Fuzzy Thinking
Time For A Truth Check

We have been blessed by God to live in one of the greatest places on earth. We have so many blessings, that we most often take them for granted. One of the reasons why we have such an immigration problem is that people want to live in America. It is the land of opportunity. For all its flaws, and it has many, it is still the place people will risk of their lives to come to its shores.

One of the problems that we face in living in America, those of us who were born here, is the problem of feeling entitled to all these blessings. Our culture has produced a very benefits oriented people. We want to know, "What’s in it for me?" What’s the payoff? What have you done for me lately? This is what you call being self centered. This is the essence of being selfish.

Of course, this can very easily extend to Christians as well. In fact, it can color the reason why we serve God. For some Christians, they need a reason to serve God besides the obvious fact that he is God. That should be reason enough for anyone with half a brain, but alas, that threshold must not be met by some Christians. So they want more.

The truth is that there are many benefits we receive as we serve the Lord. The Bible is filled with promises that are all in the affirmative for God’s people. There are thousands of them. And the greatest of them is the gift of eternal life. This is why Jesus came and died for our sins.

Christ’s resurrection from the dead is key to this. It proved he is what he said he was. It meant that his life was sufficient to satisfy the divine justice of God and secure our forgiveness. And it also meant that we would experience a bodily resurrection as well. The Bible teaches that one day Jesus will return and we will rise from the dead, our spirits reunited with a new spiritual body.

But if the resurrection does not extend to us, then we have no hope for salvation, for ourselves and our loved ones, no incentive to struggle and sacrifice for God, and may as well indulge in every sinful pleasure. You see, we must not be deceived. What we believe impacts how we behave. On this issue we must think straight, stop sinning, and get to know God more intimately, because one day we will be raised too.

So let me ask a question. What practical purpose does the hope and fact of our own resurrection give to us now? Christ rose. We will rise. So what?

The truth about the resurrection is what gives us the incentive to live our lives with dedication and devotion. It is what makes it worth it. It is what drives us to be selfless instead of selfish. The hope of our resurrection gives us the incentive to stop sinning and get to know God–– to think right and live right.

In our text, Paul gives the Corinthians a quick check up concerning the importance of the resurrection–– their resurrection in particular. We need to see the importance of the hope of a future bodily resurrection for us. We need the encouragement it brings to give ourselves to the task of coming to know God and be fully devoted followers of his.

So let’s look at some of the reasons the resurrection gives us to follow the Lord. The truth of our resurrection gives us...

When I say that the resurrection gives us a reason to serve Christ, I point you to one of the most difficult verses of Scripture in the Bible. Someone counted at least 40 different interpretations of this Scripture. One thing is for sure, there is no other mention of it in the Scriptures, nor is there any first-century extra-Biblical history concerning this practice.

Another important point to note here is that Paul is not commending the practice, only mentioning it. Many people assume that it was some kind of vicarious or proxy baptism for Christians who had died before they had the opportunity to be baptized. If that were the case, it had no Biblical precedent and fell outside the clear teaching of Scripture. We do know that it was taught by an ancient Gnostic heretic named Marcion and is practiced today by the Mormon Church.

But the Bible nowhere teaches that baptism is necessary for salvation. Baptism is an act of obedience by those who have received Christ. Living persons are not saved by baptism and so dead people certainly cannot be. The Bible teaches, "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—not by works, so that no one can boast." (Eph. 2:8-9, NIV) No human work, even a religious one, is sufficient to save.

One interesting theory is that the word translated for in Greek is huper, which has about a dozen or more meanings including not only "for," but also "on behalf of," "in reference to," "instead of," and "because of." The way a word is translated depends upon how it is used in the context of the sentence. There is a suggestion that "because of" could be an appropriate rendering here. In this reasoning, Paul may have been saying that because of the example of the faithful believers who had died, people were being saved and baptized as a sign of that salvation. It is interesting but not conclusive. In fact, whether people were engaging in an unbiblical practice or not is not the point of his argument.

The point of the argument is that if there is no resurrection baptism of any kind is absurd. Christian baptism is an outward symbol of an inward commitment to Jesus Christ. It is the public profession of our faith. By it we identify ourselves with Jesus Christ as those who have surrendered to serve him. So Paul is simply saying that what they are doing is ridiculous if there is no resurrection.

The truth of our resurrection gives us a reason to serve Christ. Death is not all there is. We have a salvation that is not merely "pie-in-the-sky in the sweet-by-and-by" but is a real hope of a real resurrection. So often Christian preaching reduces our full salvation to our spiritually going to be with Jesus when we die. Now it is true, as the Scripture says, that to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord (1 Cor. 5:8), but that is not where it ends. There will be a new heaven and a new earth and we will have new bodies fit for eternity. This is an essential part of our full salvation. It is part of the future that we hope for and long for. To consider the great adventure that we’ll begin when Jesus returns to consummate all of God’s divine purposes is exciting. Don’t let anyone rob you of that hope.

The truth of our resurrection gives us a reason to serve Christ and also gives us a reason to sacrifice for his work. Why should we sacrifice and endure hardship if there is no resurrection? It is all for nothing.

Paul told them that he die[d] every day. Speaking of himself and the other apostles, the question was, "Why do we endanger ourselves every hour?" The obvious answer was that Paul was not doing it for what he could get out of it in this life. No, he had an eternal perspective in mind when he went through those tough times for cause of Christ.

No one wants to suffer for suffering’s sake. It is a crazy thing to do. But we do not suffer hardship for no reason. We suffer for the cause of Christ. We suffer to further the work of Christ. But if there is no resurrection, there is no purpose that will last beyond this life, and our suffering is in vain. And it might be pointed out that very few of us have really suffered very much for the cause of Christ.

Paul says that he fought wild beasts in Ephesus. There is no Biblical record of this, although it could have happened literally. Others think that he was speaking metaphorically of the wild crowd in Ephesus that the silversmith Demetrius incited against him (Acts 19:23-24). Whatever the case, if he did it for merely human reasons, he had gained nothing. Without the resurrection, this life is all there is, so, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die." In other words, if we only go around once in this life, we need to grab for all the gusto we can get, as the once popular beer commercial exhorted us. And it’s true, if you only go around once. But if there is a resurrection, this life is not all there is.

As Christians, we are giving our lives for a cause higher and bigger than ourselves. We are not living for short term gain. We are living to be a part of the rule and reign of Christ for all eternity.

The truth of our resurrection gives us a reason to serve Christ, a reason to sacrifice for his work, and also a reason to stop sinning.

The point of this interlude in Paul’s overall teaching concerning the resurrection was to correct their fuzzy thinking about the resurrection and its practical implications concerning their lives. It was time for a truth check. Sometimes it’s time for a checkup from the neck up, so to speak.

It is so easy to be misled. That is why Paul exhorts us not to be. "Do not be misled," he says. Then he quotes a saying they have probably heard before: "Bad company corrupts good character." It is attributed to Menander’s play Thaïs, and the Corinthians knew its meaning–– that to live among people with no regard of the future will do irreparable damage to good moral habits. And it is true today just as it was true then.

Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning is the logical next exhortation after all he has said. "Look at what you’re doing. Consider the effect it is having on your life. It is the leading you into sin. Stop it!"

Undoubtedly, these people of bad company were the ones propagating this erroneous teaching that there was no resurrection of the people God. And they were buying into it. Make no mistake, the people you hang with, will influence the way you think. And what you believe will determine how you behave.

The reason they were living the way they were, and that Paul had to exhort them to stop sinning, was because their thinking had been perverted concerning the resurrection. In fact, they had become ignorant of God. It is knowing the truth about God that sets us free. To be ignorant of God means that they were not taking the time to study and learn more about who he is and how he runs his universe. Paul called it a shame that they were in this position. You expected this of unbelievers, but not of those who followed Christ. And it is a shame when Christians do not take the time to learn the stuff they need to know. That’s what I call theology–– it’s the stuff you need to know–– the stuff about God.

Living your life from a resurrection perspective will make a difference in how you live. It will give you a powerful purpose, a tremendous incentive to be all you can be for Jesus, because you know that this life is merely a training ground. This is just a dress rehearsal, and a short one at that, for the real thing that will last forever.

Copyright © 2004 J. David Hoke. This data file is the sole property of the copyright holder and may be copied only in its entirety for circulation freely without charge. All copies of this data file must contain the above copyright notice.

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