Resurrection Hope: Christ the Firstfruits, Death Defeated

You don't have a resurrection hope outside of Christ. You will not defeat death outside of Christ and you will not be all and you will not see God be all in all. The resurrection that Paul promises is not promised to everyone. It is promised to those who belong to Christ, but there is good news. It could belong to you today, right where you were sitting this morning. You don't have to walk down the night. You don't have to raise your hands. You don't have to pray a special prayer. You just have to come to Christ. [01:04:39] (39 seconds)  #ResurrectionInChrist

And so this leads us to a very logical question that you have to answer today. Are you in Christ? Not do you attend church? Not is your name on the church membership? Not have you been baptized? Not did you grow up in a Christian home? Not did you walk down an aisle as a child? Not whether you've tried to live a decent life and to stay out of trouble because none of that puts you in Christ. The only thing, the only way from Adam to Christ, the only way from death to life is to put your faith in him. [01:03:09] (46 seconds)  #AreYouInChrist

Right? Paul isn't saying that this is universalism. He is not teaching that every human being is going to eventually be saved. The word all appears twice in that sentence, but it does not refer to the same group. He says all in Adam are going to die, and then all in Christ will be made alive. You are part of both of those alls. You are part of the all that is going to die in Adam because because you're you're a a human and humans die. But if you are in Christ, you are part of the second all because all who are in Christ will be raised again. [00:39:05] (41 seconds)  #AliveInChrist

These are the very same forces that oppose God's sovereign purposes. In Colossians two fifteen Paul says that Christ disarmed them at the cross and he put them to open shame. And so Christ is going to deliver the kingdom to the father. It is the completion of his mission. The Son took up the kingdom at his resurrection and ascension. He has been advancing it ever since and there is going to come a time where he is going to end it all and he's gonna present it back to the father completed, perfect, and every enemy is gone. [00:47:36] (38 seconds)  #KingdomDelivered

you might be looking at that phrase and trying to understand what does it mean to be under his feet. We don't use that phrase very often anymore, but in the ancient Near East when a conquering king would come into a kingdom and they would defeat the enemy, the king would place his foot on the neck of the defeated enemy. It was a public declaration of total subjugation. Joshua commanded the Israelite commanders to do the very same thing in Joshua ten twenty four. And so everyone in the ancient world understood what it meant. It meant complete, total, permanent defeat. [00:50:42] (42 seconds)  #CompleteDefeat

And if you think about when Jesus died, the Sunday after the first Sabbath, after the Passover is exactly when Jesus rose from the dead. And so not only did Jesus simply fulfill the concept of the first fruit, but he rose on the same day that God had marked out for the first fruits to be offered. God had been asking for this for fourteen hundred years and he was pointing to that Sunday morning. Now I don't think that's just a coincidence folks. I think that that shows the design of God in his plan that he's orchestrated. [00:34:49] (44 seconds)  #ResurrectionByDesign

But Christ stands as the head of the new humanity and his resurrection constitutes everyone who is in him in resurrection life. Two humanities, two heads, two destinies. Every person who has ever lived belongs to one or the other. So the question is not whether you believe in life after death. The question is are you an Adam or are you in Christ? Now look at verse 23. There's a sequence here. It says, but each at his own order Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. [00:41:14] (44 seconds)  #TwoHumanitiesOneChoice

We call it the eternal state where God is unchallenged, where God is unrivaled, where he's all feeling, all governing. In the book of Revelation it said that he will wipe away every tear. Death is gone, sin is gone, every enemy is gone, and God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all in all. So that brings us to the logical conclusion. Let's go back and look at our points one more time so that we can recap it here. Christ's resurrection is the pledge of your resolution. You know that when you die, if you die in Christ, you will be raised again because he was raised. [01:01:48] (48 seconds)  #ResurrectionPledge

You don't have a resurrection hope outside of Christ. You will not defeat death outside of Christ and you will not not see God be all in all. The resurrection that Paul promises is not promised to everyone. It is promised to those who belong to Christ, but there is good news. It could belong to you today, right where you were sitting this morning. You don't have to walk down the night. You don't have to raise your hands. You don't have to pray a special prayer. You just have to come to Christ. [01:04:39] (39 seconds)