1 Corinthians 15:35-58, Called to Anticipate

Theological Proposition/Focus: God is the God of life and hence the God of the resurrection.

Homiletical Proposition/Application: We should live in anticipation of the resurrection. Even though we cannot fully comprehend resurrection we have confidence because our Savior has gone before us and has promised that we will be transformed and resurrection is just the beginning.

Introduction:

Image: What is it you anticipate?

How I felt the night before we left for Africa.

Body

Anticipating our resurrection requires that we accept a future we cannot fully comprehend (35-44).

The resurrection naturally leads many to a foolish question, "how?" (36).

Let me start by noting how important intonation is in a statement. Imagine I tell you that I am planning to go flying today. Some of you might not know that I have a pilot's license and respond in a scoffing manner "oh yeah, how are you going to do that?" Others who know that I like to fly airplane might respond in inquiry "oh yeah, how are you planning to do that?" In verses 35-36 Paul is employing rhetorical devices. He has just argued that the resurrection is real and matters so now he deals with the scoffers he expects. those who ask "oh yeah, if the resurrection is real then explain it to me, how in the world is my dead rotten relative going to come to life again, they have been gone for 2 years!" The fool is not the one who inquires about how God will do something, the fool is the one who uses how as a way to deny that God will do something.

More carefully, the fool is the one who fails to take God into account. In fact, our NIV translation has attempted to soften the blow a little by stating "how foolish" the Greek is ἄφρων σὺ, a vocative adjective followed by the second person pronoun. You fool! The word fool here probably has Old Testament connotations. In the Old Testament the fool was the one who failed to take into account the transcendent God of the universe. Think Psalm 14:1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” Similarly, Jesus called the rich man who failed to account for God a fool in Luke 12:16-21

16 And he told them this parable: “The ground of a certain rich man yielded an abundant harvest. 17 He thought to himself, ‘What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.’

18 “Then he said, ‘This is what I’ll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store my surplus grain. 19 And I’ll say to myself, “You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.”’

20 “But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?’

What we need to understand is that questions are not bad. Questions that fail to bring God into account are bad. You are allowed to ask how, but only if you are willing to accept the answer God did it.

Image: The phrase you don't know what you don't know.

When I was in graduate school working on my PhD I remember one of my brother's friends upon finishing calculus his senior year of high school stating. something like "well that all made sense to me, I think I fully understand math, there really isn't anything else that I could learn." I just laughed. The reality is that you don't know what you don't know and I quickly realized that the more I learned the less I knew.

When it comes to resurrection we cannot comprehend because everything that we know or experience seems to have an expiration date. We are bound by the knowledge that we have gained in our experience and that experience is finite so we cannot fully comprehend resurrection.