Paul, called to be an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God, and Sosthenes, our brother, (2) To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all who in every place call on the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours. (3) Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (4) I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus, (5) that you were enriched in everything by Him in all utterance and all knowledge, (6) even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you, (7) so that you come short in no gift, eagerly waiting for the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ, (8) who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (9) God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

The first letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul who spent 18 months in that hedonistic city preaching the gospel. He makes it clear that the Christian Corinthians were not lacking in any spiritual gifts – they had plenty of ability but needed discipline and humility to remain blameless in Christ when the day of the Lord arrives. In our verses today Paul expresses gratitude and affection for the faithful in Corinth but this introduction is followed by a corrective and generally critical letter which explains why the church in Corinth was referred to as the church of God; it was His church and needed to be holy.

The Corinthians were saints by divine calling but were not saintly in their conduct as this epistle makes clear. Paul taught by God’s sustaining power Christians will someday stand free before the Lord guiltless because God has imputed the guilt of our sins to Christ Jesus. Paul’s confidence did not rest on the Corinthians ability to persevere but rested on God’s promise to preserve them; to complete the work begun in them. Paul’s confidence in God as expressed here enabled him to deal with the problems in the Corinthian church optimistically and realistically – but it was a painful process.

God is faithful by whom we are called. Paul knew the steadfastness and perseverance of believers was founded on God’s promise – BECAUSE they were called. ‘Whom He calls He also justifies and whom He justifies He also glorifies’. Paul wanted the Corinthians to become who they already were.

But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (21) For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. (22) For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. (23) But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. (25) Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. (25) For He must reign till He has out all enemies under His feet. (26) The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. (28) Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.

The first letter to the Corinthians was written by the apostle Paul. Chapter 15 which we study today deal with the bodily resurrection of the faithful and to understand our verses they must be seen in context. The Corinthians were not denying the resurrection of Christ but some were denying the resurrection of their own bodies. Paul was insisting that if they denied the resurrection of faithful men, they were denying the resurrection of Christ and thereby emptying the Christian message. There were two opinions in the Jewish world of life after death; one group denied any life after death at all and for another group there was hope of spiritual life after death. The non-Jews (or the Greeks) had a fear of death and had an acceptance of the immortality of the soul but they had no thought of resurrected body; they considered the body a tomb. In chapter 15 Paul writes of the doctrine of bodily resurrection based on Christ’s proven historical resurrection – he cites the empty tomb with no body ever produced; the appearance of the risen Christ to many witnesses most of whom were still alive at the time of writing this letter; the appearance of the risen Christ to Paul himself – and the promise of scripture.
Every Jew recognized the ritual of offering the first fruits of the harvest to God as these were the promise of the harvest to come. Paul is saying here that the risen Christ is the promise that the dead will follow the established risen Christ. This world will have an end – so also government, magistratry and laws, and distinction of rank and everything of superiorities. At that last day Christ will subdue all His enemies. Death is the last enemy and came into this world when Adam sinned.

But Christ is risen and the faithful carry the Spirit of God with them; Death will wound but not kill. Paul’s preaching was not in vain; faith is not in vain; the faithful are not in their sins; the dead in Christ have not perished. The death which flowed from Adam is far more than physical death and Christ is the cause of spiritual and future physical life. Death shall reign until the resurrection of our bodies.

But concerning the times and the seasons, brethren, you have no need that I should write to you. (2) For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. (3) For when they say ”Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape. (4) But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this Day should overtake you as a thief. (5) You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of darkness. (6) Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober

In the first letter to the Thessalonians the apostle Paul continues with the major underlying theme of this letter: the second coming of Christ which is addressed in every chapter of the letter. The subject of the Lord’s return is common in the New Testament with allusions to it, directly or indirectly, found in 1 out of every 20 New Testament verses. In 1 Thessalonians the Day of the Lord is presented as absolutely certain; this is an Old Testament phrase which has been carried over to the New Testament and it refers to the fact that one day God will intervene in history for judgment on His enemies or deliverance for His people. The concept of the final day is repeated so frequently in Scripture it will certainly happen or God’s word is not true – we might as well throw out our bibles.

The Day of the Lord will be sudden, unexpected and inescapable for those in spiritual darkness. There will be no alternative at the end other than life with the Lord or eternal loss – one or the other is inevitable. We who are Christians and children of God are not sons and daughters of the night and, as those of the day, we who believe the gospel and belong to Christ are not to give way to a careless unconcerned state of mind. Paul warns us to be alert, watchful and sober.

Again closing with c.s.Lewis ( everybody seems to like his thoughts) – “For it will be infallible judgment. If it is favorable we shall have no fear, if unfavorable, no hope that it is wrong. We shall not only believe, we shall know, beyond doubt in every fiber of our appalled or delighted being, that as the Judge has said, so we are: neither more nor less nor other. We shall perhaps even realize that in some dim fashion we could have known it all along.”

But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. (14) For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus. (15) For this we say to you, by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. (16)For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. (17) Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. (18) Therefore comfort one another with these words.

The first letter to the Thessalonians was written by the apostle Paul. In our verses today Paul is addressing a problem of some of the faithful in that early church, which was that they were were expecting the immanent return of Christ and were grieving that the dead in Christ would miss out on the second coming. Paul sets down a great principle here that the man/woman who has died in Christ is still in Christ and will rise in Him – a relationship that nothing can break. The promise of Christ’s second coming is certain because of the resurrection of Christ and we have His direct word on it.

Sleep is a euphemism for death in this passage but sleep here does not mean “soul sleep” (which is not biblical). Sleep implies death is only temporary and after physical death the souls of the faithful will be with the Lord instantly until He returns, at which time He will raise our resurrected bodies. To be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord. The spirits of the departed are with the Lord now – Paul here does not discuss the Old Testament saints but speaks to new believers, his point being both deceased and living saints will receive new eternally resurrected bodies when Christ Jesus returns. The practical value of Christ’s certain second coming is hope and comfort in this present world. Death being a better place is only wishful thinking outside of Christ.

I leave these verses with a quote from c.s. Lewis: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God! Therefore the world does not know us, because it did not know Him. (2) Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. (3) And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.

The first letter of John, disciple and intimate eyewitness to the earthly ministry of Christ Jesus was most likely written in the latter part of the first century when John was the sole remaining apostolic survivor. False teachers had begun perverting fundamental apostolic teaching threatening to destroy the gospel; instead of divine revelation standing over man’s ideas, man’s ideas judged (interpreted) Gods revelation and in particular the doctrine of true humanity of Christ. Such views destroy not only the humanity of Christ but by extension, the doctrine of acceptable atonement for our sins by the Christ, true God and true man. So John, at the end of his life, addresses the fundamentals of Christianity – he is returning to the basics of the gospel.
In our verses today, the apostle John points out that we are not merely called children of God but in faith in Christ we ARE children of God. By nature man is a CREATURE of God. It by unearned grace faithful man be ones a CHILD of God. This privileged Christian life is only a beginning – when Christ appears in the promised second coming in all His glory the faithful will be like Him. This passage is directed against the Gnostic false teachers who thought the body was evil and only the Spirit was pure – that the body was of no eternal importance. John insists that the Christian is on the way to seeing God and will be like Him; that God lavished His unimaginable love on man by sending Jesus – His only son – to save us from our sins while we were still hostile and by nature enemies of God. We are reminded that there is nothing man can do to earn this great gift because becoming a Christian is not a matter of our willpower but of God’s power

The tragedy in this world is those who knew Him not. Jesus came to His own and they did not know Him. For this reason, the world will not know the faithful also – but God will. I’m quoting from Paul’s letter to the Romans today, chapter 8: 31, What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? and Romans 8: 38,39. (38). For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, (39) nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen