The Hope of Change, Both Then and Now (1 Corinthians 15:50-57)

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. [51] Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, [52] in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. [53] For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. [54] When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” [55] “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” [56] The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. [57] But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

I. The Main Conclusion

After five weeks in this 1 Corinthians 15, one of the things we should be curious about, even eager to discover, is how Paul will conclude this dense, this extremely rich chapter. We find that main conclusion in verses 50-57. Having heard the passage, let's look at it together this morning.

II. The Passage: “Who Gives Us the Victory” (15:50-57)

As we attempt to make sense of this amazing conclusion to everything Paul has written about in chapter 15 of 1 Corinthians, I think it's helpful to see three words that are repeated throughout this passage: in verses 51 and 52 we find the word “changed” used twice, in verses 50, 52, 53, and 54, we find the word “perishable” used three times, and its antonym, “imperishable” used four times, and finally, we hear the hopeful word, “victory” used three time in three verses: verses 54, 55, and 57. Changed, perishable (or imperishable), and victory.

Repeated words and phrases are, of course, one of the things you want to look for as you study any verse or passage in Scripture. Not surprisingly, they often represent an emphasis the writer is making, an emphasis that can give us clearer insight into their reason for writing. In this case, these three words provide us with a kind of summary of Paul's whole argument in this chapter. Let me explain as we look at each word more closely:

“Changed”. Why does Paul repeat the phrase, “we shall be changed” in verses 51 and 52? As you know, the serious concern behind this chapter was the fact that some of the Corinthians were rejecting the idea that human bodies would and could rise from the dead. The most likely reason they rejected this concept was that they were, in fact, rejecting a caricature of the truth; that is, that our present bodies, with all of their warts and weaknesses and withering, would be the same bodies restored in the age to come. This is was why so many Greeks accepted an idea that the body actually imprisoned the spirit, and therefore, that the highest state of human existence must involve being totally liberated from the body.

Interestingly, Paul finds common ground with this notion in the opening verse of our chapter. Look back at v. 50: the Apostle states plainly that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God”. Your present body will not be your forever body, at least not as it exists now. It will be... “changed”. Notice that Paul then introduces a new idea into the conversation, something he calls “a mystery” (i.e., something that had not been disclosed to God's people before this). Yes, dead bodies will be raised and transformed, as Paul has explained in earlier verses. But what about those who are living when Jesus returns? Well, they will be changed. Over time? No, “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (or as we'd say, 'in the blink of an eye'). If you and I are alive when Christ returns, then we will be instantly transformed and given that spiritual or heavenly body (that body for the age to come) that Paul talked about in the passage just before this.

And as I indicated, as the text tells us, all this will happen “at the last trumpet”. The language used there is Old Testament festival language, when the shofar or ram's horn would call God's people together for a sacred assembly. Jesus will do the very same thing when he returns and inaugurates a sacred assembly that will last forever. But that leads us to the word...

“Persishable” (and “imperishable”). In contrast to the view that some of them were holding, where the emphasis was on things like disease, disfigurement, decline, and decay when talking about human bodies, in contrast to that kind of perishability, Paul stresses that the new spiritual, glorified body will be both imperishable and immortal. Imperishable speaks to one's physical life, while immortal speaks to one's experience of life (kind of like when people say, “I was alive, but I wasn't really living”). In our eternity with God, friends, we will both exist forever and live forever. But don't miss that it is this body, your present body, my present body, that will (v. 53) “put on” that new eternal body. Take a moment to savor that amazing truth, that by His grace, God will clothe us, he will outfit us for eternal life in His presence; in a new heavens and new earth. It is this mind-boggling and eternal change, from mortal to immortal, that leads Paul to a final word...

“Victory”. When all of this takes place, Paul tells the Corinthian Christians that God's ancient plan “shall come to pass”, fully and finally. No. The resurrection of the righteous was not a brand new idea developed by some of the apostles. Paul quotes here from Isaiah 25, and in verse 55, from Hosea 13. Ever since human beings turned from life in turning from God, God has been carrying out his plan to defeat death. Let's call it, “Operation Resurrection”. What these disciples were distorting was not simply a peripheral, third-tier belief over which Christians might legitimately disagree. What they had to understand was how their assertions about the resurrection were distorting “Operation Resurrection”; which was the eternal purpose for which God sent Christ into the world. There couldn't be a topic more important than this.

But remember that repeated word: “victory”. As we talked about a couple weeks ago, Jesus is victorious, and Jesus will be victorious. This word, “victory” takes us back to verse 26. Look at what it says: “The last enemy to be destroyed is death.” As God, in this present age, is, in his timing, putting (v. 25...putting) all Christ's enemies under his feet (in fulfillment of Psalm 110:1), Paul reminds these believers, and God reminds us, that the final implementation of Christ's victory will take place when Death is swallowed up by eternal life.

Though this fact can be obscured at times when we look around at this broken world, or as we look back and think about those we've lost, or as we grapple with disease or injury, God's word tells us plainly that, in the end, Death will not win. For those who belong to Christ, even Death's gains in the demise of our bodies will be reversed by God. On that Day, we will proclaim with Paul, and with Jesus (!), “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

Now, look with me at what Paul does with that quote from Hosea 13:14. In verses 56 and 57 of our passage, Paul unpacks or expands on two words from Hosea: “sting” and “victory”. How does Death claim its human victims? Like a scorpion, it does so through its deadly stinger, which Paul identifies in verse 56 as “sin”. As death strikes you as a son or daughter of Adam, it works its deadly poison into your system as, like Adam, you walk in sin. And what gives this venom of sin its power is, according to Paul, “the law”. It is God's law that rightly condemns us, and justly results in our separation from God (the One who is Life).

But we can't forget the victory taunt from Hosea! “O death... where is your sting?” Something has rendered the sting of death as ineffective, as impotent, as powerless. That means something has decisively dealt with the deadliness of sin's venom and the demands of God's law. What could that be? The explanation, of course, is declared in the next verse, v. 57: “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory [this victory] through our Lord Jesus Christ.” In these closing lines of chapter 15, Paul is, in some sense, coming full circle to provide us with a closing look at the cross. This full circle is not only true in terms of chapter 15, but also the entire letter. For we read this about the gospel in 15:3, “that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures”.

But long before that, in 1 Corinthians 1:30, when talking about the cross, Paul tells them that “Christ Jesus... became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemp-tion”. It was on the cross that Jesus took the venom of our sin. It was in His death that he felt Death's deadliness. And it was in that sacrifice that he satisfied the just demands of God's law, becoming for us the “righteousness and sanctification and redemption” we needed, and still need, to be in relationship with a holy God. And so in light of this we say with Paul, we shout with Paul, “...thanks be to God (!) who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ”!

III. He Gives Us the Victory

As we talked about two messages ago, if you belong to Jesus Christ by grace through faith, then you have real and abiding hope in spite of death's dark shadow over our world. God has a future in store for us, which Jesus secured for us, a future beyond our wildest imaginations, but wonderfully, well within our ability to rejoice over and look forward to and be inspired by.

But I also want you to look with me at something else in that final verse, verse 57. Notice Paul doesn't say, “But thanks be to God, who will give us the victory...”. No. He uses the present tense. “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory...”. Believer, in some sense, God's victory over death has already been given to you. Maybe he simply means that the promise of eternal life in an eternal body has been given to us. Maybe. But I think it's more than that. Listen to how Paul talks about similar ideas in Romans 8, verses 35-37...

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? [36] As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” [37] No, in all these things we are more than conquerors [or, we are overwhelmingly conquerors] through him who loved us.

How is it possible for those being “killed all the day long” to be “more than conquerors”? Because God “gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” For we “were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.” We raised because, “We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”(Rom. 6:4, 6) You see, Christ came “that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.” (Hebrews 2:15)

Now, I know that's a lot of verses. But I think the takeaway is this: the glorious, bodily change that is coming some day is simply the final phase of a change that has already started. Amazingly, that new life in a new age is previewed in the “newness of life” we can experience today. Therefore, brothers and sisters, we don't have to walk in fear. Because of Jesus, nothing, and I mean nothing, can ultimately defeat us. We can be “killed all the day long”, but in Jesus, we remain “more than conquerors”. Why? Because God will win in the end, and nothing can separate us from his love. And because “all things work together for good” for those who love God and are called according to his unconquerable purpose.

Yes, every believer will experience painful losses and confusing setbacks in our battle against sin. But... “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” We need that word, don't we? Why? Because all of us feel defeated at times. So when you do, when you feel defeated this week (defeated by sin, defeated by circumstances, defeated by thoughts and feelings, defeated by the past), will you hold on to that declaration, friends?

Whatever sin whispers in your ear this week, please respond back, “But... thanks be to God, who gives us [who gives me] the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Now, these verses might be the triumphant conclusion to Paul's argument, but there is a final verse in this chapter. And in that verse (which Kedrick will share with us next week), we find great encouragements in light of these truths. But as we finish, I want you to see how this main conclusion takes us right back to the truths Paul in the opening verses of this chapter:

Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, [2] and by which you are being saved...

I pray you've received that Good News. And as we've talked about, I pray you will stand in it this week. And... I pray that as you do, you will experience God's saving power. Let's pray.