, or we could even say their questioning, and their questioning came from unbelief. They didn't believe that God could do this. We addressed this last time, and Paul rebukes their skepticism, their foolish unbelief. Look at verse 36. He says, “How foolish!” Or literally in the Greek, “You fool.” And I felt that all of us, even if we're mature Christians should stand under that rebuke and let it have its work on us. We shouldn't say, “Oh, those foolish Corinthians.” We should realize we share a tendency toward the same foolish unbelief of God. We share that same nature with the Sadducees who Jesus said are in error because they don't know the scriptures of the power of God. Is any of us, even the most mature among us, going to be say, “I know the scriptures as perfectly as I should and I know the power of God as well as I should”? None of us will say that. We're still under that foolishness, that we don't really know the Scriptures, or the power of God like we should, and when it comes to the resurrection, it goes that far. So those Corinthians just couldn't believe God could actually do this. They raised logistical questions about how it could even happen. 

We addressed that last time, the foolish root of unbelief. But now we're going to get to the actual answer to the question, “With what kind of body will they be raised?” He's going to give some amazing insights into the nature of the resurrection body, the kind of bodies we Christians are going to have as we walk through the streets of the New Jerusalem, the kind of bodies that we're going to have as we explore the dimensions and beauties of the new heaven and the new earth. As the kind of bodies that we're going to have as we sit at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven and feast with him, what kind of bodies will we have? He gives details, and he does it by contrasting the resurrection body with the mortal body. The resurrection body is contrasted with the mortal body. Look at verses 42-44, “The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown in natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” So it's a set of four couplets. It's a compare and contrast. Remember English class we had to do the compare and contrast thing? So we're going to be comparing and contrasting the mortal body with the resurrection body in these four pairings or couplets of words, perishable versus imperishable; dishonor versus glory; weakness versus power; and natural versus spiritual.

Let's take them one at a time. First, perishable versus imperishable. “The body that is sown,” he says, “ is perishable, it is raised imperishable…” Now perishable means able to die, able to die, a synonym for mortal we would say, but it also implies a certain process of decay, of degeneration. We think about perishable goods. All living things decay in some degree. The decay comes from a bacterial growth that produces nasty odors. Perhaps you've noticed them from time to time in your refrigerator, and you have to root through and find what in the world is causing that. Finally, you find that Tupperware that you put in the back of the bottom shelf about six months ago, it's perishable, it's decaying, it's corrupting. Now while we live there, even in our bodies, no matter how healthy, there's still a process of cellular decay going on. Romans chapter 8 makes it very plain that, all of creation is groaning in bondage to decay, waiting for the children of God to be revealed in their resurrection bodies. So that's going on all the time, but this process obviously just really takes off after death when you talk about the corpse. The body that is sown in the ground is a corpse and it is perishable. It is sown, it is perishable. The decay just takes off. Psalm 49:14, it says, “Like sheep they are destined for the grave, and death will feed on them. [Death will feed on them.] The upright will rule over them in the morning; their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions.” Or again, as Martha, the sister of the dead Lazarus reminded Jesus when he said, “Remove the stone.,” “By this time there is a bad odor, for he has been there four days.” 

That's the process of decay that happens normally after death. So the body that is sown is perishable. It will become a rotting corpse in the grave and death will feed on it. But the body that is raised, is raised imperishable, imperishable. It cannot die and it cannot decay. It will neither decay nor die, this resurrection body. It will be pulsating with life for all eternity. Revelation 21:4 says there'll be, “No more death, mourning, crying or pain…for the old order of things has passed away and [all things] everything will be made new!” Our resurrection bodies will live forever. They are immortal and there'll be no aging process in heaven, no diminishment of our capabilities over time. The time is infinite, and when we've been there 10,000 years bright shining as the sun, your eyes will still see the brightness and glory of the New Jerusalem like the day that you first began. You will have no diminishment of eyesight. Your eyes won't become dim as Isaac's did, or your hearing will not lose its sharpness over time. You'll be in eternal health, forever healthy in the resurrection body. Revelation 22:2 says, it speaks of the river of the water of life flowing from clearest crystal from the throne of God and on each side of that river stood the tree of life bearing 12 crops of fruit, yielding its fruit for every month, and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. It's a mysterious verse because he already told us there'll be no more death, mourning, crying or pain. But it seems to me that feeding from the tree of life and living forever is an ongoing dynamic process by which God sustains our resurrection bodies. It's not an independent, all by itself immortal body, but it is nestled in the ongoing purpose of God in sustaining the resurrection body in perfect health forever. It is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable.

Second couplet, second pairing, dishonor versus glory. It is sown, the body is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. There is an essential dishonor to dying and to death itself. First of all, the wages of sin is death. The wages of sin is death.

We die because of sin, and we are dying just as humans because we are part of Adam's progeny, his descendants. We are dying because of our connection to Adam. Even if we never committed any sin like Adam did, you think about infants that die in infancy, didn't sin as Adam did, but they still die because they're human. But then once we understand the law of God, the moral law written on our hearts, we violate it every time. So we die because we have sinned, we have violated the laws of God and that is dishonorable, so the aging and death process is dishonorable. It strips us of honor, and death itself is the ultimate dishonor. Now funeral directors and pastors and families can gather at that time and seek to do the best they can to put trappings of honor on the deceased. I understand that and I think it's reasonable. A military death, for example, we drape a flag on the casket and then fold it up with great ceremony. There might be a 21-gun salute. These are given to give a certain honor to the deceased.

Others may just at the time of the funeral come up and give testimonials of the significance of the person's life, how they lived, so there's an effort to put honor at that time. But when it comes to the corpse itself, there's a dishonor to death. We feel it when we walk into nursing homes as people are elderly and they're dying, and you look at what's happening to their bodies and there's just a dishonor and to dying and death. But the resurrection body is raised in glory. It is a glorious body. It's characterized by glory. "The righteous will shine like the son in the kingdom of our father," Matthew 13:43, we're going to be radiant with glory. We're going to be shining like the angel that bore the news of Jesus' birth to those shepherds outside of Bethlehem. Remember, he was the glory of the Lord shown around and we're going to shine like that. We're going to be radiant in glory. Christ will bestow a radiant beauty, a shining glory on his bride. He's going to make her beautiful. He's going to deck her out with glory. She's going to be staggeringly beautiful.

The angel, Revelation 21:19-11, wanted John to see the future glory of the New Jerusalem, the assembled people of God. He said, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit to a mountain, great and high and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. It shone with the glory of God and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper clear as crystal." Now that's the New Jerusalem, the city, but the city are the people in some mysterious way. We are living stones assembled together and radiant and beautiful. Every individual Christian will be in a glorious resurrection body and every one of them will be perfect physical specimens. Our bodies will be perfect, beautiful to look at, stunning in appearance. There will be an essential honor to being a redeemed person at that point, to being a Christian. It will be an honor bestowed on us.

Paul talks about this in Romans 2:7. He said, "To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give them eternal life," so that you should be all after this. I am looking forward to glory, honor and immortality for myself and for my brothers and sisters in Christ. I'm preaching for that right now that all of you would be glorious, honorable and immortal in your resurrection bodies, but you should seek it too, and that's how you live. By persistence in doing good, you seek glory, honor and immortality. To those people, God will give eternal life. Aaron, the high priest was clothed with special garments, priestly garments. Exodus 28:2 describes the reason why, "Make sacred garments for your brother Aaron to give him dignity and honor." So the jeweled garments, they're really special garments. I think of the resurrection body that way. We are going to be clothed in honor. The resurrection body is essentially honorable. The third couplet, weakness versus power. Weakness versus power. Verse 43, "The corpse, the body is sown in weakness. It is raised in power." The corpse is the very picture of weakness.

Now weakness has to do with inability. Power is the ability to make a change in the physical world. That's what power is, the ability to ... So to be weak means you don't have the ability to make any changes. You don't have the ability to do anything. You can barely pick up a feather or a piece of paper if you're just weak. So elderly people generally, there are exceptions, but generally, become more and more frail, more and more weak as they go on, and they have trouble doing even basic physical things. They have trouble feeding themselves and dressing themselves and even chewing their own food. This is just normal aging and it's part of that dishonorable process that we're talking about. We lose power. We don't have the ability to do things we earlier could do. But friends, this text ultimately is not talking about elderly people, it's talking about the corpse. The corpse, we're not talking about that it can't do much, we're saying it can't do anything. It can't move. It's dead. It has no power at all. 

This is the human body at its absolute weakness, at its lowest point, overcome by death. It sinks down into the grave and it cannot stop a single thing from coming to feed on it, completely powerless. It is sown in weakness, but it is raised in power. It is raised in power. Now, please don't misunderstand, I'm not minimizing the power of God or of Christ to do it that, but that's not what this verse is talking about. It's talking about the power in the body itself. It is a powerful body. Just as the body was characterized by weakness, it is then characterized by power, all of which comes from God. Now at this point, your imagination may be running wild. You've watched too many superhero movies and you're trying to think, "All right, what special ability do I get? What am I going to do? Am I going to be like Superman, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Will I be able to fly? Will I be able, like the angel that came down in Matthew 28 to move the stone?"

Remember, and let the women in and let Peter and John in to see the empty tomb? The angel comes down, Matthew 28:2, and rolls back the stone effortlessly and sits on it. It's one of my all-time favorite angel positions. I picture his angelic legs dangling on the stone. Utterly fearless of the Romans, they're terrified of him. They're like dead men, but he's radiant and glorious and moves the stone effortlessly and sits on it, or like Sampson, for example, who, when the spirit of God came upon him in Hebron ripped up the city gates pillar and post, carried them up and threw them all a hill. Now that's impressive. "Pastor, am I going to be able to do those kinds of things? Will I be able to fly like the seraphim? They have those wings by which they're flying. Will I be able to go in swift flight?" All I can say to you is, I don't know. Maybe, maybe, maybe and more maybe. But I'm not here to speculate.

I'm here to tell you the word says, "It is raised in power," and so your body will be limitless really in power. For all eternity, you'll have limit. Now, I don't believe you'll be omnipotent like God, but I think of it this way, Isaiah 40:29-31, this is probably the safest meditation we can do on the power of the resurrection body. It says there, "He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even used, grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall. But those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint." So think of it that way, especially that last phrase, "Run and not grow weary," never, you will never get tired in the new heaven, new earth. You won't need to sleep. You don't need to renew your strength. There'll be a constant flow of the power of God into your resurrection body giving you that kind of strength. Now for me, for exercise, I like to ride a road bike, a racing bike.

I have let my imagination run wild on this. I say, "Oh Lord, if you would just give me and no one else a resurrection body, I would enter the Tour de France. I'm telling you, I would go up the Pyrenees, and I would go up the Alps. I'd go back down to encourage those laboring up the mountain and say, 'Come on guys, you can do it. Come on.' I'd go up and down and up and down and I'd set records and I would be tested for performance-enhancing drugs. People would not know what to do with me, but I would have that kind of energy, that kind of strength in my resurrection body.'" All right, enough of that, 'cause I'm going to get into dangerous speculation here. "It is raised in power," the fourth couplet, the most mysterious of them all, natural versus spiritual. "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body." This is mysterious because those two seem to be very different body, spirit material, immaterial. How do they combine?

It's interesting, the Greek philosophy that I think is at the root of their philosophical problems with resurrection is that they really made a distinction and said, "Physical body is evil, spirit good." Paul with these words, combines the two perfectly, absolutely combines. I think that this is very significant for a combination of heaven and earth, like heaven and earth become one. All right? The throne of God descends and is in the New Jerusalem in the new heaven and new earth. So new heaven and new earth all becomes like one thing for me. God's will be done on earth as it is in heaven because there's a oneness there and it comes right down to the body. It's a spiritual body. Now I don't really know what 

that means, the stuff out of which our bodies will be made will be essentially spiritual. We're going to meditate on Jesus's resurrection body in just a minute, but seems like it follows different physical rules. The physics seem different. So beyond that, I really can't say, but summation: Our mortal bodies are perishable, dishonorable, they are weak and they are natural.

Our resurrection bodies will be the opposite of all four of those. They will be imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual. Now let me just stop and say if that isn't enough to encourage you, meditate more. If you're a child of God, Paul says openly that, "Your present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in you in this resurrection body." So be filled with good cheer, be filled with hope at your future, no matter how much suffering and pain you're going through. All right, now the eternal pattern of our resurrection body is Christ's resurrection body. Paul calls Christ's resurrection body first fruits. Look at Verse 20. He says, "Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep." So that implies a harvest of like fruit coming in the pattern of the first fruits. There will be a multitude greater than anyone could count from every tribe language people and nation raised in the pattern of Christ's resurrection body."

Jesus himself promises in John 6:39-40, "This is the will of him who sent me that I should lose none of all that he has given me but raise them up at the last day, for my father's will is that everyone who looks to the son and believes in him will have eternal life and I will raise him up at the last day." He says, "I will raise him up at the last day," multiple times in John 6. He's going to do this. Now Paul openly connects our resurrection bodies to Christ. Look at Verse 45-49, "So it is written, the first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first but the natural and after that, the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven as was the earthly man. So are those who are of the earth and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have born the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven."

Now the reference to Adam is the reconnection from the earlier theme we already opened in this chapter of federal headship, of the unity that we have in Adam and what we get from Adam. Look at Verses 21-23, "For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man, for as in Adam all die so in Christ will all be made alive. But each in his own turn, Christ the first fruits, then, when he comes, those who belong to him." So Paul teaches first Adam and last Adam, first Adam, last Adam. So in Verse 45, "It is written the first man Adam became a living being the last Adam, a life-giving spirit." This is the doctrine of federal headship. What does that mean? It means a single individual represents the whole group before God. He represents us. So Adam represented us at the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, he represented us. He stood for all of his unborn children and made a decision on their behalf that affected them greatly grievously.

So the Bible teaches that we all sinned in Adam and therefore, we die in Adam. This is the doctrine that's called original sin, the doctrine of original sin. Paul said it in Verse 22, "In Adam, we all die." We die in Adam, he develops this theology more in depth in Romans 5:12-21. There he says, "Not just that we all die, we all actually sinned in Adam." So that's what original sin means. We sinned in Adam positionally. God sees it that way. In the same way, "We all were righteous and obeyed in Christ." Christ represents us as the last Adam. So he stood before God, stands before God on our behalf and represents us to Almighty God. It says in Romans 5:19, "Just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners. So also through the obedience of the one man, the many will be made righteous." Isn't that incredible? God sees you as obedient as Jesus if you're a Christian. Isn't that incredible?

Positionally, you are as obedient to the law, to the purposes of God as Jesus. He obeyed on your behalf. So Paul then takes that theology and applies it to the body. Genesis 2:7, he speaks of God forming Adam from the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life and he became a living being,

so he came up out of the dust. But then when he sinned, he came under the death penalty of Genesis 2:17. Remember, in Genesis 2:17, "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it, you'll surely die." That's a death penalty. So he ate the forbidden fruit and he did not die right away, but he died, I believe, instantly. Spiritually, he was dead in his transgressions and sins spiritually at that moment, and then the dying process began. It took a long time, centuries. He lived past 900, but he eventually died. This is the judgment of God on Adam and indeed, on the whole human race in Adam. "Dust you are and to dust you shall return," Genesis 3:19.

When Adam and Eve came together in marital union, the children they bore were born in the likeness, the image and likeness of their father, Adam; says it very plainly in Genesis 5:3, "When Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image and he named him Seth. So Seth represents, at this point, all of us. All of us descended from Adam, we were born into the likeness of our father, Adam. That means we were born into his corruption. We're born into his death, and that's the truth for all of our bodies. We're born with mortal bodies. So the moment we're born, to some degree, we begin dying. But then he links the peril between Adam and us and then between Christ and us. Look again, 45-49, "So it is written the first man Adam became a living being, the last Adam, a life-giving spirit." Verse 46, "The spiritual did not come first but the natural and after that, the spiritual.

The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth and as is the man from heaven so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have born the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven." The sequence is plain. Adam came first, then Christ. Adam's children were born to die like him. Their bodies were born to sink back into the dust from which they came. We bore the likeness of the earthy man. So the second Adam, Christ, makes an infinitely greater impact on us. One of the rhythms of Romans 5 is not just that the first Adam is like the second Adam. One of the key themes is the second Adam is greater than the first Adam. The impact of the second Adam is greater than the impact of the first Adam. What's so glorious about all this is that the impact of Adam, the original Adam on us, is temporary.

The impact of the last Adam is eternal. Isn't that glorious? Let me think about that. We have a temporary journey to travel in sorrow and sickness and affliction and death and then it's over, and the impact of Adam, the first Adam will be done. But the impact of the last Adam is eternal. "Christ is, he says, "a living or a life-giving spirit and his resurrection body is eternally alive. We will bear the likeness of the man from heaven and we will derive our eternal life in our resurrection bodies from Jesus, forever connected." He forever will be the vine and we forever the branches and our resurrection bodies receive life from Jesus. He is a life-giving spirit to our resurrection bodies. Now let's talk about the mysteries of Christ's resurrection body. You've read the gospel accounts. It was interesting. I don't want to use the word odd, but it's just interesting how his body was and how it was received.

First of all, Christ's resurrection body was a physical body. They kept thinking he was a ghost. They actually thought that when he was walking on the water. I don't know if there was a ghost theology back then, but they were thinking Jesus was a ghost. He has to push that aside. He says in Luke 24:39, "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself touch me and see. A ghost does not have," listen to this, "flesh and bones as you see I have." So we're going to bear the likeness of the last Adam. We're going to have flesh and bones; resurrection flesh, resurrection bones. We'll be able to touch each other. We'll be able to pat each other on the back. It's physical. Secondly, Christ's resurrection body looked like a normal body to observers. The disciples on the road to Emmaus thought he was just a stranger in Jerusalem who needed to be better educated on current events. "Haven't you heard what's going on?" He just looked like a normal guy. Mary thought he was the gardener. So he just looked like an ordinary human. Thirdly, Christ's resurrection body could eat food.

In Luke 24:41-43, he asked them, "Do you have anything here to eat?" They gave him a piece of broiled fish and he took it and ate in their presence, so he's able to chew and swallow food. All told in the Gospels and in Acts five different times, Jesus' resurrection, post-resurrection times with his disciples centered around food, centered on food. So we have that sense of being able to sit at banquet table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven and eat heavenly food. It's a mystery, but we'll be able to sit at the great wedding feast of the lamb and celebrate. Fourthly, Christ's resurrection body had some kind of mysterious continuity with his earlier body, so that body was raised. It's not some entirely new creation in that sense. There is a continuity, thus, we use the language of sown raised. There's a connection. We see this especially in the wounds on his body. Remember how Thomas said, "Unless I put my finger in the nail marks and my hand in the side, I will not believe?"

He said to Thomas, "Put your finger in the nail marks. Put your hand in this side. Stop doubting and believe." Now I think that Jesus' are an anomaly when it comes to the resurrection body. Many terrible injuries happen to the human body that takes people out of this world; car accidents, burning, battle wounds, you can imagine, just total dismemberment, et cetera. I don't believe that we will carry over any of those scars into our resurrection bodies. I think there's just something unique about Jesus' wounds. He is the lamb looking as if it had been slain so that forever there ... but he could easily have had no wounds in his hands and side. But the point I'm making here is continuity. His body, that's the body that was nailed to the cross and is raised from the dead, so there is a continuity, but there's also difference as well. People who knew Jesus very well in life didn't seem to be able to recognize Him. Like I said, Mary thought He was the gardener. She knew Jesus very well. I'm sure she studied His face. She knew His facial expression.

She understood His love for her by that, the two disciples in the road to Emmaus knew Jesus, but they didn't know He was Jesus. It wasn't until He took bread and broke it that their eyes were open. Actually, the text says "They were kept from recognizing Him," so there was something God was doing in the minds of the observers, but maybe also there's some kind of difference in how He appeared. Matthew 28:16, I think that probably is when the 500 eyewitnesses were gathered. There was a huge gathering there of the 500 that saw Him after His resurrection that Paul mentioned, I Corinthians. I don't know for sure that that's Matthew 28 16, but it says, "When they saw Him, they worshiped Him, but some doubted." So a group of those people that were seeing Him weren't really sure what they were seeing and so He looked different. In other times, He looked just like they recognized Him right away. Sickly, sickly, Christ's resurrection body could do some amazing things. That's where you get into the different physics. I don't know how it works, but sudden appearances, just there, just there.

So like in the upper room in Luke 20:24- 6, while they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said, "Peace be with you." He's just there. Also, on the flip side, sudden disappearances. So with the two disciples in a road to Emmaus, He eats, breaks bread. Their eyes are open, they realize who He is and He's gone. He just disappears. He's able to travel through physical walls. Some theologians, Wayne Grudem questioned this, but he zeroes in especially on the doors are locked for fear of the Jews. So the doors were locked for fear of the Jews. Then a week later, the doors are locked for fear of the Jews and He comes and He comes. But the real question for Wayne Grudem and for anyone else, and I don't think he denies it, but how did He get out of the tomb, friends? How did He get out of the tomb? Please don't say the angel came down and let him out. That's so dishonoring, that didn't happen. He's like, "Please, I'm waiting for the angel." Knock, knock, and then the angel comes and He can get.

No, He's gone. He's already gone. The stone was moved so he could get in and see that He was gone. He just passed through the stone walls. How does that work physically? I don't know. I don't understand. That's where spiritual body maybe comes in, that it's the mystery of what a spiritual body is. Christ's resurrection body free forever from death and from all pain as we've already said, but Romans 6:9 says, "We know that since Christ died," or, "Since Christ was raised from the dead," sorry, "He cannot die again." Death no longer has mastery over Him. He's done with death. He's done with all things. So all of these aspects of Christ's resurrection body, in some, sense will be ours as well, and they give us some insights into that pattern. Christ's resurrection body is a pattern for us as Paul makes plain, Verse 49, "Just as we have born the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven." All right, what applications can we take from all this, a lot of theological truth here today? A feast of truth for us as Christians.

Well, first I just want to speak to any that are listening to me today to make certain that you actually are born again. The promise of this resurrection into Christ's glorious resurrection body is made for his people. It's made for those that hear and believe the gospel. He will give to them eternal life. He will give to them this glorious resurrection. So are you a Christian? Have you trusted in Christ? Just 'cause you come to church or even because you watch a church service on livestream doesn't mean that your sins are forgiven. Be certain that you have trusted in Him. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in Me will never die." Then he said to Martha, "Do you believe this?" You have to believe that Christ, the Son of God died on the cross for you and rose again for you, trust in Him and that you'll receive the gift of a resurrection body. Now if you're already Christian, rejoice and trust in Christ because Christ lives, you also will live in the same pattern.

So just swim in the sea of Paul's statement, Romans 8. "I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us." I don't know what your circumstance is. Some of you are battling chronic pain, chronic illness, medical community maybe can't do anything more for you or you know someone like that, and you're having to give be a caregiver and there could be other afflictions. We live in the land of the shadow of death. We're under the shadow of death all the time. We're surrounded by people under the same shadow of death. We Christians need to be of good hope. Don't we? We need to be filled with hope? And this resurrection message has the power to make me filled with hope, for me to not be afraid, to not grieve like those who have no hope. When Jesus went to Jairus' home and saw a huge crowd in this massive commotion and all these people crying and wailing loudly, you know what he said?

"Why all this commotion? Why all this wailing, the child is not dead but asleep. Let's rejoice that we are seen even in death as asleep." That's the same language used here in one Corinthians 15. He's going to raise us as though waking us up from asleep. So let's not grieve like those that are hopeless and let's like act like people that are hopeless. Let's be filled with good hope, and "Set your hope fully on the grace to be given you in Jesus Christ is revealed," that's I Peter 1:13. There is a grace coming at the second coming of Christ. There is a grace to be revealed. Set your hope fully on that. Don't trust in idols. Don't trust in current event idols. Don't trust in the idols of this world that other people trust in. We don't set our hope on those things. Those things are evanescent. They will not bring satisfaction, they're idols. Set your hope fully on the grace that's given you when Christ returns. Don't lament the destruction of your own body. Don't spend a lot of time trying to look a lot younger than you are. All right?

There are all kinds of ways that we can look younger. Don't worry about it. Be what you are and realize your best days physically are yet to come. I'm not saying don't take care of your body. Do take care of your body so that you can be energetic right to the end of your life here on earth, serving Him and not sidelined because of maladies that you didn't have to have because you didn't take care of your body, not saying that. But what I am saying is, your best days are yet to come physically. Don't lament the aging and dying process. Don't fear it. Fifthly, look forward to an amazingly active time in the new heaven and new earth in New Jerusalem. All right? I am totally against boring heaven. It's a lie from 

Satan. Heaven will not be boring. God is not going to raise you up out of the grave and give you this kind of a resurrection body, glorious surging with energy and power and give you nothing to do or give you a harp and tell you to sit on a cloud and strum it.

You are going to be so busy and so energetic in the new heaven and new earth, and you'll have enough energy to do all the good things God has for you to do, so be excited about that. Sixthly. Don't speculate too much, okay? Don't speculate too much about what it's going to be like. I was reading one author, Robert Wilkin. He wrote this, he said, "The other day I found myself walking behind two small children following their grandparents. The little girl, perhaps five-years-old, was rhythmically hopping across the lawn, delighting in the quickness and flexibility of her body, oblivious to what was around. The grandparents were healthy, able folk, not elderly yet they moved more deliberately, prudently looking down lest they slip. Later in the day, I watched a very elderly man with a walker shuffle into a hardware store, tiny step by tiny step, each made with a great act of the will. Thinking medieval thoughts, I wondered which body will we have? That of the child?

Those of the middle-aged couple or that of the man with the walker, what will be raised in the resurrection? The medievals ask these kinds of questions. Will there be differentiation by gender in heaven? Will there, will we all be the same age? If so, what age? Will limbs that were crippled or amputated be restored? What of those born with deformities? Will we have internal as well as external organs? Will a child that dies in infancy be raised an adult? Into what will aborted fetuses rise?" Now Saint Augustine in the city of God sought to answer some of these for us, but he's not inspired scripture. This is just what he thought. Here's his opinion. This is Augustine, "It remains therefore, that we conclude that every man shall receive his own size, which he had in youth, though he died an old man, or which he would've had supposing he died before his prime." So if you're short and you wish you could be tall, that's kind of discouraging.

But anyway, I'll just keep reading. "All shall rise neither beyond nor under youth, for even the world's wisest men have fixed the bloom of youth at about the age of 30. When this period has been passed, the man begins to decline toward the defective and duller periods of old age." So he's setting the age at 30. Look, friends, all of that, all of it is speculation. Don't go beyond what is written. Zero in on these words. "The body that is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power; It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body." Close with me in prayer. Father, thank you for the time we've had to study. It's just a lot of truth, a lot of theology to take in.

But God give us grace to understand it and give us grace to have the proper emotional response to it. That we would rejoice with a joy unspeakable and full of glory. That we would not let our trials and temptations and afflictions get us down. All of them are temporary. That we would not get the fact that we have so much of a proclivity toward decay and corruption to get us depressed. That we would be filled with good hope, and that people who are as yet unsaved, who are without hope and without God in this world, will look on us and see a different kind of radiant hope and ask us to give a reason for the hope that we have. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Hi, this is Andy Davis. I hope that you've enjoyed this sermon. For more of my resources, please go to twojourneys.org and may the Lord Jesus Christ bless you as you continue to serve him.

Our resurrection bodies will be unlike our mortal bodies: imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual, modeled after Christ's.

The post The Resurrection Body Described (1 Corinthians Sermon 64) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Andy doubles back and begins to focus on individual church history heroes starting with Polycarp. Polycarp lived from 69AD to 155AD. Learn motivational lessons from this church history hero.

The post Journeys from the Past, Ep.11: Polycarp (69-155) appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 15:35-41. The main subject of the sermon is dealing with the objections people raise to the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead.

Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, which you just heard Bill read, and what a fantastic text, what an incredible opportunity we have as we resume the study that we've been doing in 1 Corinthians 15, as we look again at the doctrine of the bodily resurrection from the dead, not merely Christ's resurrection, but the resurrection of all who believe in him, that we ourselves will receive resurrection bodies.

Now, for most people, I would say the concept of bodily resurrection from the dead, of people coming up out of their graves in glorious bodies makes no sense whatsoever to their logical minds. Our present aging bodies are liable to corruption, they are constantly decaying, they are even now filled with the instruments of our own final demise physically, and then when we die, our corpses will accelerate greatly in their decay, they will rot or they will be consumed by fire, they'll be eaten by creatures or dissolved by sea water, and the Christian doctrine that teaches that after all of that has occurred, we will be raised up physically from the dead in eternally, radiant, glorious bodies, this might seem to make no sense at all. Does not this seem at first glance like the most absurd article of faith ever? And does it not stretch the mind to the breaking point? Does this doctrine not cause some people, many people even to mock our Christian faith and to try to poke holes in it, and to use it to prove how childish and mythological Christianity really is, but amazingly, in this section, the apostle Paul turns this whole thing around, and says, because of the power of Almighty God, the power he displayed in creation, and then again in raising his Son from the dead, this powerful God, does it not prove that he can do anything, and that is actually absurd not to believe in the resurrection, that it's actually foolish not to believe in the resurrection? As Paul uses this sharp rebuke, this epithet: “You fool,” he says to the unbelieving accuser or even, perhaps, the church going Corinthian who is questioning the bodily resurrection from the dead, who's saying that resurrection from the dead is impossible, that the God who made the universe would actually be unable to raise us up from the dead. Paul would say, "Now that is absurd. Now, that is foolish."

So we're looking at another aspect of this marvelous chapter on bodily resurrection from the dead, and here Paul is wading right in to addressing practical problems that people have with the resurrection, objections that people have based on practicality and it sweeps them away. Look at verse 35, he said, “Someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’” So this is just part of the larger objection that some Corinthians, it seemed, had to the bodily resurrection. Look back again at verse 12, the key verse that shows us the problem that Paul's addressing, verse 12, “If it is preached that Christ has been raised in the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?” So some people that were attending church there that maybe were claiming in some sense to be Christians, were saying that bodily resurrection itself is impossible, cannot happen, and probably going beyond that to say undesirable, it actually ought not happen, they like to move ahead into a pure spirit realm where we're done with these bodies, these mortal bodies that we lugged around that were susceptible to weariness and hunger, and susceptible to pain and disease, and then finally death, why would you wanna spend forever in a body like that? And I think that was part of the problem. They assumed that resurrection was really nothing different than resuscitation, some of the Jewish rabbis taught that when we're talking about resurrection, we're talking about coming back in the same bodies that we've been in before, and in one sense, that makes sense, because that's what we saw in the Old Testament, the two resurrection accounts in the Old Testament, in the time of Elijah and then in Elisha, the dead were raised back into essentially the same condition that they were in before, before they got sick or before they got the illness that brought about their death, there was not a radical transformation of existence, they just were resuscitated back into the same life they had before. We see the same in the New Testament resurrections that Jesus did. For example, Jairus is a little 12-year-old daughter, when he raised her from the dead, when he said, "She is not dead but asleep." And they mocked him. Jesus took her by the hand and said, "Talitha koum." And the little girl got up and walked around. She was still a 12-year-old little girl, she was just freed from the sickness that had brought about death, and we see the same thing also in Lazarus, dead for four days, and he raises Lazarus up into the same physical experience he had before the illness that brought about the emergency in his case, so they're thinking, perhaps, that resurrection is merely resuscitation back into the same body that we've had all along, and why would you want that?

Why would you wanna spend eternity in the same body? And so he's addressing that and he's going even to a deeper level to address their root concern, how can it even happen? How could this even occur? How is it even possible? And I think some people raise up those objections, I think in sharing the gospel with people, I've had some come back on this very issue, how could it even happen? I mean, people's bodies get disintegrated, what about people that die in fiery plane crashes and there's no discernible body left in the wreckage, or even those that die at sea after enough time the body is completely disintegrated, there's nothing left. Or you think about perhaps someone that might be a ground zero of a nuclear blast, it's quite possible there were as many as 10,000 Japanese Christians at Nagasaki with the atomic blast that ended World War II. It was a strongly Christianized center. There weren't a lot of Christians in Japan, but that was a center of Christianity, there might have been as many as 10,000 of our brothers and sisters that you couldn't find anything left of their physical bodies after the atomic blast, so how could it even happen?

Now, when you think about those extreme cases we think they are unusual, but honestly, this happens to every corpse, not counting the skeleton, it disintegrates, it's gone. It's the very thing that God said to Adam would happen: “From the dust you were taken and to the dust you will return.” And so, Genesis 3:19, this is what's going to happen to every physical corps, not counting the skeleton, as we look at that, the biggest misconception in all of this, the biggest attack and our faith is that God cannot do this. This is something God doesn't have the power to do, and so he springboards from those practical questions: how are the dead raised? How can it even happen, to a sharp rebuke. Look at verse 36, he says, not just in one translation, “How foolish,” that's actually putting it gently. It's very direct, “You fool,” “You fool.” He goes after the individual, him or herself. “You fool.” verse 36. Now, why this sharp rebuke? Well, the basic concept is, “I don't believe that God can do this. I don't actually think that God can track down all of our atoms and assemble them back together into molecules and all that,” and the more you think about it, it's like, “I'm sure I share some atoms that have been on other people's bodies,” don't think too much about that but there it is. And all of this, it's a little weird, how could God even do that? But this is the very issue that the Sadducees had with the resurrection, and Jesus goes right after them. When he addresses the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection, he said to them, "You are in error because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God.” That's the essence of the foolishness. “You don't know the Scriptures or the power of God.” And dear friends, there is nothing that our God cannot do.

With God, all things are possible. As it says in Jeremiah 32:27, “I am the Lord, the God of mankind, is anything too hard for me?” And I would have to say, not just in general about the resurrection, that's vital, but the central kind of takeaway meditation for you, my dear Christian brothers and sisters, is the omnipotence of God this morning. There is nothing that our God cannot do. He is omnipotent. And so for us, I think it's right for us in humility to stand under the scathing rebuke and let it rest on us. Let's not think, "Well, thankfully, I'm not one of those foolish people, I believe in the resurrection." That's true, but I think all of us to some degree, can stand under what Jesus said to the Sadducees and hear him say, “You are in error because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God,” or I could say you underestimate the perfect truth of the Scriptures and you are ignorant about some aspects of the interconnected truth of the Scriptures, and you underestimate the power of God. Now, is there anyone here today that would say, "But I don't... I don't actually underestimate the power of God." You do, and so do I. And so at that point, we turn around and say, "Okay, I'm a fool." When it comes to resurrection, when it comes to all of these things, I tend to underestimate what God can do. Increase my faith, Oh Lord. Expand my sense of the omnipotence of God. Let me walk out of this place this morning with a greater sense of the power of God in my life and in the world, the God who created the universe out of nothing. Can do anything that his wisdom decrees. God created vast universe by the simple word of his power, Genesis 1:3, “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.” and throughout Genesis, “Let there be, and there was, let there be, and there was,” effortless power. Anything his wisdom decreed, he could do. And he spoke the universe out of nothing, and everything that God has done in the physical and spiritual universe since that time is less than what creation Ex-nihilo, out of nothing, was. If God can do that, he can do anything within it, and so if God says to the dust that once made up our bodies be assembled again into a resuscitated body, he could do that if he wanted to go beyond that and be assembling us together into a resurrection body, he can do that as well, God can do anything. And so we're gonna see as we continue, not just this week, but next week and beyond that Paul is gonna argue for an essential continuity when it comes to the body of the resurrection and the practicalities of it, continuity, but difference. So these two words you have to keep in mind when it comes to the doctrine of the bodily resurrection of Christians from the dead, continuity, there's a connection between our present bodies and what will come, but there's also significant transformation, significant difference, continuity and difference. 

Second point, God's power is sufficient. Just look at the seeds. Look at seeds... Look at verses 36-38, he says, “You fool, what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else, but God gives it a body as he has determined and to each kind of seed, he gives its own body.” so he's using an illustration, this is an illustration from agriculture, from sowing and planting. Paul argues that all farmers and people aware of the basic act of farming, the taking of a seed and putting it in the ground should observe the power of God in that as an illustration for resurrection, an illustration for resurrection. The seed that the farmer plants or sows in the moist soil has to, in some sense, die to bring forth the new life. This is the very thing Jesus said in John 12:24, speaking of his own death, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the Earth and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.” it's the exact same teaching here, the seed has to fall into the ground and die, the seed itself looks dead. You ever held a handful of seeds, you look at them and you wonder, "How could anything come of this? This little round, hard thing, you look at it and that seemingly lifeless, there's nothing there, it doesn't move, you put it on the table, come back an hour later, it's still there, it's not doing anything, it just seems dead. And this can even go on for a long time, it can go on actually for centuries, in the year 2005, some archaeologists found, in a dig at Masada in Israel, they found an ancient date palm seed. Now, I think it's fascinating what they did after that, they planted it, they took this date palm seed and put it in the moist soil, and it produced a date palm tree 3 feet tall, and they did some carbon 14 testing, radiocarbon dating on the shell, the husk that was remaining, by those techniques, they proved that it was around the time of the fall of Masada, when the Romans destroyed it, AD 73. It's almost 2000-year-old seed. Boggles the mind. Now, the seed itself was not actually dead, biologists tell us, it was in a kind of a state of suspended animation. But there’s very little cellular activity going on, it doesn't need anything, it just sits there until it's mixed with moisture and the nutrients of the soil, and then it produces whatever it's genetic recipe has ordained that it produce, and when you take that seed in the ground, it has to die, it has to cease being a seed, and it shucks off the outer hard shell and produces the plant. So Paul is saying here that seemingly dead seeds, cold, hard and dry produce beautiful green stalks, shiny, moist stalks coming up out of the soil, then they produce the heads, and they prove the harvest, whatever it is, weed or fruit or something like that, a beautiful flower, all of that marvelous life coming from a dead seed.

But it's not just that, it's a matter of transformation, of change, verse 37, “When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else,” remember those two keywords, continuity, but difference. Difference being transformation, you don't plant what comes up, you plant something different, there's a direct connection between the kind of seed that you sow and the plant that comes from it, but the plant that comes up out of that seed looks nothing like the seed. Paul says, “You do not plant the body that will be, but just the seed.” Now, he's gonna make this very plain later, there's a strong contrast between our present mortal bodies and the resurrection bodies that are coming. Look at verses 42-44, “The body that's sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Now we're gonna walk through those four couplets next week. They are so glorious and give us such a clear description of the body that we're going to get, that they're worth a whole sermon and, God willing, we'll do that next week. My only point is the agricultural analogy that Paul is making, the seed looks radically different from the plant that comes from the seed, so what that means is you can't look at a corpse that you plant in the ground and discern from that the glory that's going to come, it doesn't look like what it will be. That's Paul's point. Appearances can be deceiving, and which is more spectacular anyway? The fully formed stock of wheat that's just about ready for harvest, you know how beautiful a wheat field is blowing in the wind, or the seed from which it came? Which is more beautiful, a radiant Magnolia tree in full bloom, with all of that beautiful smell that comes from it, or the seed from which that Magnolia tree sprang? So obviously the plant that comes is gonna be much more glorious than the seed that is sown. This is transformation, radical change, it does not look like what comes out of the ground, and so it will be with the resurrection from the dead.

So let's take stock in what Paul has said so far. He is addressing people who are questioning the resurrection, they're not just asking questions, but they are questioning it, whether it can even happen, and he's addressing their practical concerns and discerning beyond, how could it happen, what kind of body could ever come, he discerns beyond that a heart, a basic heart of unbelief toward God, and he said, “That's foolish. That's foolish. It's foolish to not believe that God can do that.” And then says, pointing to the seeds, “God does this continually, trillions and trillions of times a year, and that actually is an understatement, it's an understatement.” How many seeds on planet Earth fall into the soil and produce something else after that, every year? I think it's straight incalculable. I looked up, I googled, how many seeds grow every year? It didn't know. Google didn't even know that. So, what did I do? I said, “Alright, well, how much wheat do the United States farmers produce?” 2.4 billion bushels. How many seeds go into a bushel? 900,000, close to one million seeds for a bushel of wheat. You do the math if you're a geek like me, and you end up with 2.4 quadrillion seeds for the wheat harvest in the United States, that's just wheat in the US. What about dandelion seeds? What about acorns that become massive trees, on and on, it's just incalculable. So basically, God is doing this all the time, creating life out of death. 

Now, what kind of resurrection... What kind of resurrected body will come? Continuity and difference. Look at verses 38-42, “But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed, he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same. Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another. And there are also heavenly bodies, and there are earthly bodies, but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is of one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is of another. The sun has one kind of splendor and the moon another, and the stars another, and star differs from star in splendor.” verse 42, “So will it be with the resurrection from the dead.” We take all of that and sum it up in one kind of simple statement: God arranges an array of order of beings according to his wisdom for his glory. He does that here in the physical world, and he will do that in the world to come. There's gonna be an array of glorious created bodies as he has determined. God's will has worked... His plan has worked all of this out. So it all comes down to God's determination. Verse 38, “God gives it a body as he has determined and to each kind of seed, he gives its own body.” The issue here is not just the mere power of God, but the plan of God, the decree of God, the wisdom of God in all of this. He is a very wise being, he's planned all of this out, and he has the power to bring about his plan, what has he determined. So to doubt the resurrection from the dead is to doubt God himself. “You're in error because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God.”

So, for us as Christians, we need to immerse ourselves in the Scriptures. And New Year is a time to renew again your commitment to daily Bible intake, to a quiet time every day, to saturating your mind and your heart in the word of God. Get into some reading plan that will bring you through the Bible in a year, there's so many different ones that you can do. Or maybe study 10 books of the Bible more deeply, whatever you wanna do, but just be in God's word every day, so that we're not gonna be an error, because we don't know the scriptures or the power of God. And Paul says here, every resurrected person gets the body that God wills him to have, it all comes down to the purposes and will of God. So keeping with the agricultural analogy, the kernel of wheat produces a wheat plant, not an avocado or a peach, or a daisy, produces wheat, that's what God has ordained genetically, that seed produces a wheat plant. Seed packets carry the picture of the final plant. Thank God they do. Imagine if seed packages had a colored cellophane window and you looked in and that's what you're gonna get. I mean, like that would be very frustrating. Or even worse, imagine if they just mixed seeds together and that it just says seeds on it, and you don't know what you're getting. Am I getting watermelon and avocado? That's a huge seed. Am I also getting some daisy along with some kale? What are we getting? You'll find out, what a big surprise. That would make no sense at all. But within the seed, there is a genetic code for the plant that God has ordained and planned. He wrapped it up into the genetic code of the seed itself, and we see that in Genesis 1:11-12, “Then God said, ‘Let the land produce vegetation, seed-bearing plants, and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it according to their various kinds.’” It's a very important phrase, “according to their various kinds,” “and it was so. The land produced vegetation, plants bearing seed according to their kinds, and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds, and God saw that it was good.” And so it will be with the resurrection body. There's a strong continuity between what we are now and what we will be, but there's gonna be that radical transforming difference as well.

And everything is according to God's wisdom, God's wise plan according to the “its kinds.” And he says there are different kinds of bodies. Verse 39, “All flesh is not the same. Men have one kind of flesh, animals another, birds another, and fish another.” So Paul is describing now the difference between our present bodies and the future resurrection bodies by saying, look at biology and the ecosystems, there are lots of different kinds of flesh now, and all of them were made according to the plan of God, God's a very wise God. And so, there are almost limitless varieties of creatures. And the flesh of humans is genetically different from the flesh of beasts, which is genetically different from the flesh of birds, which is genetically different from the flesh of plants. Now, we know a lot more about genetics than Gregor Mendel did in 1865 when he began studying pea plants, chickpea plants in his monastery in Brno, Czech Republic. But the science of genetics has exploded, and we know a lot more now. The human genome project finished its survey of the genetic map or makeup of the human body, and we know about now more things like amino acids, which are the basic building blocks of all living cells, there are 20 of them, the amino acids, and apparently, 600 octodecillion ways that those 20 amino acids can be sequenced, that's a six followed by 108 zeros. For us, mortals, that's basically infinity. So, there are almost infinite ways that those amino acids can be sequenced, but the sequence is what determines what it is. And even if you have 97% same, the last 3% makes a total difference between a maple tree and the frog and a human being. Just like you add a letter to a word and it goes from heat to wheat, and I think there's a big difference between heat and wheat, and we all kind of understand that. As Mark Twain said, “There's a world of difference between lightning and lightning bug.” And so, we understand that, there's this huge difference in the sequencing and the essential difference from flesh to flesh, and it has to do also with reproduction. So, when two animals of the same kind mate, they produce the same kind and on down, there's never been any example or even evidence of species evolving into other species. So from the beginning, there was a kind and reproduced according to the same kind.

Now, Paul's point is none of this, he wasn't having to fight the battle of evolution or any of that, what he's saying is that God in his wisdom, arranged different flesh in a different order and a different arrangement according to his wise purposes. And we will have flesh and bones in our resurrection bodies. Jesus had flesh and bone in his resurrection body, in Luke 24:39-40, he said, “‘Look at my hands and my feet, it is I myself touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.’ And when he said this, he showed them his hands and feet.” you could touch him; he could eat broiled fish. He had a resurrection body. Then Paul describes heavenly bodies versus earthy bodies, look at verse 40, “There are also heavenly bodies, and there are earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly bodies is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly bodies is of another kind.” So Paul is setting the table here for the radical change that's gonna happen in our resurrection bodies.

Now, we are presently created in the image of God, and our present physical bodies, mortal bodies are still glorious. The psalmist said in Psalm 139:14, “I praise you because I'm fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful. I know that full well.” So, our physical bodies, even though they are under a curse, are still glorious and they bring glory to God. Heavenly bodies in this present age, heavenly bodies, such as the sun, the moon and the stars, also display God's glory, but it's a different kind of glory, a way that glorifies God differently than our physical body. So each takes its appointed place in the ordering that God has laid out, but they are different from one another. The present earthly body, even in its decaying state has one kind of glory, but the resurrection body that we will have, that Paul is about to describe, we'll talk about, God willing, next week, has a different kind of glory.

And then he talks about star differing from star in glory, verse 41, “There is one glory of the sun, there's another glory of the moon, and there's another glory of the stars, for star differs from star in glory.” So, God created the sun and the moon and the stars up in the heavenly realms, and we can't do anything to them or about them at all, they're just beyond us. But they shine, and he gives two different ones a different task, like he created the sun to rule over the day with greater light, and the moon to rule over the night with lesser light. And then in one of the great understatements of the entire Bible, he also created the stars. That's all it says in Genesis 1, but those stars have a role to play, they give off less light than the moon does, but in their aggregate, in their distance, they glorify God. One naturalist talking about the varied color of different stars said this, “Like flowers, the stars have their own colors. At your first upward glance all glean white as frost crystals. But if you single one out for observation, you will find a subtle spectrum in the stars, the quality of their lights is determined by their temperatures. In the December sky, you'll see Aldebaran as pale rose, Regal as bluish white and Betelgeuse orange or topaz yellow,” so different colors. And beyond the different colors, stars have different sizes. Cosmologists tell us that some single stars, they are as large as our solar system, a single star that big, it's staggering. Polaris, the North Star is noteworthy, because it holds perfectly steady in the northern sky, and people have navigated by it for centuries. Paul's point here is each star has a different role and different glory assigned to it. “Star differs from star in glory according to the purpose of God.” So the resurrection body in which we will spend eternity will have a different glory than the present bodies that we have, a much greater glory. 

And the final point I wanna make today is there will be differing levels of glory in heaven, a point I've made often in the last six months, but here's the text that it comes from. Every resurrected saint will be glorious, but not equally glorious. Look again in verses 41-42, “Star differs from star in glory, so it is with the resurrection from the dead.” The glory of the resurrection body is clear, Jesus said in Matthew 13:43, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.” We're all going to shine, we'll be radiant and glorious in our resurrection bodies, but there will be varying levels of glory in heaven. We will all be glorious, but we will not be equally glorious. And that glory, I believe, is connected to the events of our earthly lives, and what we chose to do with our time on earth and what God did in and through us. Levels of sacrificial, courageous sacrificial service produced glorious fruit. Paul talks about his crowns, the churches that he planted, his crowns, 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20, he says, “What is our hope, our joy, or the crown in which we will glory in the presence of our Lord Jesus when He comes, is it not you? Indeed, you are our glory and joy.” So the Thessalonian church that he planted under great persecution will be one of Paul's crowns in heaven. He says the same thing to the Philippians, in Philippians 4:1, “Therefore, my brothers, you whom I love and long for, my joy and crown.” they are his crown. And so, the sacrificial, courageous actions that Paul took in evangelism and missions to win people to Christ, that God used him for that will shine for all eternity, they will be part of his own crown. Jonathan Edwards in his marvelous little treatise on this, “Heaven is a World of Love” he talks about different glory, but there'll be no pride and no jealousy, no bickering in heaven. This is what Edwards wrote:

In heaven, there shall be no remaining enmity or distaste or coldness or deadness of heart toward God or Christ. Not the least remainder of any principle of envy shall exist to be exercised toward angels or other beings who are superior in glory. Nor shall there be anything like contempt or slighting of those who are inferiors. Those that have a lower station in glory than others, suffer no diminution of their own happiness by seeing others who are greater in glory. 

It's a marvelous teaching when we think about it. Now, you say, “Well, what do I do to increase my glory in heaven? What can I do to glorify God more?” Well, I've talked about that many times before, but grow in holiness and grow in service to God. Do the good works that God has prepared for you to do. Be courageous, step forward in faith and do great things for the kingdom of God, expect great things from God and attempt great things for God, and see what crowns God will arrange for you so that you will glorify him. And in the end, all crowns as we know are gonna be cast before the Lord, because he gets the glory for all of it.

Alright, what applications can we take from this study? Well, first and foremost as always, the central appeal in this text is to come to Christ. The glory of the resurrection that we've been describing is for Christians. First and foremost, you have to believe that God raised Christ from the dead in order to be forgiven of your sins; you have to believe this. If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead; you will be saved. So this is not an optional doctrine, you have to believe it, but there's so much evidence in scripture. And the Spirit testifies to the resurrection of Jesus to our hearts. As you read the scripture, you know that Christ has been raised from the dead and by faith in him all your sins will be forgiven.

And then, once you become a Christian, then you know, appearances are deceiving. Things aren't what they appear, if you go to a funeral of a Christian and you look down at the corpse, you think, “How can anything come out of this?” The loved one isn't moving. And to think that God can take really when we're physically at our absolute lowest and then move us by his sovereign power of glorification instantaneously to be our most radiantly glorious. God can do that. And so, I think we take the same thing when we look around at the world and things are not what they appear to be. Things maybe it seems to you spinning out of control. They're not. You may think God isn't on his throne, he is. You may think the problems that are facing you in your life, whatever they may be, physical, emotional, relational, financial, whatever they are, are insurmountable, they're not. And God can do anything. He can do all things. And that's a central meditation for us as Christians. Christ has shown God can raise the dead. And meditate; you should meditate daily on your own resurrection. John 6:39, it says, “This is the will of him who sent me that I shall lose none of all that he has given me,” but listen, “raise them up at the last day.”  You need to think about that over and over, “The Lord is God, he's not gonna lose me, he's not gonna lose track of me, I'm not gonna slip his fingers, he will raise me up on the last day,” and that will give you strength. Realize that we're not any better than the Corinthians who stumbled over this doctrine. We're not at some higher spiritual level; we need to be rebuked just like they do. We are foolish because we don't know the scriptures or the power of God, just own it. Stand under the rebuke and say, you know, “Lord, I know I don't know the scriptures or the power of God, like I should. Make 2021 a year in which a year from now, I know the scriptures better than I do now, and I know the power of God better than I do now.” And let this knowledge drive you on in the two journeys, the internal journey of holiness. Because you know that there will be a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked, like Paul, strive to keep your conscience clear before God and man, Acts 24:15-16. And then in service to the kingdom, the last verse of this chapter, verse 58, he says, “Always give yourself fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” So work hard for him. Find out how can I bless the church this week? What phone calls could I make? What acts of service could I make? What emails or social media communications can I do that might encourage somebody in the faith? A missionary or something like that. What lost person can I venture forth and reach out with the gospel? How can I serve? And don't try to get all the answers. People are always like, wanting to know the details, the physical details, like, alright, so if there's gonna be a resurrection, what age will we be? Like, will we all be like... I don't know, 18? Augustine answered that for us, we'll all be 21, forever. So... But that's his idea. I have no idea. I would say, don't ask, we don't know, there's so many questions we don't know. What if someone dies in infancy? I believe in infant salvation for a lot of reasons. You wanna ask me about it afterwards, I'll tell you, but what would they look like? What would they be like? Will their own mothers recognize them? And even that, if people are gonna be glorious, how will we know it's them? Will they wear signs around their necks? What about the great heroes? I wanna talk to John Calvin. I wanna talk to Martin Luther. Will they have a John Calvin or Martin Luther sign around their neck? How will we know? Stop. All those questions are not helpful; they're all speculative. Just stop and say, “I'm gonna stick with what he has taught me here in 1 Corinthians 15, this is enough for me.” So many of those questions lead down the wrong path, and they will all of them be answered in the future.

And then finally, as I've said many times before, prepare your whole Christian life to die well, to die well. So that your loved ones, your children, your grandchildren, your friends, the medical community caring for you in your final hours will see a man or a woman of faith who really believes you're about to go to all of your best things. None of your best things are in the past at that moment, all of your best things are in the future, and that includes resurrection into a glorious body for all eternity. Close with me in prayer.

Lord, we thank you for the study we've had today. We thank you for the way that Paul just rolls up his sleeves and wades right into the practical questions that they had, how could this happen, what kind of body will they have? And Lord, I thank you for the truth that he's given, which is sufficient for us. We don't need to press with curiosity beyond the boundary set up by the word. But Lord, we have so much real estate in our inheritance in the Word, far more than we think we do. And so, I pray that you would teach us to meditate deeply on the future based on these promises of God. And Lord, I pray that all of the people within the sound of my voice right now, if at the beginning of this sermon, they were not as yet saved that they would trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins and have resurrection glory to look forward to, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Paul addresses foolish unbelief concerning the resurrection and sweeps away practical objections concerning the resurrection from the dead.

The post Practical Objections to Resurrection Swept Away (1 Corinthians Sermon 63) appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy and Wes cover John 20:19-31. John recounts the astounding evidence for the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ in two accounts of His physical appearances to His disciples after death. He also commissions them to spread forgiveness of sins in His name through the power of the Spirit and the confession of Thomas to the ends of the earth.

The post John 20:19-31 Episode 43 – My Lord And My God, Pt.2 appeared first on Two Journeys.

In this episode, Andy Davis finishes his survey of the two thousand years of church history by taking a look at the ongoing missionary effort through the 20th and 21st Centuries. Some of the specifics Andy covers are Hudson Taylor, William Cameron Townsend, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Donald McGavran, Billy Graham, Azusa Street, China, India, and Africa.

The post Journeys from the Past, Ep.10: Reaching the Whole World appeared first on Two Journeys.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Luke 1:46-55. The main subject of the sermon is how Mary praises Jesus, the God-Man, who is her son.

The kingdom of heaven is like a seed, a mustard seed, that is the smallest seed that you plant in the ground, and yet, when it's planted, it grows and becomes the largest of garden plants with branches so big that the birds of the air can perch in its shade. What does that have to do with this morning's sermon? Well, the word of God is like that. It nestles into your soul, and you think about pictures of the seed that germinates as it pushes out a little tap root, and that root gets bigger and bigger, and then other roots come out, and it's all kind of an invisible movement that relates to the effect of the Word in our souls, within our hearts, and it expands and develops so that we are rooted and established in love, rooted and established in Christ more and more. And one of the principle ways that happens is by meditation on the Word, that the eyes of our hearts would be enlightened as we meditate on Christ and on the gifts that he comes to give. Now, we need help doing that. We are not good at meditating on heaven. We're not good at meditating on Christ and on the invisible riches of the kingdom, so you remember how the disciples came to Jesus and said, "Teach us to pray," so I think we should say the same thing. We come to Christ and say, "Teach us to praise," and so this morning, as we look at Luke 1, we're going to be coming into the presence of a godly woman, Mary, at a key moment redemptive history, and we're going to be learning from her how to magnify the Lord with her and exalt his name as we talked about last week, Psalm 34:3, to make the Lord greater and greater in our minds, in our heart, so, “magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together!” but we need help doing that, and so as we listen to Luke 1, as we think about what Mary said when she came into the presence of Elizabeth and the two of them were celebrating what God was doing in their lives, Mary, I believe moved by the Holy Spirit broke forth into this magnificent praise, and so we're going to learn from this Godly woman. We're going to learn how to praise and how to exalt God, and the reason that we're going to do this is so that we can be weaned from earth. We are far more idolatrous than we imagine that we are. Our hearts are easily entangled in the things of this world. The lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, boastful pride of life, these things are attractive and alluring to our flesh, and we have to battle them all the time, and so we need help. We need help through the Holy Spirit, so we have to think not just what was Mary thinking at that time and by speaking those words, but what did the Holy Spirit intend by having Luke write them down for us, and what did the Holy Spirit intend by protecting those words over 20 centuries of redemptive history until they came finally into our minds so that we could read them? I think the reason is that we would be able to magnify God as she did. We're going to learn how to magnify the Lord.

Look at verse 46. Mary said, "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior." That word magnify on my mind, as it was a week ago when we looked at Colossians 2:3, that we would make much of God. It's called in the Latin, the Latin translates, “magnificat”, from the word to magnify, to make God greater, and she says, "My soul magnifies the Lord." This is the essence of Christian worship, that we would make much of God and of Christ. This is the essence, I think of a worshipful Christmas. We know that Christmas has become increasingly secular as our world has become increasingly secular, and the overwhelming emphasis on materialism has always stood as a threat to a worshipful Christ-centered celebration of his birth, and more and more, our society is moving away from its Christian roots and becoming increasingly secular, and so we, Christians, Christian families, Christian individuals, have to fight this secularizing trend, and we do it by meditating on things of heaven, meditating on things of God, and so we're going to magnify the Lord and exalt his name together for sending the infant Jesus to be miraculously crafted inside Mary's body.

We want to stand in awe and wonder at the miracle of Christmas. We want to stand in awe and wonder at the doctrine of God made Man, of the incarnation, of the virgin conception and birth of our Savior, to meditate together on one of the greatest pieces of poetry in the Bible, the Magnificat. Let's look at the context of Mary's praise here in Luke 1. At what point was she at in redemptive history? Where was she when she spoke these words? 

It says in Galatians 4:4-5, “When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who are under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.” What did Paul mean by those words, the fullness of time? It was just the right moment in history. It was the perfection of time and history for the Savior to be born. The Jewish nation had been dominated for six centuries by gentile rulers, one after the other. Now, it was the time for the Romans. Roman soldiers were trampling through the Judean countryside. They were taking the best of the harvest and the produce for themselves. Puppet kings under Roman domination like Herod ruled under Rome, and the threat of the Roman legions was never far away. Furthermore, in redemptive history, there'd been no prophetic word that we know about, nothing recorded since the time of Malachi, so for centuries, it seemed that God had been silent. Some Jews seemed to be ready to give up on the promises to Abraham. They had been slaves in their own Promised Land for centuries. That's where they were at in redemptive history.

Who was Mary? While Mary was a Jewish young woman, she was the descendant of David. Her lineage is laid out for us in Luke's gospel. She was of humble circumstances however. There was no great material or earthly benefit to being descended from David at that point. She was from a poor family. She lived in the northern area of Galilee, in Nazareth. She was from a despised area of the Promised Land, dominated and infiltrated by Gentile culture, by Gentiles, and so despised by the rest of the Jewish nation. She was the sister of Salome. She was related to Elizabeth, cousin, it seems. She was aunt to James and John. She was betrothed to Joseph, who was a godly man, but hardly wealthy. He was a simple man, and so her prospects would be humble, as we'll talk about more later. She was a virgin. She said, "I know not a man," she said to Gabriel. She had godly characters, a godly woman, and therefore highly esteemed by heaven. That's who Mary was.

Now, her circumstances are predated in Luke 1 by what had happened with Elizabeth and with Zechariah. We already know that story as the angel Gabriel came to Zechariah to say the birth of John the Baptist, and Elizabeth is pregnant supernaturally, and that whole account is forced in Luke 1:5-24. Then, the Lord sends the same angel, Gabriel to Mary with even greater news, the birth of Jesus Christ. Gabriel is the same angel that had appeared so many centuries before that to the prophet Daniel, and the same one that appeared to Zechariah.

Now, Gabriel's news to Mary was remarkable, even more remarkable than the news to Elizabeth. To Mary said, "You're going to have a son, and your son will be the Son of David. He will be the Messiah. He also will be God's Son. He will be God in the flesh and your Son's kingdom will never end.” Mary is amazed. Her stunned response is, "How can this be since I am a virgin?" and Gabriel explained, and this is the centerpiece of the incarnation in verse 35, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the most high will overshadow you, so the Holy One to be born will be called the Son of God.” Christ, therefore, fully man and fully God, and then Gabriel gives this confirming proof about Elizabeth. She would have no information about this, no other way to know this except that the angel told her what had happened to Elizabeth, that she was pregnant, miraculously pregnant as well, and then, this incredible affirmation that Gabriel makes, “For nothing shall be impossible with God.” Then, Mary gives a submissive, faith-filled answer, "‘I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me, as you have said.’  Then the angel left her.”

That's the context. Then, she goes and makes a confirming visit to Elizabeth. Mary goes to be together to confirm the angel's words to her and also just to be together, and so she travels to the hill country to see Elizabeth and the message is confirmed. When she arrives, Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, says these incredible words, "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the child you will bear, but why am I so favored that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished.” So that's the context, and now, we're going to look at the remarkable praise, and let's look at the characteristics of Mary's praise.

First of all, it has remarkable depth. It is deep, theologically rich. Mary, we learn, is a quiet ponderer. She takes information in and thinks about it deeply, and this shows her pondering on scripture as well, and so she's a thinker. There's depth. Secondly, there is joy in this. She celebrates. She says, "My soul glorifies in the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior.” There is great joy in this, in this worship. Thirdly, there is God-centered adoration. You can see God's attributes on display, his divine power, sovereignty, his holiness, his mercy, his faithfulness. The attributes of God are woven through this adoration. She keeps her mind focused like a laser on who God is and what God is doing. Fourthly, it is saturated in Scripture. Some people link Mary's praise to Hannah's praise in 1 Samuel 2, when Samuel is born, but honestly, there's only some bear points of contact between Mary and Hannah. Hannah's praise is more focused, it seems, on her personal vindication over her enemy and God's goodness to her personally. Mary's praise is greater than that and more lavish and saturated in scripture throughout. Some scholars have been able to discern over 20 allusions or quotations of Old Testament scripture in these brief verses of praise from Mary. What a perfect mother for Jesus. I mean, no one in history has been so saturated with the Bible as Jesus, and imagine the privilege of a woman getting to raise a son like Jesus.

Now, obviously, there must have been some amazing moments. Remember when Jesus was 12 years old and Joseph and Mary lost track of Jesus. That's quite an amazing moment, don't you think in redemptive history? You think like Gabriel could come back and say, "You know, had one job to do, and you might want to keep track of where 12-year-old Jesus is," but clearly, Jesus, his understanding of who he was and what his mission was, was astonishing and says to his obviously worried mother, "Didn't you know I had to be in my Father's house and doing my Father's work?" and so would've been remarkable, don't you think, and what a journey to be able to raise the Son of God, but she was saturated in Scripture, and how from infancy, we could say, just like Timothy, she had poured the scriptures into Jesus.

And then, fifthly: humility. Mary is just astonished that God would be so gracious to someone like her. This is just foundational to God's gracious work in our lives. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble, so if you want to see that mustard seed of the kingdom of God just grow and develop, then take those same attributes in your own meditation. Let your meditations be deep, and rich, and God-centered, and saturated in Scripture and humble. Let your meditations of Christ and of God be like hers.

Well, let's look now at the content of Mary's praise, and we're going to look at it in four stanzas, and I'll just give you kind of a quick outline of what those four stanzas are. First, God's blessings to Mary. She's going to celebrate God's goodness and grace to herself personally. Then, she's going to extend it to God's grace and mercy to all generations in the second stanza, God's goodness to all generations. Then thirdly, what we could call the great reversal, how God turns things around and takes the rich and mighty and sends them away empty, but gives grace to the humble, the great reversal thirdly, and then fourthly, God's faithfulness to his covenant promise to Abraham, God's covenant keeping, promise-keeping as God. Those are the four stanzas.

So let's look at the first one, stanza one, she's exalting in God's blessings to her personally, verses 46-49, “Mary said, ‘My soul glorifies in the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on, all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me. Holy is his name.’" so Mary's joy is flowing here. She's celebrating God's goodness to her personally. It flows as a result of Elizabeth's presence and the statements that she makes. Mary is very quiet and humble and submissive before the angel Gabriel, but she's very open here with another woman, who like her is pregnant, and there's a connection, and so she opens up a lot more. Whereas Elizabeth's outburst seems to be passionate and exuberant, Mary’s seems to me more regal and majestic, kind of soaring even above what Elizabeth says. The focus here is God's blessings to her personally, and so for us, our religion begins here, with the individual sinner and with what God will do for individual sinners. This week, I read a quote by Corrie ten Boom, and said this, "If Jesus were born 1,000 times in Bethlehem but not in me, then I would still be lost."

So, in the end, Christ has to be born within you, within your own heart, or all of this pageantry and celebration does nothing for you. "Is there room at the cross for me?," you have to ask. There's going to be a banquet table in the kingdom of heaven. Is there going to be a place for you to sit at that banquet table? That's what you have to ask. Paul does this very powerfully in Galatians 2:20, where there he says, "I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me, and the life that I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." I think every individual has to do that. You can say, "Do I know by faith that Christ loved me personally and gave himself for me? Is there value in the shed blood of Christ for me and the forgiveness of my sins?," and so Mary is amazed at God's goodness and grace and mercy to her personally, and it's rooted in humility. "Why should the Almighty be doing something like this for me?" "Why would the Creator of the universe elevate someone like me so highly?" Look at verse 48. "He has been mindful of the humble state of his servant," so Mary recognized her low position. She's a member of a conquered race, perhaps even within the Jewish race, specifically humbled by maybe meager economic circumstances, Joseph's future economic circumstances meager, and so she's humbled in that sense, but she also mentions God, her Savior. "My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God, my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant." So this statement, I believe, should late arrest any false doctrine about Mary's sinlessness. I was raised Roman Catholic. In the Catholic tradition, there is a false teaching of the sinlessness of Mary. The immaculate conception does not relate to Jesus directly, but relates to Mary's birth from her mother and how she was protected from original sin by the doctrine of the immaculate conception, the idea that in order for Jesus to have been born, he had to be born from a pure mother, who was herself protected from any sin at all, but Mary would not have thought that at all. She understood. As much as she was a godly woman, she was a sinner who needed to be saved by grace, and so we have to set aside any kind of idolatrous elevation of Mary as a focus of worship or adoration or any false teaching that she is in some sense a co-redemptrix, or as some have said, the queen of heaven. Any of these lofty thoughts at all are not rooted in Scripture. Mary is a godly woman, but she needed a savior and she recognized that. She rejoices in God, my Savior, and the humble state she felt for herself included a sense of her own sinfulness that she needed forgiveness.

Now, Mary, for all of her humility, she would have to take on, and she didn't understand it fully, we never do, but would take on a great deal of suffering to be Jesus's mother, and her willingness to take on this role makes her in every respect a woman worthy of emulation by generations of women who would follow, and in her godliness and her piety and her worship, worthy of imitation for us all, but she needed a savior. Now, she could not have fully understood how that salvation would be worked by her own son, how her own son, Jesus Christ must die, a bloody death on the cross for her and for all of God's people. She couldn't have fully understood that, and that's an astonishing thought, isn't it, that her Savior is her son, and that he had to suffer and die?

Mary also recognizes future blessing that's coming toward her. "From now on," verse 48, "all generations will call me bless, for the Mighty One has done great things for me," so Mary knows that this moment is of eternal consequence, and that people in the future would understand the level of her blessedness by being chosen to be the mother of the Messiah. These are great gifts that God has given to Mary. Verse 49, "The Mighty One has done great things for me." Great things, so what great things has the Lord done for Mary? We'll start with the virgin conception, which is an incredible miracle. In an ordinary conception, there are 46 chromosomes in the normal birth, 23 from the mother and 23 from the father, but in this case, God supernaturally created the 23 chromosomes that would've come from a male father, like he created the universe out of nothing by the word of his power, like Jesus would later, as we mentioned last week, create an ear for Malchus out of nothing, and so that's the miracle of the virgin conception.

God's great gifts to Mary also include the fulfillment of prophecy, a prophecy made centuries before speaking ultimately of Mary. In Isaiah 7:14, "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son." I doubt she ever read that scripture the same again. Imagine, in the scroll of Isaiah, "That's talking about me. The Mighty One has done great things for me. I am the virgin who was with child," and the amazing role of raising the savior in this world, just the access to Jesus, being able to see him, the things that happened as he was a boy that we know nothing about other than that 12-year-old vignette, but just the memories that she had. There must have been more and more and more that she treasured in her heart. Jesus' first miracle was at the wedding at Cana in Galilee, so we didn't know miracles growing up, but just a sinless human being, watching a sinless boy grow up to be a sinless young man, and then finally, at age 30, being presented to Israel, sinless, being able to have that kind of access and observe it, and so these are remarkable things that she's celebrating, and the holiness of God. Holy is his name. This is a distinguishing characteristic of God, the holiness of God, freedom from all immorality and wickedness. Now, what will happen to Mary will lead some people to imagine uncleanness, to imagine fornication. As a matter of fact, it's even insinuated in reference to Jesus. In John 8, some of his enemies said, "Aren't we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?" It's incredible statement to make to another human being, when Jesus said in reference to that, "I honor my Father and you dishonor me," but they didn't just dishonor him, but dishonored his mother, implying that she had had immoral relations with a Samaritan man, but the whole conception and birth was perfectly holy. Look back at verse 34-35 as she says to the angel, "‘How will this be since I am a virgin?’ The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you, so the Holy One to be born of you will be called the Son of God.’" All right, so that's stanza one, celebrating God's grace and mercy to her personally as an individual.

Stanza two: extending to God's blessings to the entire world, to generations even as yet unborn. Look at verse 50, "His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation." So Mary now widens her focus and praise to include believers who had not even been born yet. This is the nature of Christian faith: we start with us, and then we start to realize it's not just about us. As Ron mentioned earlier, there's going to be a multitude from every tribe, language, people, and nation standing around the throne, wearing white robes and saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne into the land." You've got a lot of your best friends that you haven't even met yet, and you're going to spend eternity meeting them and getting to know them, and you're like, "Wow, there's a lot of people to get to know." Yeah, you got a lot of time. You'll have plenty of time to get to know them and their stories and to celebrate what God did in and through them, brothers and sisters who live centuries before you, and so she says her mercy extends to those who fear him from generation to generation. Perhaps at this point, she's thinking about Gabriel's prediction concerning the future of her son's kingdom. In verse 32-33, “The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of David forever; his kingdom will never end."

Now, her focus on generations yet unborn has to do with God's mercy. God's mercy is his kindness to those in affliction and suffering, his kindness to those in affliction and suffering. Frequently, those suffering from afflictions would cry out to Jesus saying, "Have mercy on us," like the blind man, Bartimaeus, “Have mercy on me,” but there is no suffering on earth that compares with eternal condemnation in hell. It is the greatest suffering there is, and so the ultimate mercy of God is not to alleviate temporal circumstances such as would be found in an AIDS clinic in Botswana or in a slum area, poor area of a city in Asia where there's very, very low standard of living, or even in a work camp in a communist country. All of those places of affliction have greater affliction we can possibly imagine, but nothing, nothing compares to the terrors of hell, and so the mercy in verse 50 that extends to those who fear God from generation and generation is to be delivered from the torments of hell, that God sent his Son, that we would not be condemned, that we would not hear the words, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." That's why Jesus was sent, and his mercy extends to those who fear him, it says. It's not for everyone. Some people don't fear the judgment of God. They don't fear what will happen on judgment day. They're not afraid of what will happen when they die, and after that comes judgment. They don't have that fear, but what God does when he saves a soul is he first teaches you to fear, and then relieves those fears, as John Newton said in “Amazing Grace”, and so his mercy extends from generation to generation to all those who fear Him and flee to Christ for refuge.

Stanza three has to do with delighting in God's surprising ways with the full and the empty. This is what we call the great reversal. Look at verse 51-53. "He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.” This is the great reversal, the world reveres wealth and power and prestige, conquest, domination, and ostentation, but as already quoted, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble," James 4:6. Mary speaks of the mighty deeds that God has done with his arm.

Now, at that point in redemptive history, what is she looking back on? Well, how about God's mighty deeds in creating heaven and earth with the word of his power, or God's mighty deeds in making a huge nation out of one man, Abraham, or God's mighty deeds in rescuing the Jews out of bondage in Egypt through the 10 plagues and the Red Sea crossing, and then all of the things he did to protect the little nation of Israel from her enemies time and time again, the mighty deeds of God. Now, we're further along in redemptive history, and now, we can celebrate more of God's mighty deeds done through his Son, a lifetime of miracles, a river of miracles. Jesus' substitutionary death on the cross and his powerful resurrection from the dead, his mighty deeds can celebrate all of those, but here, she's speaking specifically of God's opposition to the proud. In their inmost thoughts, they are proud, and she speaks of God bringing down tyrants from their mighty thrones. Perhaps two come to mind right away, Caesar Augustus, the Roman Emperor, and Herod the Great, who will soon give an order after the baby is born to kill all the babies in Bethlehem and its vicinity who are two years old and under. So these tyrants, God is going to bring them down from their throne. God rejected these halls of power in these mighty rulers. He did not send his Son through one of them, but has chosen a humble Jewish girl through which to bring his Son, and so he has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. So God has sovereign over rulers. He raises one up and lowers the other, but his grace he gives to the humble.

Then, she speaks of God's banquet table. Verse 53, "He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty." I can't help but think about Isaiah 55:1, which is the great banquet of grace and of salvation. There the prophet says, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters, and you who have no money, come buy and eat without money and without cost," and so God spreads a salvation table before you. Now, you can't see anything physical, but it's by the promises and the words of God, and he's inviting you to come and feast at the table of God's grace and mercy. God's feast is the kingdom of Messiah. It's a rich welcome into the kingdom of God, and the central feast of that grace of mercy is this, the forgiveness of all of your sins, that you would stand forgiven before the eyes of a holy God, whose eyes are too pure to even look on evil. He cannot tolerate wrong, and imagine standing before him, blameless and unafraid, because you are covered in the righteousness of Christ. That's the banquet of God's grace.

Now, the basic principle is, if you are hungry, he will feed you. If you feel yourself poor, he will make you rich. If you feel yourself naked, he will clothe you, but if you are satisfied and don't need all of that, he will give you nothing. He'll send you away empty-handed, so imagine if you had brought your own dinner to where Jesus fed the 5,000, and you look at what you brought, and it's better than barley, loaves, and fish, and you don't partake of the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000, or imagine you brought your own wine to the wedding at Cana in Galilee, and you think it's better than anything that could have come from those stone jars this late in the banquet, and so you don't partake of the wine that Jesus made, so it is, for us, if you feel you don't need Jesus, if you feel you're healthy and strong and capable, he won't do anything for you. “It's not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I've not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” Those who are desperate for forgiveness, who know themselves to be hungry and thirsty for righteousness and for salvation, he feeds them, but for those that are satisfied with their earthly condition, he gives them nothing.

Stanza four: celebrating God's faithfulness to his covenant with Abraham, verses 54-55. The final stanza is of special interest to Mary as a Jewish woman, a descendant of Abraham. She knew very well the promises that had been made so many centuries before that to Abraham. Genesis 12:2-3, "God said to Abraham, 'I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.'" However, for six centuries, the Gentiles have trampled on the Promised Land. The Jews were marginalized and seem to have been bypassed. There are psalms that cry out to God saying, "Will you forget us forever? Where are the promises you made to our father Abraham?" but Gabriel's message to Mary and Elizabeth’s Spirit-filled utterance are more proof. God has not forgotten his promises to Abraham. Look at verse 54-55. "He has helped his servant, Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and to his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers.” Mary celebrates the renewal of God's covenant promises to Abraham. The time has come at last for God to be gracious.

Now, I would say the overwhelming majority, if not, 100% of those in here today are Gentiles and not of Jewish descendency, there may be some that have a Jewish background. I'm so delighted that you're here, welcoming, but for us, I'm a Gentile. Most of us are Gentiles. Friends, we are grafted into a Jewish tree. We derive nourishing sap from a Jewish root system. We are feeding on the promises made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. We are adopted sons and daughters of Abraham, and through Abraham, we have been blessed with a Savior who is a descendant from Abraham, and from him, we receive all the blessings of our lives. And so for us, as we read this like, "Well, what does this have to do with me?" it has everything to do with you, for apart from Abraham's blessing and the blessing spoken of to Abraham, we get nothing, but through him, we get the new heaven, new earth, the forgiveness of sins, and adoption to the family of God.

So this is the detailed look at the content of Mary's praise in four stanzas. First, celebrating God's blessings to Mary personally, secondly, celebrating God's mercy and grace to all generations of those that fear him, thirdly, the great reversal, God's sending the rich and powerful and full away empty, but blessing those that are hungry and poor and needy, and fourthly, God's faithfulness to his covenant promises made to Abraham.

What applications can we take from this? Well, first and foremost, Mary's son is her Savior, and he is the only Savior there is for the world. It's amazing to me that Mary never directly mentions her son in her praise. She never directly mentions who Jesus is or, it’s cause she doesn't know. Her worship is really kind of an Old Testament worship, looking ahead with limited knowledge to what's coming, and Mary has an education that she's going to have to get in her life. The Lord is going to have to put her in her place at a certain point, and it's a difficult process. She has to learn who Jesus is. There's one particular difficult moment when Mary and her other sons, hearing what's going on in Jesus' ministry, it's in Mark 3, go to take charge of Jesus. Think about that. Mary is going to take charge of her grown son, because they thought, “he's out of his mind.” I would say that was a low moment for Mary, and Jesus is inside. There's a crowd around him, and some messenger comes in saying, "‘Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you,’ and Jesus said, ‘Who is my mother and who are my brothers?’ Then, he looks at those seated in a circle around him and says, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers, for whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother,’" so put yourself in Mary's place hearing that answer. He's saying, "Will you do God's will?" And what is God's will? But to believe in the one that he has sent. “Trust me, even though my ministry may make no sense to you, trust me.” And that journey would be painful for her because she would be among the very few followers of Jesus, standing at the foot of the cross, watching him die. As Simeon said, "A sword will pierce your own soul as well," so it'd be difficult for her, so application for you is to make that same journey, to go from underestimating Jesus and not really understanding who he is, to following his mission right to the cross and understanding his bloody death under the wrath of God is for you, because you are a sinner and you need to be saved by grace. That's first greatest application.

Secondly, Mary's praise is foretaste of an eternity of worship we're going to do in heaven. I picture Mary in heaven, not as the queen of heaven, not sitting on some throne to be worshiped as co-redemptrix. Not at all, but she's there with all of the godly women and men who are saved by grace through faith, worshiping and celebrating Jesus. The apostle Paul said in Corinthians, "Though we knew Jesus in an earthly way, we know him that way no longer," so you might have had some kind of earthly contact with Jesus. Jesus is high and exalted far above all of that on the throne of God, and so all of the themes of this worship we're going to spend eternity developing in heaven, so do some of it now. Do some of it now. Celebrate and worship what God has done through her son, Jesus, and then personalize Christmas. Say, "Jesus came for me. He came and died on the cross for me," and so just let that meditation make you humble. We all need to be continually humbled. Just say, "The death that Jesus died, he died in my place," and then universalize it. Think about people that have never heard the name of Christ. Think about generations that followed that first generation, even to our generation. We don't know how long it's going to be until the Lord comes, but say, "Christ didn't just come from me, but Christ came for us," and there are people, even in our community who haven't yet come to faith in Christ, so pray for them and be a bold witness for them. And marvel at God's sovereign rule of history has brought down rulers from their thrones, but has lifted up the humble. As we look at the history of government, both in our own country, presidents come, presidents go, we look at other nations and their forms of government. God is sovereign over all of that. He's ruling over all of that for his own purposes, so let's be confident in the face of that.

Finally, rely on God to be faithful to his promises. God kept his promise, and he's keeping his promise to Abraham. He's going to keep his promise to you, and the central promise, and we're going to return to this God-willing next week, the central promise he's making to you as a sinner is he's going to raise you up on the last day. You're going to spend eternity, through faith in Christ you're going to spend eternity in a glorious resurrection body, worshiping your Savior. Close with me in prayer.

Lord, thank you for the chance we've had to learn from Mary, a godly woman, in an incredible moment in redemptive history, to be able to learn from her how to worship, how we can celebrate the goodness of God to us individually and also universally to God's people in every generation. Thank you for Mary's words. Thank you for the Holy Spirit, inspiring her to say them, and then inspiring Luke to record them and write them down. We thank you for the meditations we can do based on them. Help us to take the time, oh Lord, to meditate on your Word, to meditate on your goodness to us. In Jesus’ name, amen.

Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on Luke 1:46-55. The main subject of the sermon is how Mary praises Jesus, the God-Man, who is her son.

The post Mary Magnifies Her Savior, Her Son (2020) appeared first on Two Journeys.