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Vintage21 Church
downtown Raleigh, NC
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Pastor Tyler
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 80
Location: Downtown Raleigh
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 Posted: Wed Mar 12, 2008 12:35 am Post subject: The best thing you can do is DIE...just DIE... |
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As we continue to talk about Scripture together, I want you to study it and then speak out of knowledge gained from time with the Lord. Our passage this week, 3/16/08, is I Corinthians 15; please read it now.
We are going to focus on the latter portion of the passage and particularly on the Nature of Resurrection. Most of our time will come from V. 36 and V.40-49. Use this post to share what the Lord is teaching you.
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Eric Butler
Joined: 09 Feb 2008
Posts: 49
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| Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 11:13 pm Post subject: |
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What the heck, I'll give it a shot.
Paul has made three points in this chapter:
1) The Resurrection is absolutely critical to Christianity. If Jesus did not rise then He lost - and half of what Christ has done is conquered death and Hell. If Christ does not stand triumphant over the worst Satan can throw then he is a poor excuse for a God, and Satan still rules over us all.
2) If Jesus did not rise then neither shall we. And this is the hope - not that we will become some entirely different sort of creature in some heaven of clouds and harps, but that we shall be raised imperishable to a world restored to its original goodness (or remade in such a state).
3) Finally, because Jesus doesn't just rise to show us that we can rise, but rises to show us the pattern of that rising. When we look at the risen Christ we see what sort of creatures we will be on the other side of the Last Judgment. This, I think, is what Paul is discussing in the later verses. Jesus rises physically - he eats fish, breaks bread, and people can touch him. But he does not rise into the same sort of physical body as before. It is apparently still recognizable as him, but it can get into locked rooms and appear and disappear at will. So we, too, can expect to be raised in powerful and glorified bodies, not the ones we currently bear. What's more, this new body is ruled by spiritual things that bears Christ's image, not a body prone to sin and failing. |
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Pastor Tyler
Joined: 08 Feb 2008
Posts: 80
Location: Downtown Raleigh
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| Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 12:57 am Post subject: |
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Eric makes 3 strong points, thanks for taking the time to read the passage. How do we apply resurrection and new bodies to our lives (please pray that I am taller in Heaven)?
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bredelings
Joined: 18 Mar 2008
Posts: 20
Location: Raleigh
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| Posted: Tue Apr 08, 2008 3:17 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Eric makes 3 strong points, thanks for taking the time to read the passage. How do we apply resurrection and new bodies to our lives (please pray that I am taller in Heaven)? |
I really like this question! In our tradition it seems like we have a better idea of what to do with Jesus's death than his resurrection - e.g. we think that his death paid the penalty for our sins, and his resurrection did... what? At best, announce something that was already true? (I'm not sure that scripture actually separates Christ's death and resurrection this much.) Clearly, a view that has such a difficulty explaining the importance of the resurrection seems out of line with its centrality and importance of the resurrection in the new testament. But how to fix it? Perhaps N.T. Wright's book "The Resurrection of the Son of God" can help us here, or "Surprised by Hope". Has anybody read these? Anyway...
1. Jesus WON, by losing. Somehow, this has to give us hope that when we submit to losing, God can win through this. It doesn't seem like this reversal is completely delayed until our eventual resurrection... does anyone know of any scriptural support for this?
Here goes my attempt:
The idea that Jesus won by losing lies just below the surface of many parts of 1 Corinthians, not least 1 Cor 1:18-25. Why else is the weakness of God stronger than men's strength? Also, in 2 Cor 9-10, Paul cites God's power in raising Christ from the dead as reason not to despair when we face seemingly insurmountable difficulties in this life. "Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead." Finally, Ephesians 1:19-20 talks about God working in us the POWER that he exercised in raising Christ from the dead. The resurrection is thus both an example of God's power, and the specific power that he has works in us as he overcomes sin in our lives. And it seems that the power works in us through our identification with Christ - that being "in Christ" means that we partake of the resurrection somehow.
I think this gives us hope despite the many "little deaths" we experience, because we can hope for the power of Christ's resurrection to work in our lives, even before the big resurrection.
(a) Sometimes we must submit to bad treatment out of reverence for Christ. Is God able to redeem this?
(b) Sometimes we are hurt or disappointed by others, or by events. Can God redeem this?
(c) Sometimes we are hurt by our own sin. Can God overcome our sin and redeem us from its effects?
Clearly the answer to all these questions is at least "yes, eventually". But I think that that the 2 Cor quote says also "yes, now, if he chooses to, and sometimes he does choose to."
Thoughts? |
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