1 COR 15:42-57 “Resurrected”
A couple of weeks ago one of the regular youth attendees at the Waimea Canyon School’s Bible Club raised his hand during the weekly session and asked why there were no dinosaurs in the Bible. I thought that this was such a profound question that I would make an entire Bible Club session out of this question. While I was coming up with Scripture to prove to the kids that dinosaurs are in the Bible, just called Behemoth, Leviathan, and Dragon (Tannayin) rather than dinosaurs (which is an English word invented around 1840), I was also thinking about this Scripture for this Sunday. At the same time that I was thinking about dinosaurs I was thinking about what will be my state in heaven—assuming I make it in.
Of course, I had to wonder whether or not there would be dinosaurs in heaven. I had to catch myself. Here I am not even sure whether I am going to be there, and I am worrying about the dinosaurs! I mentioned my musings to an elder pastor, who shall remain nameless, and his response was (pointing to himself), “Well, I know one old dinosaur that is going to heaven!”
What actually did happen to the dinosaurs? Oh, so many theories are being taught from a virus to a meteorite killed them all. Who really knows? The dinosaurs perished. They are no longer with us. I know that some people say that chickens and the like are leftover dinosaurs. But, what is going to happen to the chickens? Aren’t they also going to be leftovers one day—shoved behind the leftover coleslaw on the bottom shelf of the fridge?
This is the truth of our existence on this planet: like the dinosaurs, one day the human race will not be here. Somewhere on my backside, next to the “Made in Germany” stamp, there ought to be another stamp that says “Perishable, keep cool.”
In the newspaper this last week was a story of how Esaki produce suppliers had to charter a plane to bring fresh vegetables to Kauai because of rough seas. Those vegetables are perishable. That is why we all fly to Oahu rather than swim there. We are perishable as well.
The next obvious question in this line of thinking is, “Why did God create me to die?” Actually, the Bible tells us that God created us to live! When we read the story in Genesis about how God created us in His image and blew life into us, we realize that that life was the eternal life of God coming into us. It was only when we broke God’s law and ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that death came into us. We would all be with God in paradise now, if it were not for our choice to sin against God.
Next obvious question from this line of thinking: Are sin and death the same thing? Not really. They are related. Remember the three Fates in Greek mythology? They were also called the Moirai. The first Fate spun the thread of life. The second one measured it. And, the third, named Atropos or Morta, took out her scissors and cut the thread. Actually I am not afraid of my thread being cut. However, I am afraid of becoming unraveled before then! Yes, I see sin as that unraveling effect of our lives that can lead to untimely death.
In our reading for today, we see in verse 56 this same idea from Paul being expressed in this way: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.” So, sin and death are not the same thing. Sin is the sting of death. It is the pain and suffering before the actual thread is cut. So, in our lives we should not be afraid of death—we ought to be afraid of sin—the sting of death.
In our day and age, we tend to get this idea backwards. Most people fear death and do not care if they sin. No, that is absolutely backwards. We should all fear sin, and not be concerned with our own death. If Adam and Eve in the Garden had feared sinning against God more than death, then they would never have taken the fruit and would never have known death!
Paul in the second part of that same verse mentions that the power of sin is the law. What does that mean? Paul here is referring to the law of nature that says that all things must run down and decay. This is called the second law of thermodynamics. Science tells us that all things in the universe are running down. Maybe I need to put that in the past tense now. Science has now decided that in fact not all things in the universe are running down. In fact the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate. So, even though stars may be dying slowly, the universe is actually growing. This is the new “emergence theory” that in all things even when they are dying there seems to also be an “emergent” power coming out. It took science a little while to catch up to what the Bible has been saying all along! (Actually this is an old scientific idea from Aristotle that has just been reincorporated into modern scientific thinking.)
Our existence is not merely these two polarities: Life and Death. We live. We die. We emerge. There are three. And the third comes out of the first two! Paul more or less says this in verse 51 when he talks about the mystery: “Listen, I will tell you all a mystery! We will not die, but we will be changed, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the first trumpet.” The word here for “change” in the Greek (allaginisometha) means “to become something other.” This does mean “change,” but more in the sense of being reborn or resurrected.
How are we going to change or be reborn? This question came up in an interesting way during the Tuesday morning Bible Study here. Lilly asked that because when she got married that she became “one flesh” with her husband that when she is in heaven she will be somehow still joined to him? Maybe they will be one person in heaven instead of two? And, if not, how will she recognize her husband since they will both be changed otherwise. Doesn’t this question make my question about meeting dinosaurs in heaven seem trivial? What if my wife goes to heaven, but I don’t make it there? What if I die first and she gets remarried here, and then goes to heaven whose wife will she be?
Fortunately, Jesus himself answers this question when he asked this in a rhetorical trap set by some Pharisees in Matthew 22:29 and on: “. . .For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not heard what was said to you by God: “I am God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” And when the crowd heard this they were astounded.
Our own resurrection therefore is really just the one life that God has given us changing into the heavenly realm. And, it is impossible for us to come to understand what that realm will be like. We will be angels in heaven. We will be with God in God’s heavenly Kingdom.
This last Sunday evening, that Bible Study group started with the Book of Revelation in which John the beloved disciple of Jesus is given a vision of the end of the world and the coming of that heavenly Kingdom. However, even in that vision, we have to understand that what is being said by John is only what he is trying to speak about what he sees; it is not the actual picture of heaven, which is indescribable by human tongue.
In Revelation 21, for instance, we run into this problem of what John is describing about heaven as being impossible in the earthly realm. Check out verse 18 in which we read that the city of heaven is built of “pure gold clear as glass.” Before this John himself has to state that things are looking there as by human measurements, not heavenly ones. Since when is gold “clear as glass.” Human words and measurements cannot describe heaven.
I will just add my two cents worth of understanding to this question of how we are going to be resurrected by stating that there have been intense moments in my life at which times I have felt the power of the Holy Spirit coming to me and the very presence of God. I know what that feels like, and I pray that each one of you would know that sense of the presence of God. Then, I multiply that feeling times infinity and forever. That would be heaven to me. And, it is absolutely indescribable to me.
I feel very blessed to live here in Waimea. This is for me just like heaven on earth. I go and putter in the garden. I take the dog for long walks on the beach. I have a great family and a wonderful church where I celebrate God. This life here on this earth is already such an incredible gift from God. But, I know that one day that proverbial trumpet is going to blow and in a twinkling of an eye everything will change. The new heavenly Kingdom of God will emerge. We will once again be in the very presence of God and death will be defeated.
Our victory is in Christ because he has defeated sin and death. He is the second Adam as our scripture for today tells us. He is the first one to live in the new heaven that is coming. This is our inheritance now today. We shall be invited to live in this new paradise with Christ. Amen.