Death: Our Great Enemy Resurrection Study: Week 1 Passage for Discussion: 1 Corinthians 15:12-22 In this final chapter of a letter devoted to responding to difficult questions in the church, Paul confronts the most central of them all – the question of resurrection. The Corinthians were apparently saying that there was no resurrection. In other words, they were denying that God will raise the dead flesh and bone and give it new life at the end of the age. Note this: the Corinthians were not arguing against life after death – they were arguing that life after death occurs in a ‘spiritual’ state. No more bodies, just our immortal soul. Sound familiar? As Christians we can focus so much on simply answering the question of whether there is life after death that we neglect to think much about what kind of life after death. But for Paul, and for us, that is an important question, one that is actually at the heart of the gospel. Why would the Corinthians deny a bodily, physical resurrection? There were strong philosophical elements in their society that downplayed the physical world and emphasized the priority of the spiritual world, or the world of ideas (Neo-Platonism). So the idea of living forever in a physical body was actually not only absurd to them, but a bit disgusting, a bit perverse. Paul attacks this head on. He points them to the logical conclusion: if dead bodies are not raised, then Jesus’ dead body was not raised. And if Jesus’ body was not raised, then we are still in our sin, we are not saved. Paul concludes: “If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” Why would you believe in a Jesus who can’t save you from your sin? But what does sin have to do with bodily resurrection vs. a spiritual afterlife? Think about it this way. What we believe about death, and life after death, mirrors what we believe about life. For the Corinthians, salvation and life after death meant a freedom from physical existence. So the deepest problem in the world, from the Corinthians’ perspective, is the fact that it is physical. And, in that worldview, death is not a bad thing, not our enemy, but a gateway from physical existence to spiritual existence. Death becomes, in the words of the movie The Fountain, a “pathway to awe.” But that is a completely unbiblical picture of death. Look at verses 21-22. “By a man came death…” and “For as in Adam all die…” Paul is pointing us back to the creation story. The death of humanity was not part of God’s creation order. It came afterwards, as a result of Adam’s rebellion. “Sin entered the world, and death through sin,” Paul writes in Romans 5:12. The problem is not that the world is physical – God made the world out of matter, and declared it good. The problem with the world is sin; death is our enemy, because it is a result of sin. This is why, in the first 11 verses, when Paul restates the gospel, he emphasizes two things – that Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures, and Jesus rose from the dead according the scriptures. Jesus had a physical body; Jesus kept a physical body. The victory of Jesus was not in escaping his body through death, but that he, through his death, conquered sin and death. The Corinthians, in denying the physical resurrection, revealed that they didn’t really understand the nature of the problem – sin. And because of that, they didn’t really understand the nature of God’s rescue – Jesus’ death and resurrection. What does this mean for us? We, like the Corinthians, can be unduly influenced by our culture’s understanding of death, and of life after death. Death is our enemy (vs 26). Death is not 1 Death: Our Great Enemy Resurrection Study: Week 1 simply a part of life; death is the opposite of life. Death is de-creation, dis-integration, de- composition. It is not to be embraced as natural or good. We know this intuitively, don’t we? Our first response to death is to weep, or to rage against it, because it feels wrong (much like Jesus’ response to Lazarus’ death in John 11). This leaves us in a difficult place, doesn’t it? Death is everywhere, and if we cannot reframe it as a good thing, we don’t know how to give and receive comfort in the face of death. But God’s answer to death is more satisfying, more certain, and brings more comfort. And that is what we will look at more fully next time. Questions for Discussion: Opening Discussion: 1. What happens after we die? What are the various ways our culture answers that question? 2. What is death? Is it a good thing? Is it bad? Is it just a part of life? Looking at the Bible: 3. Read 1 Corinthians 15:1-28. What is Paul arguing against? What were the Corinthians saying? How is ‘resurrection’ different than ‘going to heaven when you die?’ 4. What is Paul’s logic in vs. 12-19? Why does he argue that resurrection must be true? How is Jesus’ resurrection connected to ours? 5. Read Genesis 2:16-17; 3:17-19. How did death enter the world? What does that tell us about the nature of human death? Looking at Our Hearts 6. Read 1 Corinthians 15:26. Do you think of death as your enemy? What does it mean to say death is our enemy? How is that different from the way our society handles death? How does that change the way we talk about death? How does it change how we comfort people in the face of death? 7. How have you responded to death at various times in your life? Read John 11:17-44. What are the different ways Jesus responds to death? How do his responses help us as we encounter the reality of death? 2 .