Resurrection Life—What Is It Like?: The Future Effect Upon the Present

Introduction

If we have hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:19)

Much has been made of Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15:19. It’s a statement originally made to a group of people that had begun to doubt and even deny that there is a resurrection from the dead. Paul pointedly reminds them of how that would be a pitiable existence.

And the force of everything Paul says to the Corinthian people points them to the glorious transformation that will take place in the future—the resurrection from the dead. The thrust of the passage¹ is that there is a future hope. And that is, of course, wonderful news. That is the gospel.

But there’s something in this statement that we can take for granted—something we can gloss over. It’s worth going back and revisiting the argument. It’s not a novel thought or something that isn’t addressed elsewhere in Scripture—it is addressed, but in different words. But I would like for you to consider it within this contrast Paul has presented of present life/future life.

If there is a future resurrection from the dead, then Paul’s implication is that your present life is something “not pitiable.” Here is where I want you to shift your thinking back to the present: While we have more to consider and talk about regarding that life in the future, if we are to attain to our future calling in the fullest sense, we must attend to life in the present.

If we are to attain to our future calling in the fullest sense, we must attend to life in the present.

So as we continue this series on resurrection life—asking What’s it like? and What does it look like?—we’ll ask this question: How does resurrection affect our life in the present?

Perhaps this is the perfect time for such reflection as we end one year and anticipate the next. It is the time of year when we ask whether our current state of living is matching up with our hopes for our present living. We assess what we can change. We look forward to new starts, to improving upon some gains, to leaving some things behind.

Let me guide you in the thought process of how it is that our future is the fuel for living well now, and how this most important theology—the theology of the resurrection of the dead—fittingly undergirds all applications for Christian living.

All of our applications for Christian living can be viewed in light of the resurrection from the dead.

Principle #1: Guarantees Give Hope

I said in my last sermon that the gift of the Holy Spirit, is, to us, a guarantee, a downpayment, a promise of a future pledge that more is on the way.² And so we established this first principle as to how our future resurrection affects life in the present: Guarantees give us hope.

Paul writes to the Ephesians that the Holy Spirit of promise is the guarantee of our inheritance until we see the redemption of the purchased possession. We have been purchased; there is a downpayment, and we’re just waiting on the full realization of the pledge.

[The Holy Spirit of promise] … is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God’s own possession, to the praise of His glory. (Ephesians 1:14)

Peter writes that “according to His [God’s] great mercy” we are “born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). Guarantees give hope.

Principle #2: Hope Fuels Purpose

I now want to introduce a second principle—which builds upon the first—regarding how the resurrection affects our present life. The second principle is that hope fuels purpose.

We’ll do so first through a verse in the book of Romans. We don’t usually think of Romans as a book of hope but as a book of (heavy) theology. And certainly it does teach about concepts like justification and sanctification, and about the church and Israel (and the difference between them). But if you were to trace the word “hope” through this letter, you would discover multiple verses where Paul ties hope to the Holy Spirit. In chapter 5, he says this:

Hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Romans 5:5)

Christian hope is not without purpose. It doesn’t lead to disappointment. It doesn’t lead to disappointment in the general sense of our universal experience as believers, and it doesn’t disappoint in your specific calling as a disciple of Christ.

That doesn’t mean life is without disappointment or, rather, disappointments (plural).

How can we say this? We’ve all had our hopes disappointed. Our hopes have been disappointed in small things. Maybe we don’t get what we hoped for at Christmas. And our hopes have been disappointed in larger things—maybe the relationship that we hoped in didn’t last, or the job that we thought was secure ended.

So many things that we hope for do end in disappointment in this life. So what does it mean that hope doesn’t disappoint? It means that we, as believers, don’t encounter purposeless disappointment. Why? Scripture gives us the reason: “because,” as Romans 5:5 says, “the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.” So, as believers, we encounter disappointment with the love of God poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. That is not purposeless disappointment.

Let’s expound on this.

We, as believers, don’t encounter purposeless disappointment.

Our Purpose: Privileged, Profuse, and Personal

This purpose related to the Holy Spirit in your heart is one of high privilege. We live in a privileged time. I’m not talking materially or in terms of technological advancement. I mean we live in a privileged time because the Holy Spirit has been poured out.

This concept of the Holy Spirit being poured out is a motif of the Old Testament prophets. The Holy Spirit being poured out was a longing of Israel.

It will come about after this
That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind;
And your sons and daughters will prophesy,
Your old men will dream dreams,
Your young men will see visions.

Even on the male and female servants
I will pour out My Spirit in those days. (Joel 2:28–29)

At the time of writing, “those days” were future days longed for. We have now begun to see at least the beginning of those days, because the Spirit has now been poured out upon us. So we live in privileged times.

This purpose is not only a privilege but it’s profuse. It’s not just a drop of the Holy Spirit that we have received. The Spirit is poured out.

This purpose is also personal. The Holy Spirit is not described as being poured out merely upon an institution. He’s not given to the church as an institution, to then be given out at the discretion of those who lead the church. No, His Spirit is poured out upon people—into individual hearts.

We see this personal aspect in Joel too; the passage above says the Spirit will be poured out on:

Sons and daughters
Old and young
Male and female
Servant and free

He is poured out upon people. And He is poured out not just upon people in general but in your heart. The Holy Spirit is your guarantee of resurrection.

Principle #3: Purpose Gives Perspective & Calls Us to Action

We’ve seen that guarantees give hope, and hope gives purpose. Principle #3 is that purpose gives perspective and calls us to action.

As a reminder, the source of these things is the Spirit of God. It is He who gives the guarantee, the hope, and the purpose. And it’s He who thus informs your perspective and empowers your action.

In Romans 8, Paul writes:

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,³ He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

So then, brethren,⁴ we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh—for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. (Romans 8:11–13)

As we read through these and other verses in Romans, consider how Paul speaks to both perspective and action. In the verses above, we see the following:

Perspective: My obligation is governed by purpose. The indwelling of the Spirit tells me that my purpose is living—specifically, living in a manner that the Spirit triumphs over flesh.

Action: As a result of this perspective, we’re to put to death the deeds of the body. What are those deeds? We know what they are; everyone does. We like a list of things we shouldn’t do, because then we know just how close we can get to those things without actually violating them. But Paul doesn’t give a list. Instead, he gives some categories in another letter: “immorality, impurity, lust, evil desire, greed” (Colossians 3:5).

How do I put such deeds of the body to death? There’s a simple answer (simple as in singular—the one thing you can do that guarantees success): Let the Spirit lead. This answer comes from a little later in Romans 8:

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God. (Romans 8:14–16)

Again, look for the perspective and action in this passage:

Perspective: I am a child of God; therefore, I have no need to fear. God confirms this perspective in that I, as a child of God, experience the same life as His child Jesus. And as we’ll see, that life includes suffering.

Action: I cry out to God as my Father. (What a privilege!)

Romans 8 goes on to say this:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. (Romans 8:18)⁵

Again, we see perspective and action:

Perspective: I live this life in light of the next life; I live today in light of tomorrow; I live the present in light of the future.

Action: I suffer. What do I suffer? I suffer … whatever!

But we suffer with perspective, as the next verses in Romans 8 reveal:

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now. (Romans 8:19–22)

Perspective: You are part of creation subjected to suffering, but you are the high point of creation, destined for glory.

Further perspective on this suffering: Our suffering, like the pains of childbirth, is temporary. Labor pains have an end, a goal, but they are also ongoing and expected and painful. Ask any woman who has experienced childbirth, she will tell you a child is not born in an instant.

Likewise, our suffering is temporary but ongoing, and to be expected. As we suffer with this perspective, here’s the result:

Not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)

Further action: Wait eagerly. Rest in God, just as we rest in Him alone for our salvation.

What a strange lot we are to suffer and wait eagerly! But we do so because of our coming adoption—something that we’re waiting to be fully realized, something where we’ll have full rights as His children.⁶

Paul closes this section of Romans 8 with a word on purpose, perspective, and action:

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. (Romans 8:24–25)

What’s our purpose? The hope of salvation.

What’s our perspective? The constant reminder that the nature of hope is invisible, unseen, unrealized.

What’s our action? Eager anticipation—perseverance in eager anticipation. Wait, and do it again. Wait, but wait worthily. Wait, but wait as one walking a road to glory.

Conclusion: An Oracles Convergence

We’ve been in a series on the resurrection for 11 sermons now, but it’s part of a larger series on the elementary principles of the oracles of God based on Hebrews 5:12–6:2. All of these oracles converge.

As we’ve been talking about hope, Paul says the only reason there’s hope is because of an unseen element of life. This should make us think of oracle #2: faith toward God. The only way faith is possible is if there is some unseen element; when we live in faith, we’re living with the confidence that our faith, our hope, will one day be realized.

In our last subseries, we studied baptisms (oracle #4). That too connects with resurrection from the dead. We’ll see this clearly in Romans 6, but first let me summarize: Paul is going to say that our example is Christ, who died in connection with sin; but He has since been raised from the dead to new life—a new life that He lives to God. And he’s going to make this argument: Since we have been baptized into Christ (that is, we identify with Christ in all ways possible),⁷ we, too, should die to sin and live our new lives—lives that do not have to include sinning—in honor and gratitude to God. Our connection with Christ’s resurrection sets us free to live according to God’s righteousness.

Here are Paul’s actual words, in Romans 6:

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus. (Romans 6:4–11)

That’s our perspective. Now, our action:

Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves to God as those alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness to God. (Romans 6:12–13)

Our action is to not let sin reign in our mortal bodies.

Romans 6:11 offers these perspective and action combined: Consider yourselves dead to sin. And this verse captures how our resurrection life in the future affects life in the present.

There’s a play on words here. We are taught to “turn the tables” on death. Sin once held the power of death over us. Now, we hold the power of death over sin because we can consider ourselves dead to sin, but alive to God.

The Spirit is our guarantee of hope. This hope gives purpose. This purpose gives perspective and action.

As you close out the year of 2024, I encourage you to spend time reflecting upon your perspective; then determine what actions you will take as a result. Line them up—perspective with action—in light of the life to come. And it is coming. That’s the promise to us all.

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