Introduction:
“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?”
I wonder if these words from Ecclesiastes came to the minds of the disciples after they witnessed their Lord be crucified. Vanity means the quality of being worthless or futile. Had they believed in Jesus in vain? As we saw last night, surely this was not the future they had envisioned when they first responded to Jesus’ call to be His disciples. Was it all for not? Did it mean that all of their commitment and suffering had led finally to the inevitable end of humankind? Was it just as the preacher had said, “All is vanity!”
This question wasn’t for the disciples only. Anyone who has faced the death of someone they loved has had to confront the reality of death’s finality and its meaning. This is why Paul says in our NT reading that the fact that Jesus “was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures” and appeared to all of the disciples is a matter of first importance. As we will see, the resurrection is the centerpiece of the Christian faith for a reason. Not only is it the promise of future life, but it is also the end of futility in the face of death.
The Futility of Life Without the Resurrection
It appears that some in Corinth did not believe in the resurrection (vs. 12). On the one hand this shouldn’t surprise us. Nobody believed in the resurrection of the body in the ancient world, except for the Jews. N.T. Wright notes, “Christianity was born into a world where its central claim was known to be false. Many believed the dead were non-existent; outside Judaism, nobody believed in resurrection.” In the Roman world, “everybody knew dead people didn’t and couldn’t come back to bodily life.”
- Think of Paul’s experience on Mars’ Hill (Acts 17:32). “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked.” Typical conclusion.
- What the Greeks did believe: The soul’s escape from the body: “Pythagoreans held to a notion of “the soul being released from the body at death, with good souls flying to the upper realms.” Similarly, Plutarch saw the soul attaining the realm of the gods by freeing itself from the attachment to the senses and becoming ‘pure, fleshless, and undefiled’ (Romulus 28.6)”
- If the incarnation was a scandal, and the crucifixion foolishness (1 Cor. 1:23), the resurrection of the body was nonsense.
But notice that Paul says if Christ is not raised, then vanity and futility rule the world. Because if the dead are not raised, then the world will end as it always does: In the finality of death. Because, just as wonderful as it is that Jesus died for us, if he only died, then he is no more than any of us. If he died only, Paul says, we are still dead in our sins, because Jesus is still in the grave and futility still rules the world.
“[T]he crucial point is not just that [the Corinthians] are believing rubbish about the resurrection, and about Jesus, but that the new age in which sins are left behind has not been inaugurated. . . .For Paul the point of the resurrection is not simply that the creator god has done something remarkable for one solitary individual, but that, in and through the resurrection, ‘the present evil age’ has been invaded by the ‘age to come’, the time of restoration, return, covenant renewal, and forgiveness. An event has occurred as a result of which the world is a different place, and human beings have the new possibility to become a different kind of people.” –N.T. Wright
Christ the Firstfruits
This is what Paul means when he says that Christ is the “firstfruits” (vs. 20, 23).
- In the OT the firstfruits denotes the first portion of a crop or flock as a pledge of the remainder. Lev. 23:9-14: Israel is commanded to offer the “firstfruits” of their crops to the Lord, indicating that the whole of their harvest was a gift from His hand and ultimately belonged to Him. The same principle is at work in the tithe: 10% given to remind us that all that we have belongs to Him. It is also an acknowledgement that it was the Lord’s blessing that would insure the final harvest.
- The point is that Christ is the “firstfruits” of those who sleep. Meaning that the stupendous reality of Christ’s resurrection is that it is the first of many to come. Notice that the “firstfruits” principle has been reversed here: In the OT “firstfruits” were the work of man’s hands offered to God, here Christ is the “firstfruits” of a divine “harvest” that is the work of God’s power. This is why the Spirit (the power of God) is referred to as “the down payment or pledge” of our inheritance. (Eph. 1:13-14)
- This is the “engine” that drives salvation in the rest of the NT: Christ first, then us.
Rom. 8:11: “If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”
Colossians 2:11-15: “In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him.”
Vanity Redeemed
Here’s the amazing thing. Not only does Jesus’ resurrection guarantee that we will be raised to new life in resurrected bodies, but it also means that now, even our suffering and sorrow are “caught up” into His resurrected life. Consider these passages from Paul:
“We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.” (2 Cor. 4:8-11)
“Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Cor. 12:8-10)
What are the crosses Jesus has called you to bear? What have you asked the Lord to take away? The resurrection of Jesus means that God turns the way of the cross into the way of victory. So, we return to our opening question: What does man gain by all the toil
at which he toils under the sun?” Paul’s answer: “Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (1 Cor. 15:58)