Image Is Everything (part 2)
Notes
Transcript
Image is Everything
Mental Images can be created from our senses
Touch
Taste
Sight
Smell
Hear
1 Corinthians is concerned with the local church.
Every church has problems!
We only need to turn to this letter (and its companion, 2 Cor.) to see I am telling the truth.
First Corinthians provides a glimpse of life inside one first-century church, and far from saintly.
Yet that is the reason Paul wrote this letter—to make positional sanctification practical.
Our position before God has been changed forever. No longer dead in trespasses, we are made alive together with Christ (Ephesians 2:5).
Our position changes in that we are made citizens of a whole new kingdom:
He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son,
The spirit of the world seemed more influential in the Corinthian church than the Spirit of God, despite the evident gifts given by the Spirit.
Paul wanted to change that. He directed his message along three lines:
1. The first six chapters were an attempt to correct the contentions in the church brought to his attention by Chloe’s (Klow-ee) servants (1:11) and to bring about unity in perspective and practice.
It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not tolerated even among pagans, for a man has his father’s wife.
2. Beginning in chapter 7, Paul addressed himself to certain questions (introduced by the phrase peri de, “now concerning”)
about marital issues (7:1, 25),
liberty and responsibility (8:1),
spiritual gifts and church order (12:1),
money for impoverished saints in Jerusalem (16:1), and the availability of Apollos (16:12).
3. In chapter 15 he reaffirmed and defended the doctrine of the Resurrection, which some denied.
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain.
For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.
Paul digs deeper
And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.
Futile: empty (va-cu-ous) adjs. — devoid of significance, point, or benefit.
Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.
If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
He takes the analogy of a seed.
The seed is put in the ground and dies, but in due course it rises again; and does so with a very different kind of body from that with which it was sown.
Paul is showing that, at one and the same time, there can be dissolution, difference and yet continuity.
The seed is dissolved; when it rises again,
there is a vast difference in its body; and yet, in spite of the dissolution and the difference, it is the same seed.
So, our earthly bodies will dissolve; they will rise again in very different form—but it is the same person who rises.
Dissolved by death, changed by resurrection, it is still we who exist.
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.
I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
The natural body, could not enter the eternal state
Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 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.
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 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.”
Paul quotes from Isaiah 25:8
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.
Power n. — possession of controlling influence; often understood as manifesting influence over reality in a supernatural manner.
But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
victory n. — a successful ending of a struggle or military contest.
Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
Steadfast: steady adj. — not subject to change or variation; especially in behavior.
Immoveable adj. — not able or intended to be moved.
Abounding: to abound v. — to be abundant or plentiful; exist in large quantities.
Work: duty n. — work that a person is obliged to perform for moral or legal reasons.
Labor: productive work;
Vain: — vac-u-ous and devoid of any advantage or benefit.