The Risen, Conquering Son

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This week I was thinking about an old hymn that I love, and I can’t tell you the last time I heard it in church. I’ve given Brother Jack the lyrics to put up there for you, at least in one version of my PowerPoint. There it is.

The hymn is called Thine is the Glory, and the first verse says, Thine is the glory, risen, conquering Son. Endless is the victory, thou or death has won. Angels in bright raiment rolled the stone away, kept the folded grave clothes, where thy body lay.

And then it repeats again, thine is the glory, risen, conquering son. And the reason that came to mind is that’s what the Apostle Paul is talking about in the passage in 1 Corinthians that we come to today. He’s been all through chapter 15 talking about the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And here he’s talking about what it proves about the lordship of Jesus Christ. If you’re a guest with us today, we’re glad you’re here, first of all, but we’ve been studying piece by piece through the book of 1 Corinthians, and this is where we find ourselves.

At the beginning of chapter 15, Paul talks about the resurrection, which for us is a. . .

I’m not going to go back over it again. I’ve done it so many times, including a couple of weeks ago, But he presents an argument that is hard to defeat. An argument in verses 3 through 8 about the resurrection of Jesus.

But when he presented it to the church at Corinth, it wasn’t an argument to convince them that the resurrection happened. They already believed that. They just didn’t believe anybody else would rise from the dead.

And so he starts with where their common ground was, the resurrection of Jesus. And he argued from that that there is a future hope, that there is eternal life, that if you have one, you have to believe the other. If you believe Jesus was powerful enough to rise from the dead, you have to believe that He’s powerful enough to raise us as well.

He moves on in this part that we’re going to look at today to argue that the resurrection demonstrates that Jesus is everything He claimed to be. And I think this is pertinent for us to know about because even today I hear people make the argument that the resurrection doesn’t prove anything. For years, people have argued that they didn’t believe the resurrection, and there’s still some of that.

But as there’s an incredible body of Christian scholarship, arguing from history and from textual evidence, from sometimes medical and scientific studies, arguing for the historical reality of the resurrection, that’s become a little harder to debate. So the goalpost has kind of shifted where people, you know, 20 years ago they were saying, I don’t believe the resurrection happened. Now a lot of people are moving to say, even if it did happen, it doesn’t matter.

It doesn’t prove anything. I don’t understand that argument. I’ve told you before that I never can remember who said it, but somebody that was not me said, if a guy can predict and accomplish his own resurrection from the dead, I’m going to tend to trust what that guy says about other things.

And you can look at that and say, well, that doesn’t prove anything. You’re welcome to look at the evidence that way. People still do this.

You know, I can go in my kitchen. I can see that the cookies have been gotten into. I can see a trail of crumbs leading to a child.

I can see cookie all over my child’s face and say, I know you got into those cookies. And they can look at me and say, that doesn’t prove anything. They might not use those exact words.

They might say, it wasn’t me. Okay, you’re welcome to look at the evidence that way if you want, but I think that’s a little bit silly. But people today, there’s a political talk show I listened to where the guy was saying, even this week, makes me question some of his other analysis, but he was saying even this week, look, you know, that’s great for you all.

I don’t think the resurrection proves that Jesus is who he says he was. You’re welcome for that to be your standard if you want. But Paul is talking to people who were convinced that the resurrection happened because of the arguments laid out at the beginning of chapter 15, and because they were familiar with the eyewitnesses, the people that saw Him crucified, saw Him buried, saw Him alive again, and then were willing to give their lives as a testimony for what they saw.

The Corinthians were convinced of the resurrection, and now Paul is saying, if you believe the resurrection, then it has to follow that Jesus is Lord. It has to follow that Jesus is everything that He said He was. And so if you haven’t already turned with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 15, I’d like to invite you to do so now.

We’re going to look at about eight or nine verses this morning where Paul makes this case starting in verse 20. Once you find it, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. If you don’t have a Bible or can’t find 1 Corinthians 15, it’s on the screen for you.

But follow along with me as we read. Starting in verse 20, Paul says, But now Christ has been risen from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits, after that those who are Christ’s at his coming. Then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to the God and Father, when he has abolished all rule and all authority and power.

For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death, for he has put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is accepted who put all things in subjection to him.

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself also will be subjected to the one who subjected all things to him, so that God may be all in all, and you may be seated. We’ll talk a little bit about what some of that means. I know when we start getting into the talk about subjecting and being subjected, and it can get a little dicey if we just read through very quickly, trying to understand.

But throughout this section of the text, these eight or nine verses, Paul is making the case that if you believe Jesus rose from the dead, as the history shows that he did, as the testimony of the early church, the people who gave their lives, people who gave their lives in witness of what they saw, As that teaches us, if Jesus rose from the dead, then it is the ultimate evidence of Jesus’ lordship. Because what he did was to tell his followers over and over and over again, I’m going to be crucified, I’m going to be dead for three days, and I’m going to rise again. It was so well known, even his enemies were worried about it after he was crucified.

They didn’t think about it before they crucified him. Hey, we’re playing into his hand here. This is what he said was going to happen.

But after they crucified him, they said, you know, maybe we ought to be concerned about this. But he said, this is what’s going to happen. This is how it’s going to play out.

And then I’m going to rise from the dead. That, for that to happen, indicates a certain mastery over those events, right? Any one of us could get ourselves killed.

I think it would be very challenging for any of us to predict who it was going to be and how it was going to happen and when it was going to happen. But that’s exactly what Jesus did. But imagine you were able to accomplish that.

I’m going to make so-and-so so mad that they’re going to kill me on such and such day. We might be able to work that out. But then to tell people, I’m going to rise again three days later and make that happen, there’s a reason that’s a miracle, and it’s because it doesn’t happen every day.

That’s outside of the capability of normal human beings. So he did all of that, and that indicates a mastery over life and death. That indicates that he’s playing 4D chess, and the rest of us are just trying to keep up.

If he rose again from the dead, he is Lord of everything. That’s Paul’s point. Paul argues on that basis that Jesus is the basis of our hope.

We look at verse 20, where he says that Christ, because he’s been raised from the dead, he’s the first fruits of those who are asleep. Now, when he says asleep here, that’s a euphemism for somebody being dead. You say, well, why didn’t they just say those who are dead?

Why don’t we? Right? We say they’ve passed on, they’ve gone on to a better place, they’ve been promoted, I’ve heard said, they’ve graduated.

These are not bad things to say, but they’re euphemisms. What we mean to say is they’re dead. He’s talking about them being asleep. And he’s meaning that they’re dead.

Because there were people at Corinth who put their hope in Jesus and put their hope in the resurrection. And they’re thinking Jesus is coming back any moment. And then people began to die off.

And for some people at Corinth, it raised questions about is there really hope here? Because they were expecting Jesus to do something and it hasn’t happened yet. But Paul says Jesus is the first fruits of those who are asleep.

What he means by that, and we’ll get into more about the first fruits in just a minute where he says it again, but part of the point that he’s making is that for Jesus to have raised himself from the dead, he’s only the first of those that he’s going to raise from the dead. I know he raised Lazarus, he raised another little girl, but as far as rising again to live forever, as far as any kind of final resurrection, he says Jesus is only the first. The first of many. There will be others who follow.

There’s this promise that he talked about in the previous passage, that those who belong to him will be raised to eternal life. And he argued that in the previous section of the text we looked at last week, that if you believe Jesus rose from the dead, you have to believe he’s able to raise you. Because if you don’t believe he’s able to raise you, he wasn’t powerful enough to raise himself.

The two go hand in hand. And so speaking to this church. He says, don’t give up hope because if you believe that he has raised himself from the dead or the father, the Bible says at various places, the father raised him, Jesus raised himself because they were working together.

God’s plan is God’s plan. There’s not a separation there where they have different plans and ideas to carry out. But if Jesus has been raised from the dead, we have to acknowledge that he has power over life and death and he can raise us as well.

And so there’s hope because of that resurrection. And it doesn’t matter how dark the circumstances get for us. We go back to that resurrection and we realize that He is powerful enough to overcome any circumstance.

It doesn’t mean that every circumstance is going to work out the way we want it to. But even if and when we succumb to death in this life, Jesus is more powerful than that. And if He could raise Himself, He has the power to raise us too.

So we have hope in being able to look at no matter what our circumstances are, we know that there is a Savior who died for us and rose again. And if He can do that, then our ultimate hope is assured. And the reason for that, we look at verses 21 and 22.

Jesus has overcome the curse of sin and conquered death. He says, for since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam, all die, so also in Christ, all will be made alive.

Our relationships, who we’re related to, who we relate to, affects where we stand with the Lord. I don’t mean that in a, oh, you’re part of this nation, so you’re closer to God. You’re part of this nation, so you’re cut off from God.

I mean, by virtue of the fact that we are related to Adam, we have inherited a sin nature. We are born sinners. That is not a pleasant thing to think about.

As a matter of fact, it boggled the mind. Every time one of my five children was born, I’d look at them and they’re so precious and so seemingly innocent. It just doesn’t seem to fit the idea that we’re born sinners.

And yet not one of them did I ever have to teach to lie or steal or hit. We didn’t sit down and have classes for any of these things. They just come from the human nature.

We inherited it from Adam. It’s genetic. Some things are just genetic.

You know, I look at Jojo. Some of you all saw Jojo sitting up here, a little redheaded girl. Jojo was born on the 16th anniversary of the death of my grandmother.

So they never met. The Bible does not permit us to believe in reincarnation. But if I did, Jojo is my grandmother.

And it’s not environmental because I don’t have the traits I’m talking about. My parents don’t have the traits I’m talking about. Jojo is not regularly exposed to anybody else who’s just like my grandmother.

But somehow, Jojo in a number of ways is just like my grandmother. And I was on a road trip with my dad one time and brought that up. He said, what are you talking about?

And I started outlining all the ways that she was like. And it’s like scales fell off his eyes. He said, she is my mom.

Not in a reincarnated way, but just there’s something where that was passed down in the genes. It wasn’t environmental. It wasn’t taught. But she acts like my grandmother.

And we see that through families that even behaviors can be passed down. Same way with us and Adam. Adam and Eve defied God, and that tendency has been passed down to every one of us since then.

So we’re born sinners, and then we sin because we’re sinners. We exercise that job description as soon as we are able to make that choice. And so the Bible talks about how death passed on all of us because sin was passed down to us from Adam.

And because we’re related to Adam, we have this curse of sin on us. And the wages of sin, the payment for sin is death. Spiritual death, separation from God, and eventually physical death.

But Jesus has overcome that curse. It says in verse 21 that whereby a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. As in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive.

Where our relationship to Adam brought us sin and death, our relationship to Jesus brings us forgiveness and eternal life. Our sin was placed on Jesus. He took responsibility for our sins and He was nailed to the cross and shed His blood and died to pay for our sins in full so that that curse could be defeated, so that our sin could be forgiven, so that eternal life could be offered to us.

And so where the relationship with Adam brought this curse of sin and death, Our relationship with Jesus Christ brings the opposite. He conquered death and defeated that curse of sin. He’s overcome it.

Nobody else could do that for us. And anybody could tell us, you know what, I’m dying for that purpose. I could tell you today, I’m going to go out and get hit by a bus and I’m going to do that so you can be forgiven.

Me telling you that doesn’t make it true. And before you put your trust in that promise, you better have a good reason for doing so. I’d say also predicting and accomplishing my own resurrection would be a pretty big sign.

And that’s what we have with Jesus. That was the proof that He was able to do the things that He said He would do. And as a result, He has opened the door for eternal life to us.

Verse 23 says, But each in his own order, Christ the firstfruits. After that, those who are Christ’s at His coming. This idea of the firstfruits, He mentions that in verse 20 and then again in verse 23.

The firstfruits were something that was brought as an offering to the temple. Not only in Jewish culture, but in the Greek pagan cultures that they would have been familiar with. these people from Corinth.

Some of them were Jews, some of them were pagans before they came to Christ. A lot of these religions had a tradition of offering the first fruits where you would bring, if you grew grain, you would bring part of your first grain crop and offer it to God. If you raised chickens, you’d bring some of your first egg crop and offer it to God. Whatever it was, whatever your first fruits were, those would be set apart to God.

They would be considered holy, And they were an offering on behalf of everything else that came afterwards. So in some ways, it was set aside as holy to thank God for the rest of the crop that was going to come. Jesus is the first fruits of the resurrection.

Jesus is the first fruits from the dead. He was offered. He’s holy to God.

And He was offered on behalf of everybody who would come afterwards. So anybody who comes to the Father through Jesus comes because of that offering that was made when Jesus was put on the cross. And he says here there’s an order.

Christ the firstfruits and after that those who are Christ’s at His coming. He tells us how it is that we come to be raised from the dead to have eternal life with the Father. And that’s by belonging to Christ. What does it mean to belong to Christ?

It means to trust in Him as your one and only Savior. It means after that fact to follow Him as Lord. And he says those who belong to him will be raised just like he was at his coming.

As I told you last week, there’s a lot of debate over the timing, the sequencing of all of this. And just kind of preemptively, I told you, you can ask the question at our Sunday night Q&A session, doesn’t mean I’m going to have an answer for you. I have suspicions about the order of this, but I could be wrong.

What I do know is that Jesus will come back and we’ll be raised to be with him. I’m not saying the order of things is unimportant, but I’m saying whether I get the order right or not, there are some things I know, and those are the things that are most important. Jesus is coming back for us, and we’ll be raised to be with Him.

And because of Him, and because we belong to Him, we will have eternal life with Him. Not because we were good and deserved it, not because we did anything to earn it, but because Jesus Christ opened the door for that eternal life through His death and resurrection. The blood that was shed to pay for our sins in full is our ticket to a relationship with the Father.

and we move on to verse 24 and we see that Jesus reigns with authority from the father and this follows directly from the resurrection that if Jesus rose from the dead then it follows that he has authority that is completely unique in all of human history he’s not just a good teacher he’s not just a moral philosopher he’s not just an example he’s the lord of all verse 24 says then comes the end when he hands over the kingdom to the god and father when he has abolished all rule and all authority and all power. The verses after this talk about handing it back to the Father who has given it to Him.

Somehow, and this is another one of those things that none of us can fully explain, but we don’t have to be able to fully explain it, but somehow the persons of the Trinity are equal, and yet, well that’s not the somehow, the persons of the Trinity are equal, and yet somehow there there seems to be an authority structure where the Son carries out the will of the Father, and the Spirit goes to empower us to walk in line with the will of the Father. And somehow, this authority structure within the Trinity doesn’t do anything to make anybody more or less God or more or less powerful. It’s just different roles.

But we recognize that Jesus Christ has been given full authority from the Father. When He gave us the Great Commission, He began it by saying, all authority has been given to Me under heaven and on earth. All authority is His.

He’s been deputized by the Father and bears all the authority that the Father has, has been given to Him to come and speak to us with authority, to rule over us. Jesus came to carry out the Father’s will, and He possesses the full authority to do so. And once He’s done all this, He comes back in full authority and presents the finished product to the Father.

Now, what this means for us, we can easily get into deep theological water here, and we can talk about this on our next Sunday night thing if you have questions about it. But instead, I want to look at what does that mean for us? What do we do with that information?

What we do with that information, how we apply that to our regular lives is to realize that if the Father has given Jesus Christ all authority in heaven and earth, then what Jesus says, we have to listen to. We don’t get to pick and choose. I will tell you from a human perspective, there are things Jesus told us to do that are just a little inconvenient.

I realize that doesn’t sound spiritual, but when Jesus said, turn the other cheek, our flesh does not want to do that, right? That is not convenient. Our flesh wants to fight back.

As Jesus taught us not to take revenge. But we like revenge. Doesn’t matter.

I don’t get to talk my way out of doing that because I can pick and choose. If Jesus is Lord, I’m supposed to listen to what He says there. And we could list off lots and lots of things.

And it’s not because Christianity is a list of rules, but it’s because we serve a Savior who has all authority. And because of our love for Him, We have a duty to listen to Him. And we have a duty to obey Him because of what He’s done for us.

He has full authority. We listen to Him. We follow Him.

Even when it’s hard. Even when it’s inconvenient. Even when the culture doesn’t like it.

Even when the culture doesn’t like it. Even when we’ve messed up. Anybody else mess up this week?

Or was it just me? Okay. You don’t have to show your hands.

You don’t have to show your hands because we know, right? Just because you’ve messed up and following Him and you sinned, you were disobedient, you missed the moment of what He was calling you to do, doesn’t mean you stop. You deal with Him about it and you move on trying to follow Him because He’s Lord.

He is Savior and He’s also Lord. And then we see in the final verses of this passage that Jesus will restore what God has created. You realize God created the world in a certain way and sin just sort of messed everything up.

That’s one of the answers to the question, well, why would a loving God, why would a perfect God, why would fill in the adjective there, God, create a world like this? This is not the world God created it to be. This is not the world as God created it to be.

God knew this is the way the world would turn out, and God has a plan to deal with it. But when we look around and we see the problems in this world, we did this with our sin. I’m not saying everything you’ve done is caused, but the presence of sin in this world always has unintended consequences.

the presence of death the presence of suffering the presence of sickness all of these things came into the world because of sin what God created was the garden of eden what God created was a paradise where mankind was designed to walk in perfect harmony with God perfect harmony with one another perfect harmony with the world around them and sin messed it up but Jesus will restore what God has created verse 25 tells us that he’s going to defeat the enemies of God he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. He’s going to defeat death once and for all. Verse 26 tells us the last enemy that will be abolished is death.

That’s why the book of Revelation says he will wipe away every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death, no more sorrow, no more pain. The former things have all passed away. It’s because Jesus Christ, the conquering Son of God, will defeat God’s enemies and defeat death once and for all.

All evil, everything that raises its head in rebellion against God will be subdued and everything will submit to God. It says he’s put all things in subjection under his feet. But when he says all things are put in subjection, it is evident that he is accepted who put all things in subjection to him.

So Paul there is writing to the person who says, well, how is the father in subjection to him? You said all things. Paul said it’s obvious here that we’re excluding the one who put everything in subjection to Jesus in the first place.

All created things are subject to Jesus. Everything will be subdued. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, as Philippians says.

And verse 28 says, when all things are subjected to the Son, then the Son Himself will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him. That means once He has subjected all things to Himself, the Son will turn around and present that to the Father in obedience to the Father that God may be all in all. We see this ultimate reconciliation of things to God.

That was Jesus’ purpose. That was Jesus’ purpose to reconcile that which was lost to the Father. That’s why He said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no man comes unto the Father but by Me.

His purpose was to restore to the Father that which sin had destroyed, that which sin had damaged. Now we know that not everyone is going to take advantage of the offer of grace that He’s presented. Jesus died for sinners.

He died as an offering, as the offering for our forgiveness. But even Jesus said not everybody was going to receive Him as their Savior. But Jesus’ purpose was for us to be reconciled to the Father.

Jesus’ purpose was for us to have a relationship with the Father that sin had gotten in the way of. Sin gets in the way of relationships. Sin puts a barrier in relationships.

If you’ve ever raised a child and they’ve lied to you about something and you know they’re lying and they know you know they’re lying, but they just won’t fess up, there’s a little bit of a strain in that relationship, isn’t there? There’s a little bit of an obstacle. And you can try to go on about your everyday life, but you know there’s something there.

Our sin does that with God only on a greater scale because our sin is a rejection of God and His character and His will. It’s a way of looking at God and saying, I would rather embrace this that I know is going to hurt me and hurt other people than do what you want me to do. Sin is anything we think, say, do, or don’t do that displeases God.

And because God is holy, our sin is offensive to Him. And that sin separates us from Him. The problem is that you and I could do every religious deed we could think of to try to bridge that gap between us and Holy God.

We could do every good deed we could think of to try to put that back together. And no matter how good we could be for the rest of our lives, it would never erase the wrong that was done there. And God is holy and He’s just. And because He’s just, our sin has to be punished.

We don’t like that. But think about if there was a judge who was letting people off who were, we knew they were guilty. They’re out there murdering people and he says, well, just keep it to a minimum.

Try to be good. We would be out there, petitions, marching in the street, hollering for that guy to be thrown off the bench because he’s a terrible judge. We don’t always like it when we’re on the receiving end of it, but we know justice has to be done.

God’s justice says sin has to be punished. But God’s love sent Jesus to come take the punishment for us. And Jesus came willingly.

He was a full participant in this. Jesus came to earth willingly for that purpose so that he could take responsibility for my sin and for yours. So that when he was nailed to the cross, that sin was nailed to the cross with him.

When that blood was shed, it was shed as a payment for our sins. And when He died, that veil in the temple was torn in two. That veil that separated man from God in the temple was torn in two as a symbol that things had been thrown open to where we now could approach God, the Father, through the Son.

Jesus Christ paid for your sin in full so that you could be restored to the Father. And it’s not there for you to earn it or deserve it or pay for it. Your job in this is to believe that Jesus did that.

to believe that He died as the one and only payment for your sins, to believe that He rose again to prove it, and ask that He would forgive you and restore you to the Father, and you’ll have it.