Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - What Happens When We Die? | New Testament | 1 Corinthians 15

Episode Date: June 27, 2023

What is the ultimate hope for Christians? To die and go to heaven? In today's episode, Patrick uses 1 Corinthians 15 to discuss a topic that Christians often get wrong: what it looks like to go to heaven. Discover how to talk about life after death. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Corinthians 15

Welcome to 10 minute Bible talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Patrick Miller. What's the ultimate hope of the Christian life? I think many Christians would answer the question this way, to die and go to heaven and be with Jesus. Of course, that is a great hope and a deep comfort, but it's not the ultimate hope of the Christian life. In fact, it's rather remarkable to note that there isn't a single verse in the entire Bible that explicitly, talks about dying and going to heaven. You can find about three passages in the New Testament that speak about going to be with Jesus after we die. But none say that the location is heaven. And perhaps

more importantly, none describe what that's like. So if you have an image in your head of what happens after death, it's far more likely that you've drawn that image from Christian culture than that you've drawn it from the Bible for the simple reason that the Bible says nothing about this. The closest we get to this actually comes from the book of Revelation when John describes beheaded martyrs interceding before the throne of Jesus. And they're mourning that their fellow Christians are suffering on earth and they're crying out to Jesus, please return and end all of this. Of course, Revelation is full of symbols and images that shouldn't be taken literally. And this one is no different. But even if we take it as a picture of life after death, it's not exactly cheery. Standing headless before the living

King mourning and crying out because of the suffering of your fellow Christians? I mean, is that your picture of heaven? But there's good news. The Bible is not opaque about our ultimate hope. On this front, the Bible is crystal clear. The hope that the New Testament repeats again and again and again is life after death. Or maybe let me make that a little more straightforward. The ultimate hope is our bodily resurrection on a renewed earth. The New Testament mentions resurrection. 40 different times. And Paul's longest sustained argument in the entire New Testament is about resurrection. That's how important this is. We find that discussion in 1 Corinthians 15. In this chapter, he says that the keystone of the gospel is the good news that Jesus rose from the dead. He was resurrected.

But what's that mean for you and me? Well, Paul says it means that we're going to experience what he experienced. We will go through death and come out the other side and glorious resurrected by. bodies. This is our hope. This is what we ought to look forward to more than anything else. 1.1. 1 Corinthians 15 verse 1. Now, brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the gospel I preach to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel, you are saved. If you hold firmly to the word I have preached to you, otherwise you have believed in vain. For what I received, I passed on to you as of first importance, that Christ died for our sins, to the scriptures, that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,

and that he appeared to Cephas, that's Peter, and then to the 12, after that he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all, he appeared to me also as to one abnormally born. Jesus' resurrection is the living proof that he is who he said he was, the son of God, Israel's Savior, and the one through whom sins are forgiven and life is given. But you have to understand. In Paul's world, resurrection was laughable. I mean, no one comes back from the dead. If you talk to a non-Christian today, they'd probably agree with an ancient person. Resurrection is silliness. Yet this silliness, it went deeper for Paul, because in the ancient

world, most people actually hoped for a spiritual afterlife. They didn't want their bodies to come back to life. They wanted to live as souls for eternity. Do you hear the irony? When Christians today make their ultimate hope living as disembodied souls with Jesus in heaven, they actually end up sounding a lot like the pagans of Paul's day. But Paul says that denying resurrection is the height of foolishness. Catch this. Verse 12. But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? Again, in their culture that was silly. So people are saying, no, no, no, that's not what Christianity says. Verse 13, if there is no resurrection of the dead,

then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. Stop and let that sink in. Your faith is in vain if there is no resurrection. Why? Because resurrection is our ultimate hope. Because our entire faith rests on the truth

that Jesus rose from the dead, and that if it happened to him, well, it can happen to you, me too. Paul continues because he wants to help us imagine what that resurrection is like. Verse 35. But someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come? How foolish. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of weed or something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed, he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same.

People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another, and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies, and there are earthly bodies. But the splendor of the heavenly bodies is of one kind, and the splendor of earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon, another, and star differs from star and splendor. So it will be at the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown, he's comparing our bodies to seeds here, is perishable. In other words, our bodies are sick. They're full of disease. They die. The body that is sown is perishable. It is raised imperishable. It is sown in dishonor. It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body. Paul is saying that our bodies in this life

are corrupted by sin, weighed down by disease and death. But in the resurrection, we will have perfect glorious bodies, no more disease, no more death, but most importantly, those bodies won't be under the power of sin. This is what he means when he says that our bodies are sewn as a natural body, a body that is controlled by sin. No, instead, the bodies we will have in the resurrection will be perfectly under the power of God's spirit. And that's what Paul means by a spiritual body. We'll have bodies that can't sin because they are perfectly under the influence and power of the Holy Spirit. Do you have the right hope in your heart right now? One of the best things you can do for your faith is to talk far less about going to heaven and talk far more about your glorious resurrection.

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