42The Resurrection Plan (15:20-28)

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep. For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming, then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. (15:20-28)

Theologian Erich Sauer has written, “The present age is Easter time. It begins with the resurrection of the Redeemer and ends with the resurrection of the redeemed. Between lies the spiritual resurrection of those called into life through Christ. So we live between two Easters, and in the power of the first Easter we go to meet the last Easter.”

The last Easter to which Sauer refers is, of course, the bodily resurrection of the saved. Scripture speaks of that resurrection of the righteous (Rev 20:6; 1 Thess. 4:13-18; 2 Cor. 5:1-5; Luke 14:14; John 5:29), calling it the first resurrection. The second is the resurrection of the unrighteous (John 5:29). It is of the first resurrection that Paul speaks in 1 Corinthians 15.

The apostle has reminded the Corinthians that they already believed in Christ’s resurrection (15:1-11) and that logically they must also believe in their own resurrection and that of all saints, mentioning seven disastrous and absurd consequences that would result if they were not raised (vv. 12-19). Moving into verses 20-28 Paul discusses three aspects of the resurrection of the righteous: (1) The Redeemer; (2) the redeemed; and (3) the restoration. The first and third focus on Christ; the second focuses on believers.

THE REDEEMER

First Paul reaffirms Christ’s resurrection: But now Christ has been raised from the dead, a truth his readers already acknowledged and believed (vv. 1-2). The words “and become,” found in some translations (e.g., the KJV), do not come first in the original text and are misleading. Christ did not become the first fruits at some time after His resurrection, but at the moment of His resurrection, by the very fact of His resurrection. His being raised made Him the first fruits of all who would be raised.

Before Israelites harvested their crops they were to bring a representative sample, called the first fruits, to the priests as an offering to the Lord (Lev 23:10). The full harvest could not be made until the first fruits were offered. That is the point of Paul’s figure here. Christ’s own resurrection was the first fruits of the resurrection “harvest” of the believing dead. In His death and resurrection Christ made an offering of Himself to the Father on our behalf.

The significance of the first fruits, however, not only was that they preceded the harvest but that they were a first installment of the harvest. The fact that Christ was the first fruits therefore indicates that something else, namely the harvest of the rest of the crop, is to follow In other words, Christ’s resurrection could not have been in isolation from ours. His resurrection requires our resurrection, because His resurrection was part of the larger resurrection of God’s redeemed.

The resurrection of which Paul speaks here is permanent resurrection. Both the Old and New Testaments tell of persons who died and were miraculously brought back to life (1 Kings 17:22; 2 Kings 4:34-36; 13:21; Luke 7:15; John 11:44). But all of those persons died again. Even those whom Jesus raised—the son of the widow of Nain, Jairus’s daughter, and Lazarus—eventually died again. Christ Himself, however, was the first to be raised never to die again.

As in 15:6, 18 (cf. Matt. 27:52; Acts 7:60; 2 Pet. 3:4), those who are asleep refers to the dead, in this instance to the righteous dead, whose spirits have gone to be with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8; cf. Phil. 1:23) but whose remains are in the grave, awaiting recomposition and resurrection.

Through Christ, as a man, came the resurrection of the dead, just as through Adam, the first man, came death. Paul’s point here is that Jesus’ humanness was inextricably involved both in His resurrection and in ours. It was because Jesus died, was buried, and was raised as a man that He could become the first fruits of all other men who would be raised to glory. As already noted, the first fruits and the harvest were from the same crop.

In verse 22 Paul continues to explain how the great truth of the one resurrection of Christ affects believers. The convincing analogy comes from the first man: For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive. Just as Adam was the progenitor of everyone who dies, so Christ is the progenitor of everyone who will be raised to life. In each case, one man doing one act caused the consequences of that act to be applied to every other person identified with him. Those who are identified with Adam—every person who has been born—is subject to death because of Adam’s sinful act. Likewise, those who are identified with Christ—every person who has been born again in Him—is subject to resurrection to eternal life because of Christ’s righteous act. In Adam all have inherited a sin nature and therefore will die. In Christ all who believe in Him have inherited eternal life, and shall be made alive, in body as well as in spirit. “For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).

From countless other passages of Scripture we know that the two alls in verse 22, though alike in some respects, cannot be equal. Those who attempt to read universalism into this passage must contradict those other passages that teach reprobation (Matt. 5:29; 10:28; 25:41, 46; Luke 16:23; 2 Thess. 1:9; Rev 20:15; etc.). The alls are alike in that they both apply to descendants. Every human being is a descendant of Adam, and therefore the first all is universal. With only the exceptions of Enoch and Elijah, whom the Lord took directly to be with Himself, and of those saints who will be raptured, every person born will die.

Only those who trust in Jesus Christ, however, are His descendants (as illustrated in John 8:44), and the second all therefore applies only to the saved. It is only all the fellow sons of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ (Gal. 3:26, 29; 4:7; Eph. 3:6; cf. Acts 20:32; Titus 3:7) who shall be made alive. In Adam is simply to be human, to have been born once. In Christ is to have eternal life, to be born again. By natural descent from Adam, having inherited his sin, all die. By supernatural descent from Christ, having inherited His righteousness, all shall be made alive.

Though the inheritance in both cases is bodily as well as spiritual, Paul’s major emphasis here is on the bodily. Through Adam’s sin, man died spiritually and became subject to death bodily. Likewise, through Christ believers are given life spiritually and will be raised bodily. But our spirits, because they go to be with the Lord at death, will not wait to be resurrected. Only our bodies will be resurrected, and that is the truth stressed here.

THE REDEEMED

But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, after that those who are Christ’s at His coming. (15:23)

In the scheme of resurrection, Christ is the first fruits and those who are Christ’s at His coming are the full harvest. Unlike the grain harvest, however, that of the resurrection is far removed in time from the first fruits. We do not know—in fact, are told we cannot know (Matt. 24:36, 42, 44, 50; 25:13)—when the Lord will come to raise and rapture His people and set up His kingdom. We do not know the time, the specific generation or moment, but we know the order.

Most obvious is that Christ was first and that our resurrection will follow at His coming. From other parts of Scripture we learn that even the “harvest” will not be all at once, but will have its own order, its own sequence. The first resurrection has two major parts—Christ’s resurrection and believers’ resurrection. The resurrection of believers, those who are Christ’s, will be in three stages, according to different groups of believers.

Initially will be the resurrection of the church, those believers who will have come to saving faith from Pentecost to the rapture. “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first” (1 Thess. 4:16). They will be joined by living saints to meet the Lord in the air and ascend to heaven.

Next will be the resurrection of the Tribulation saints. Many will come to trust in Christ during the Tribulation, that unimaginably horrible seven-year ordeal during which many godly people will be put to death for their faith. At the end of that period, however, all those who will have come to faith in Christ will be raised up to reign with Him during the Millennium (Rev 20:4).

Following that will be the resurrection of Old Testament saints, promised by the prophet Daniel: “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2; cf. Isa. 26:19-20). That resurrection, I believe, will occur simultaneously with that of the Tribulation saints.

Then during the millennial Kingdom there will, of necessity, be the resurrection of those who die during that time. It is interesting to think that they may well be raised as soon as they die, no burial being necessary. It would make death for a believer during the Kingdom nothing more than an instant transformation into his eternal body and spirit.

The only resurrection remaining will be that of the unrighteous, who will be raised to damnation and eternal punishment at the end of Christ’s thousand-year reign (John 5:29). The saved will have been raised to eternal life, but the unsaved will be raised to eternal death, the second death (Rev 21:8; cf. 2:11).

THE RESTORATION

Then comes the end, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, when He has abolished all rule and all authority and power. For He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. The last enemy that will be abolished is death. For He has put all things in subjection under His feet. But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. (15:24-28)

The third aspect of the resurrection plan that Paul discusses here is what may be called the restoration. The apostle summarizes some of the things that will happen in the last times.

Then (eita, “after this”) may imply an interval of time between the resurrection at His coming and the establishment of His kingdom. That would coincide with the teaching of our Lord in Matthew 24 and 25, where He tells of all the signs that will precede His kingdom, even the sign of the Son of Man in heaven and the gathering together of the elect (24:30-31).

Telos (end) not only can refer to that which is final but also to that which is completed, consummated, or fulfilled. In the final culmination of the ages, when He delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father, all things will be restored as they were originally designed and created by God to be. In the end it will be as it was in the beginning. Sin will be no more, and God will reign supremely, without enemy and without challenge. That gives us great insight into the divine redemptive plan. Here is the culmination: Christ turns over the restored world to God His Father, who sent Him to recover it.

Christ’s final act will be to conquer permanently every enemy of God, every contending rule and authority and power. They will forever be abolished, never to exist again, never again to oppose God or to deceive, mislead, or threaten His people or corrupt any of His creation.

This final act of Christ, the turning over the world to His Father, will be worked out over the period of a thousand years, during the millennial rule of Christ on earth. As vividly and dramatically portrayed in the symbols and statements of Revelation 5-20, Christ will take back to Himself the earth that He created and that is rightfully His. The scene of Revelation 5 depicts the Son taking rightful possession of the title deed to the earth, His going out to take it back from the usurper to present it to the Father. In doing that He will quell all rebellions and subdue all enemies. He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet. It is necessary for Him to rule.

The figure of putting His enemies under His feet comes from the common practice in ancient times of kings and emperors always sitting enthroned above their subjects, so that when the subjects bowed they were literally under, or lower, than the sovereign’s feet. With enemies, a king often would literally put his foot on the neck of the conquered king or general, symbolizing the enemy’s total subjection. In His millennial reign, all of Christ’s enemies will be put in subjection to Him, under His feet, so that God’s sovereign plan may be fulfilled.

During the Millennium no open rebellion will be tolerated, but there will still be rebelliousness in the hearts of Christ’s enemies. Because His enemies will not submit to Him willingly, He will have to “rule them with a rod or iron” (Rev 19:15). But they will be ruled. At the end of the thousand years Satan will be unleashed for a brief period to lead a final insurrection against God and His kingdom (20:7-9), after which he, with all who belong to him, will be banished to hell, to suffer eternally in the lake of fire (Rev 20:10-15).

The last enemy, both of God and of man, is death, which, with all the other enemies, will be abolished. Christ broke the power of Satan, “him who had the power of death” (Heb. 2:14), at the cross, but Satan and death will not be permanently abolished until the end of the Millennium. The victory was won at Calvary, but the eternal peace and righteousness that that victory guarantees will not be consummated and completed until the enemies who were conquered are also banished and abolished. Then, His final work having been accomplished, Christ delivers up the kingdom to the God and Father.

When He took the assignment of salvation from His Father, Christ came to earth as a baby, and lived and grew up as a man among men. He taught, preached, healed, and did miraculous works. He died, was buried, was raised and ascended to His Father, where He now intercedes for those who are His. When He returns He will fight, conquer, rule, judge, and then, as His last work on the Father’s behalf, forever subdue and finally judge all the enemies of God (Rev 20:11-15), re-create the earth and heavens (Rev 21:1-2), and finally deliver the kingdom to the God and Father.

The kingdom that Christ delivers up will be a redeemed environment indwelt by His redeemed people, those who have become eternal subjects of the everlasting kingdom through faith in Him. In light of Paul’s major argument in this chapter, it is obvious that his point here is that, if there were no resurrection, there would be no subjects for God’s eternal kingdom; and there would be no Lord to rule. Unless He and they were raised, all of God’s people eventually would die, and that would be the end—the end of them and the end of the kingdom. But Scripture assures us that “His kingdom will have no end” (Luke 1:33), and He and His subjects will have no end.

Lest any of his readers misunderstand, Paul goes on to explain the obvious: But when He says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that He is excepted who put all things in subjection to Him. God the Father is the exception who will not be subject to Christ, for it is the Father who gave the rule and authority to the Son (Matt. 28:18; John 5:27), and whom the Son faithfully and perfectly served.

From the time of His incarnation until the time when He presents the kingdom to the Father, Christ is in the role of a Servant, fulfilling His divine task as assigned by His Father. But when that final work is accomplished, He will assume His former, full, glorious place in the perfect harmony of the Trinity. And when all things are subjected to Him, then the Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, that God may be all in all. Christ will continue to reign, because His reign is eternal (Rev 11:15), but He will reign with the Father in trinitarian glory, subject to the Trinity in that way eternally designed for Him.

When God created man He made him perfect, righteous, good, and subservient. At the Fall, this supreme creature of God, along with all the rest of His creation, was corrupted and ruined. But the new men He creates through His Son will never be corrupted or ruined. They will be raised up to live and reign eternally in His eternal kingdom with His eternal Son.