Resurrection Life: Firstfruits and Last Adam

Our reading is from 1 Corinthians 15:19-23. If in Christ we have hope in His life only, 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 each in his own order. Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ. This is the word of the Lord. Well, good morning. Thanks for having me here. It's always a pleasure to be worshipping in another church.

You know, every church is different. We're filled with different people, and there's always things throughout the week that keep us busy. And we all have different backgrounds and beliefs, different likes and dislikes, but one thing brings us here today, and His name is Jesus, isn't it? His name is Jesus. Well, I can't remember who it was or how old I was when I was first taught this faithfully, and I'll always be indebted to them.

A very simple explanation of how we come to be saved. That is, Jesus. He transfers His righteousness to us. He gives us His righteousness. And so He purchased for us the right to eternal life, and He also pays our debt, our debt of sin to God.

And so we're saved. And it's helpful and it's easy to understand as these sorts of explanations can be. I think we'll be having trouble if we look through our Bibles to see salvation described as anything like a bank transfer. But the reality is much more lovely, more heartwarming, and more intimate than that, isn't it? Well, just as Adam prefigures Jesus, so also Adam's bride, Eve, prefigures the bride of Christ, that is us, the church. And just as Eve entered into the garden in Adam, that is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, so we enter our true home in Jesus, in Him.

Jesus doesn't transfer some external thing called righteousness into another external thing called our account. Jesus gives Himself, and He gives Himself to us. Jesus is our righteousness. Galatians 2:20, I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live. It is Christ who lives in me.

John Calvin put it this way. First, you must understand that as long as Christ remains outside of us, we are separate from Him, and all that He has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us. Only because we are in Jesus, we are made one with Him, are we saved. As we start to ask these questions and think deeper about it, we think about Jesus living the perfect life for us to pay to earn our salvation. We think of His death on the cross, which pays for all of our sins. But then we think about His resurrection.

What does Jesus actually do by rising from the dead beyond just proving who He was? What does it actually benefit us? Does Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:17 write, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. So let's answer that question this morning.

What does Jesus' resurrection actually do for us? Now before we do that, I'm going to invite you to pray with me. Let's do that. Heavenly Father, thank you for your word. Thank you that I'm here amongst fellow believers and that we are one in You.

Open our hearts, open our ears to your word. May I get out of the way so you can speak. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So our text this morning is in 1 Corinthians 15:17, 1 Corinthians 15:19-21.

Sorry. Now I'm a bit of an old school type preacher. I'm sorry. I don't have any text on the screen. I grew up listening to my dad preach, and I think I was traumatised one day when he asked me to change the overhead transparencies, and I dropped them in the middle of the sermon, and so I haven't gone modern yet.

So for 1 Corinthians 15:17, if you have a Bible with you or a Bible app, I invite you to turn with me there. Now we're going to break up this sermon into three parts. The first part is we're going to have a basic answer to that question, what does Jesus' resurrection actually do? That's the bit that you can take home and remember on the way home in the car. And after that, we're going to do part two, which is we're going to go deeper into the text.

We're going to see what text that Jesus, that Paul is drawing from in the Old and New Testaments. So that's part two, a deeper look at the text. And then number three, we're going to see how Jesus' resurrection affects our lives today. Okay. So in the text, 1 Corinthians 15, verse 19, and we'll look at it text by text.

If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. This life only. What is he talking about? Well, he's talking about people in the church in Corinth who think that this life is all there is. And it may seem weird to you that there are people going to church calling themselves Christians that have the idea that this life is all there is.

There's no afterlife, no resurrection. Now before we go further, a little bit of background context will help us. So the prophet Daniel, in Daniel chapter 9, I'm just going to breeze through this so we have a better understanding. The prophet Daniel, in Daniel chapter 9, he and the people of God are under the control of Babylon. They don't have possession of the promised land.

And so Daniel, he prays to God. God, remember your promise. You promised us we would have the promised land, a land of peace and blessing. And so God responds to Daniel through the angel, and He says to Daniel, Daniel, in 70 times 70, 70 weeks of 7 years—He says, which the Jews understand to mean 490—after this period of time, someone's going to come, the Messiah, the anointed one, the Christ. He's going to come, and He's going to save His people. You're going to have your land, and you're going to be forgiven.

Well, it just happens that 400-and-something years after that time of Daniel, we find our time smack dab in the time of Jesus. And the Jews were, oh, someone's going to come save us now, but not from the Babylonians, from the Romans. And so they were waiting for someone to gather up all the boys and fight the Roman army, and some of them did that. And they found out the hard way that the Roman army knows how to put up a good fight, and that's not how God was going to do it anyway. But the point is, they were looking for an earthly saviour, someone to give them a nice place to live and they can do their own thing here on earth.

And Paul says, no. That's not what it is. That's not what's going to happen. And he says elsewhere in the text, he says, why are we putting up with all this persecution? Why am I going fighting wild beasts in Ephesus if this life is all there is?

Why am I going through all that trouble? He says, no. If this life is all there is, then there's no point to that. He says, let us eat and drink, and tomorrow we die. But, of course, that's not what Jesus came to do, just to save us, give us a little bit of happiness here.

So moving on to the next verse, in verse 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Okay. What does that mean? Firstfruits.

Jesus was raised as firstfruits. Well, in the Jewish understanding, firstfruits is that first portion of the harvest, and it points to the rest of the harvest. It's saying that the rest of the harvest is going to happen. It's the guarantee of it. And so when Paul says Jesus' resurrection is the firstfruits, he's saying that Jesus' resurrection points to and is the guarantee for our resurrection.

Now let's take the next few verses, a couple of verses. Listen to the words "by" and "in". Verse 21 and 22. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. Verse 22.

For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. What is he saying there? It's not just that Jesus was the first one who was resurrected and then later on the rest of us. Jesus' resurrection is the basis, it's the source, it's the cause of our resurrection. And he makes a comparison with Adam. Just as by what Adam did through his sin, we've all been plunged into death and sin.

Likewise, by Jesus' resurrection and by what He's done on the cross for us, we are brought into the new resurrection life. Jesus is the source. He's the cause of it. And in verse 23, but each in his own turn, Christ the firstfruits, then at His coming, those who belong to Him. So that's the basic understanding of the text. And if you can understand and remember that, you're doing well.

So let's go into that second part of the sermon now, the deeper biblical background. Paul, he tells a few things there, doesn't he? Firstfruits and Adam, and what is he drawing from? Is he just pulling it out of his hat? Well, in verse 4, he says in verse 4 in chapter 15 that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.

He's saying that these things are according to the scriptures. What scriptures is he talking about then? Well, some of you may remember that Jesus Himself talks about the sign of Jonah, that just as Jonah was in the belly of the fish and he was spat out alive on the third day, so also Jesus, on the third day, He would rise again. Others of you may know about Hosea chapter 6, verse 2, which reads, and after two days He will revive us. On the third day He will restore us that we may live in His presence.

So there are a couple of verses, but he says a bit more, doesn't he? He says things about firstfruits. So let's go back to that idea of firstfruits. Why does he think that has any relevance? Well, it's interesting that Jesus was resurrected on, in the Jewish calendar, on the sixteenth of Nisan, which just happens to be, coincidentally, the date when the Jews would offer their firstfruit offerings to God.

And we read about that in Leviticus 23. And when we go back there and we look about what all that means, we see there that God says, when you enter the promised land, on the Sunday after you enter into it, I want you to offer your firstfruits and wave it near, and that will be a sign that you are accepted in my sight. So what Paul is saying there is that, hang on, so Jesus was resurrected on the day of the firstfruit offering. So hang on. So we're sort of in the promised land now in a sense.

Jesus has fulfilled that promise that we spoke about earlier in Daniel chapter 9 about entering the promised land by His resurrection. And we are accepted in God's sight. And that points to the rest of the harvest when we will all be raised from the dead. And that's a lot of information in one verse, but Paul is just warming up. Okay.

Next verse, verse 20. But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. Verse 21, 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. Why is he talking about Adam now?

Well, as Christians, we know that Adam and the garden are very significant in the Bible. The beginning of our human relationship with God begins in the garden with Adam and Eve. Then at the end of the Bible, at the other end of the Bible, in Revelations, we see Jesus there in the garden. Just as Adam was given dominion over the animals, Jesus has dominion over all of creation. Jesus was raised from the dead in the garden, the Garden of Gethsemane.

He's even mistaken for a gardener by Mary Magdalene. Not also that, but people who prefigured Jesus in the Old Testament were talked about in ways that pointed back to Adam. For example, Noah. Just as Adam was given a home through a world covered in water, so also Noah was given a world through a world covered in water. Sorry. And, yeah, so we see, and also in 1 Kings chapter 16, we read these words about Jehu, king of Israel.

I lifted you up from the dust and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. I'll repeat that. I lifted you up from the dust, talking about the king of Israel, Jehu, and appointed you ruler over my people Israel. In 1 Samuel chapter 2, and notice the idea of resurrection in the background. He says, the Lord brings death and He makes alive.

He brings down to the grave and He raises up. The Lord sends poverty and wealth, and He humbles and He exalts. He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them with princes and has them inherit a throne of honour. Now whereas Jehu and other Jewish kings and rulers, they weren't literally taken from the dust.

Well, that's exactly how Adam was described, isn't it? When God made him. So this idea of kings and rulers being made, being taken from the dust, that's pointing back to Adam. Another one is in Psalm chapter 8. And I want you, as we go through this text, I want you to think of the words "under his feet" because that's an easy one to remember as we go back into the New Testament and see the connection.

So Psalm 8, from verse 4. What is man, what is man that you are mindful of him? And the son of man, or Adam in Hebrew, that you care for him. You have made him a little lower than the angels, and you crowned him with glory and honour. You made him ruler over the works of your hands. You put everything under his feet.

All flocks and herds and the animals of the wild, the birds in the sky, the fish in the sea, all that swim in the paths of the seas. So remember that when we come into Ephesians chapter 1, talking about Jesus, Paul says, now that power is the same as the mighty strength He exerted when He raised Christ from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly realms. Far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age, but also in the one to come. And God placed all things under His feet and appointed Him to be head over everything for the church. Now whereas Adam is told that he's from the dust, and then when he dies, he'll return to the dust.

In that sense, Jesus was raised from the dust of death. He was raised, and He was given dominion and power, seated at the right hand of God and given authority over the new creation. So I'll leave that question in the back of your mind as we continue. If Jesus wasn't raised from the dead, how do you think he'd be the new Adam? No.

If Jesus remained dead, or if He had never died, He wouldn't have passed from that mortal state of death to enter into immortality. He would still belong to the perishable world rather than the imperishable. Further down, in verses 45 to 50, we read these words talking about two different kinds of humanity. Thus it is written, the first man Adam became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, then the spiritual.

The first man was of the earth, the man of the dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those of the dust. And just as is the man of heaven, so also are those of heaven. If you want to be of that heavenly humanity, you need a new Adam, not the old one.

We need a new Adam, and His name is Jesus. That's why we need Jesus to be raised from the dead. The one who passed from death and entered into the new creation. By being raised from the dead, and by our being in Him, we remember, we also have been brought into the new creation. Now some of you may remember this verse from Sunday school. 2 Corinthians 5:17, if any man is in Christ, he is a new creation.

The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come. Okay. So now I hope we have a better understanding of why Jesus had to be raised from the dead for us. But what does that mean for us today? What does it mean beyond the fact that, okay, now I know that one day I'm going to be raised from the dead?

It's good. It's nice to know that. What does it mean for how we live when we do things, when we make decisions? So let's answer that question. If we don't understand the resurrection carefully, my brothers and sisters, we will get this one wrong.

We will be thinking, okay, because Jesus' work is sufficient for us, He's our new Adam, then how we live doesn't really matter because it's already sort of guaranteed for us anyway. But why does Paul say the opposite of that then? What does he say in Philippians chapter 3? I consider, and he talks about all his works, all his good works, I consider all of them garbage, all my good works garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. Let's pause there.

So, yeah, Paul is saying, yep, righteousness by faith, not by works of the law. Okay. We're all on board with you, Paul. Continue. What does he say next?

I want to know Christ. Yes. To know the power of His resurrection, to know the power of His resurrection and participation in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead. Hang on. Wait.

What does the power of Jesus' resurrection and becoming like Him in His death have to do with attaining our resurrection from the dead? If we have to participate in Jesus' sufferings, as he says, doesn't that mean that Jesus' resurrection and what He's done is not powerful? That it isn't enough? Are we missing something here? Or has Paul been hit in the head by a few too many rocks?

No. Why does Paul elsewhere say that the one who does not work but believes in a God who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness. Then on the other hand, a few chapters later, in Romans chapter 8, he says, oh, if we walk according to the flesh, we will die, but if we walk according to the spirit, we will live. Hang on. Is it faith or is it walking according to the spirit?

What does he say in Galatians? That we are justified not by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus. And then a couple of chapters later in Galatians, he says, if you sow to please your flesh, you'll reap eternal destruction. But if you sow to please the spirit, you'll reap eternal life. What is it, Paul?

Is it faith or is it sowing to please the spirit? Is it faith or is it walking by the spirit? So how do we resolve this? What are we missing? And let me first say, before we move on, that if you're having trouble reconciling these two things, these two biblical facts, well, perhaps the problem is you're limiting Jesus' power and what He has done for us.

The answer revolves around seeing that the power of Jesus' death and resurrection isn't limited to what we are in Jesus and what He did 2000 years ago, but reaches beyond that to what Christ does in us. And before, I want to get this perfectly clear, before we move on, it is still the work of Jesus. It is not us. It is Jesus' work. It is all of Him. Let's remember that as we move on.

A little help is provided by looking ahead in the second epistle of the Corinthians series, appropriately called 2 Corinthians. First of all, noting that in 1 Corinthians, Jesus is said to be a life-giving spirit in 1 Corinthians 15:45, a life-giving spirit. He's raised a life-giving spirit. In 2 Corinthians 5, talking about the resurrection, Paul says, now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose, the resurrection, is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. The spirit of the risen Christ, a life-giving spirit, guarantees what it is that is to come. It is not on our backs.

It is the power of Christ's Spirit in us, which He has given us. Okay? This is why Paul can say with certainty. He can speak of our future resurrection as though it's already a reality. He says in verses 16 and 17 of 2 Corinthians 5, so from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view.

Though we once regarded Christ in that way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone. The new is here. The nature of Christian living, my brothers and sisters, the nature of Christian living. We read, Paul describes as a life of Jesus in us, His resurrection life, and then He renews us day by day.

It is the power of Jesus, the power of His Spirit working in us. 2 Corinthians 4, Paul describes this in these words, verse 11. And notice again, he talks about resurrection again. So for we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that His life, His resurrection life, may also be revealed in our mortal body. Okay?

I'll just repeat that. For we who are alive are always being given over to death. We're always suffering, so that His life, His life, Jesus' life, His resurrection life, may be revealed in our mortal body. Therefore, we do not lose heart.

Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. The resurrection life of Jesus is achieving for us an eternal glory by renewing us day by day, and it has been guaranteed and is forgiven to us by His Spirit. This is the power of Jesus' resurrection in our lives today. It is His Spirit, which He has given to us, which accomplishes these things, Him working in us because He was raised a life-giving spirit.

Now Jesus says in Mark 8, whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. Must take up their cross and follow me. Whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and the gospel will save it. My brothers and sisters, the salvation which we have been given by Christ, and which He merited completely for us, which we did nothing to earn and we never will, is free, but it's not cheap. If we would be His disciples, Jesus bids us to come and to die.

And as sin operated through Adam to bring about our spiritual death, so too does the resurrection power of Jesus in and through us, bringing to completion our new life in Him. So let's summarise then how Christ's resurrection resolves these issues. Does our weakness give us cause for doubt? Whenever we sin, there is, oh, am I a real Christian then? Do I really have faith, or am I just pretending?

If your faith is in yourself, if you're always looking to your own weakness, then you're thinking of something unreliable. You're hanging your hat on something unreliable, your own power. Don't look to yourself. You can't save yourself, and you can't give yourself the confidence to think that you will be saved.

Look to Jesus. Have your faith in Him, in His promises, what He has already done, and what He says He is continuing to do. Trust in Him, our firstfruits and our last Adam, and not in ourselves. Have we remembered that Christ is a pioneer of our faith and then we've forgotten that He's also the one the perfecter of it? Have we had faith in what He has done for us, but we've neglected what He continues to do by that same power in us today.

Perhaps we've given up. Perhaps we're just going through the motions and become a bit lukewarm. The fervor that once burned bright in our hearts years ago, and every now and then, most often than not, has died down. Well, I want to tell you today that those of us who are unsure about their own salvation, as can happen, look to Jesus, your assurance, who has given you His Spirit, guaranteeing your resurrection life. This life is not all there is.

All those things which annoy us and which distract us, which make us angry when we watch the news, this life is not all there is. There's something better coming. I want to tell you today that if you're just holding on to your faith and trusting in His promises, if you try and try and try really hard to get over your sins and you stop them, you're going to fail because it's not about trying really hard. We can't save ourselves, and we can't do the work that is needed to overcome and be better people. We need Jesus to do that for us, and we need to rest in Him.

We need to cling onto His promises. We need to be so focused on Him and His beauty and what He has done for us, that the things of the world, they just fall away, because we are so in love with Jesus. By faith, look to Jesus and cast yourself upon Him for this hour and for every minute that follows, as we look forward to His return. Well, some of us, some may ask us, why all the trouble? Why suffer for Jesus?

Why miss out on half the pleasures of life? But then we may well answer, why does anyone give up one thing for a better thing? Why does someone in love make sacrifices to be with the one they love? We want Jesus. We want Him and His victory over death and His forever kingdom.

Because Jesus died and He rose again. Because death isn't just the end of this life, but the beginning of a better one that doesn't know fear or sadness or regret or mistakes or the tears of losing people you love, but in place of those things, unending joy to which nothing in this world can compare. Now you could offer us this world and everything in it, but by His grace, by His Spirit, for those who have come to know Him, we will choose Jesus every single time. Because knowing who we are and what we are as sin-ridden sons and daughters of Adam, Jesus came and He loved us to death. And He rose from the grave for us to be with Him and changed from glory to glory. That is, after all, why we are here, isn't it?

Because of Jesus. And so forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, let's press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called us heavenwards in Christ Jesus. Our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly await a saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so they will be like His glorious body. Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith.

For the joy set before Him, He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Therefore, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. That is the completion of the salvation in which we now stand by faith alone. For it is God who works in you to will and to act for His good purpose. And being confident of this, being confident of this, brothers and sisters, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.

Let's pray. Eternal Father, you sent your Son to be our Saviour and to save us to the uttermost. We give you thanks and praise that in His name and by His righteousness, we are accepted into your presence by your grace through faith in Him. Grant us a sure and confident faith that by the power of His resurrection, through your Spirit, He will infallibly give us resurrection life. Encourage us, discipline us, make us zealous in the cause of service to you. To you who are able to keep us from falling and present us faultless before the presence of His coming.

With exceeding joy, our only wise God and Saviour, be glory and majesty, dominion and power both now and forever. Amen.