D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Resurrection of the Dead" (August 28, 1966)

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	(pipe organ music)	0:03
-	Let us pray.	0:29
	In the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heart,	0:33
	be acceptable in thy sight.	0:37
	O Lord, our strength and our Redeemer, Amen.	0:40
	In a time when the death of God	0:52
	may seem to be at least the most popular theological theme,	0:55
	it may be something of an affront to reason and good taste,	1:00
	or to both,	1:05
	to attempt to speak of the resurrection of the dead.	1:07
	Dean Clellan of this chapel used to tell the story	1:13
	of two rather inebriated gentlemen	1:15
	walking by a churchyard,	1:17
	and seeing on the bulletin board the sermon topic,	1:20
	"Is there a God?"	1:24
	They stared in silence for a moment.	1:29
	Then one turned to the other and said,	1:32
	"Wouldn't it be a shame if he said that there isn't?"	1:35
	I suppose that at one time,	1:40
	the answer to that question was a foregone conclusion,	1:42
	especially in a sermon.	1:47
	Perhaps this is no longer so,	1:50
	not even in a sermon.	1:53
	Likewise, it can no longer be assumed I suppose,	1:56
	that a sermon on the resurrection of the dead	1:59
	will be a positive exposition of the doctrine.	2:02
	It might turn out to be a critical rejection	2:07
	of the whole idea.	2:09
	Therefore, let me make one thing clear at the outset.	2:12
	That is, this is a pro not a con sermon.	2:16
	Put me down as being in favor	2:21
	of the resurrection of the dead.	2:24
	Not that it makes a great deal of difference I suppose,	2:27
	whether one person or preacher more or less denies	2:31
	or affirms it.	2:35
	Of course, to say that one believes	2:38
	in the resurrection of dead in our day and age	2:40
	is to invite critical questions,	2:44
	if not, downright incredulous stares.	2:47
	However, this is not a peculiarly modern reaction.	2:52
	According to the book of Acts,	2:57
	Paul encountered similar incredulity	3:00
	when he mentioned the resurrection of the dead	3:02
	when preaching in Athens.	3:04
	Nor surprisingly enough,	3:07
	is this a purely non-Christian or anti-Christian attitude?	3:09
	It is abundantly clear from our text,	3:14
	that there were people in current, Christians,	3:17
	who denied the resurrection of the dead,	3:21
	or at least this is how Paul interpreted their position.	3:22
	And he asks, "How can some of you say	3:26
	that there is no resurrection of the dead?"	3:28
	And may be therefore, some use for us to pause for a while	3:33
	to consider this Christian denial of the resurrection	3:37
	in a New Testament Church founded	3:42
	by the great Apostle Paul himself.	3:45
	What did these Christians whom Paul refers to,	3:49
	in our text of the morning, 1st Corinthians 15.	3:52
	What did these Christians believe	3:55
	if they did not believe in the resurrection of the dead?	3:57
	Well, the answer is, first of all,	4:01
	that perhaps we can never know for sure.	4:03
	But we can make some reasonable conjectures.	4:07
	Perhaps they believe that the souls of the dead	4:10
	were translated directly to some sort of heavenly bliss.	4:13
	Perhaps they believed that for them at least,	4:18
	if not for the world, or not for the rest of mankind,	4:22
	the resurrection had already occurred	4:25
	and the heavenly glory was already present among them.	4:28
	Now, how anyone could imagine that in their day or in ours,	4:32
	may be a little hard for us to understand.	4:37
	But we have to remember that the early church	4:39
	was filled with enthusiasts.	4:42
	There were many spirit-filled people,	4:45
	and not a few downright nuts.	4:48
	Possibly, some of these people, not the nuts,	4:52
	feared or believed that those who died	4:55
	before Christ's return would have no share at all	4:57
	in his eternal kingdom.	5:00
	They were just dead, they hadn't made it till the great day	5:02
	of Christ's coming back.	5:05
	That was too bad, but that was simply it.	5:07
	Whatever may have been the opinions	5:11
	of these Corinthian Christian,	5:13
	Paul's response to them is clear.	5:15
	Denial of the resurrection of the dead,	5:19
	and by that he means of the Christian dead,	5:22
	those who have died in the Lord,	5:24
	implies a denial of Christ's resurrection.	5:27
	for the resurrection of Christ	5:30
	and the resurrection of his followers	5:32
	are inseparably tied together.	5:34
	They are not two separate events,	5:37
	one somewhere in the distant past, or not two distant past	5:40
	and the other somewhere in the indefinite future.	5:44
	Rather, they are part and parcel of the same reality.	5:48
	The work of the one God,	5:53
	who as Paul says, "Gives life to the dead	5:55
	and calls into existence the things that do not exist."	5:59
	Faith in Christ's resurrection	6:05
	and the believers is an integral aspect of Christian faith.	6:08
	According to Paul, indeed faith in Christ's resurrection	6:12
	and the resurrection of the believer	6:17
	is an integral part of faith in God.	6:19
	Now it is true, of course,	6:24
	that the idea of the resurrection of the dead	6:26
	was common enough in contemporary Jewish thought.	6:29
	It belongs to that cataclysmic view of the world's end,	6:34
	which we apocalyptic or apocalypticism.	6:38
	As such, it was doubtless a strange doctrine	6:43
	to many of Paul's heroes	6:46
	who had been brought up in a Hellenistic culture	6:48
	with a different worldview.	6:51
	People who tended to disparage the body and exalt the soul.	6:53
	Thus, the question which we find in our text this morning,	6:59
	is thoroughly understandable and we too might ask it.	7:02
	As Paul puts it rhetorically, "How are the dead raised?	7:07
	With what kind of body do they come?"	7:11
	Now, Paul's answer to the imagined questioner	7:15
	or perhaps there were many real questioners like this,	7:18
	is it for typically Paul line and rather brusque,	7:22
	"You foolish man," he says to begin with.	7:26
	And yet after this abrasive if not downright abusive retort,	7:30
	Paul actually does take the question	7:37
	and the questioner very seriously.	7:40
	He seeks to clarify this strange idea,	7:43
	and to say what may be meant by the resurrection of the dead	7:47
	specifically the resurrection of the body.	7:52
	All the talk about the seed not coming to life,	7:57
	unless it dies.	8:00
	And the rather obscure discussion	8:02
	of various kinds of flesh and bodies	8:04
	terrestrial bodies and celestial bodies,	8:07
	all of this is directed to that end.	8:10
	And this is true, even and especially of the distinction	8:14
	between a physical body,	8:17
	which we can understand perfectly well,	8:20
	and what Paul calls a spiritual body,	8:23
	which seems to us to be something	8:26
	of a contradiction in terms.	8:28
	The point which Paul makes here is this,	8:32
	the resurrection ought not to be thought of	8:36
	in a crude materialistic way.	8:39
	That is, in the way in which it might first appear	8:43
	to a Hellenistic man	8:46
	who heard Paul speak of the resurrection of the body,	8:48
	or indeed in the way in which it might appear	8:52
	to a modern Western man, to us.	8:54
	Moreover, Paul's use of the analogy	8:58
	of sowing some kind of seed,	9:00
	should not lead us into the era of thinking	9:04
	that for Paul, the resurrection of the dead	9:06
	is some kind of natural process.	9:09
	For Paul, natural process is an utterly strange	9:12
	and foreign idea.	9:16
	For him, the planting of the seed and its sprouting,	9:18
	and growing, are not a natural process	9:21
	but a miracle which God gives.	9:25
	Plus he says, "God gives it a body as He has chosen."	9:28
	Meaning the seed, "And to each seed its own body."	9:32
	So for Paul, the resurrection of the believer	9:38
	is not the resurrection of this old flesh,	9:40
	it is a transformation and it is a renewal.	9:43
	It is not something that could be expected	9:47
	as a matter of course,	9:49
	rather it is something that God gives.	9:51
	The contrast between the physical body	9:54
	and what Paul calls spiritual body,	9:56
	along with the other figures and images which Paul uses,	10:00
	is intended to emphasize the difference	10:04
	between the hope for the resurrection of the dead	10:07
	and any this worldly hope or expectation.	10:10
	Body for Paul, means not simply flesh and blood,	10:16
	but personhood, individuality, selfhood.	10:20
	And thus, Paul can at once affirm belief	10:26
	in the resurrection of the body	10:29
	and still say that flesh and blood	10:32
	cannot inherit the kingdom of God,	10:34
	nor does the perishable inherit,	10:37
	nor the imperishable.	10:41
	Now, so far, we've been attempting	10:44
	to understand the biblical text	10:47
	to see it against the background of the situation	10:51
	to which Paul's spoke.	10:55
	And now we must ask, what is the essential meaning	10:58
	of Paul's exposition of the resurrection?	11:02
	How does it speak to us today?	11:06
	We cannot stay in the past	11:11
	like the Anglican divine of a punch cartoon	11:13
	of a few years ago.	11:17
	He's pictured leaning out over his pulpit	11:20
	and saying to his congregation,	11:24
	"I know what you're thinking, aha Sabellianism."	11:26
	Now, Sabellianism is as a form of moralistic monarchism	11:31
	of the 4th century best known to students	11:34
	of the history of doctrine.	11:36
	And you can bet your last dollar that on any given morning	11:38
	in any given congregation,	11:41
	not many people are going to be thinking civilianism.	11:42
	If that concept is to have any meaning for people today,	11:46
	it has to be explained.	11:49
	This significance has to be shown.	11:52
	Now, we might well ask,	11:55
	is the same true of the doctrine	11:57
	of the resurrection of the dead?	11:59
	Now, there are some people, of course,	12:03
	who will say, "No, it isn't true.	12:05
	There's no problem of understanding	12:08
	the resurrection of the dead, that's perfectly clear."	12:10
	The resurrection of the dead means to you,	12:13
	the difference between eternal life and eternal damnation,	12:15
	or annihilation.	12:17
	Where will you be on that day	12:19
	when the dead rise to greet the Lord	12:20
	coming on the clouds of heaven?	12:22
	Or where will you go thereafter?	12:24
	There are plenty of such folk around.	12:26
	After all, the laws against teaching evolution	12:30
	have not been repealed in the state of Tennessee.	12:33
	And if we look closely in North Carolina,	12:37
	we might find some examples right here.	12:39
	Such brethren, those who say this,	12:43
	are regrettably vulnerable	12:46
	to what we might call the cruise chef argument	12:48
	against Christianity.	12:51
	That is, satellites have gone into orbit,	12:53
	rockets have gone to the Moon	12:57
	and not a one of them has encountered God	12:59
	or even met an angel, nor will they.	13:02
	We live in a world of macrocosms and microcosms	13:06
	which cannot be reconciled	13:11
	with the world view of the ancients,	13:12
	much less with that of the apocalyptists.	13:14
	If Jesus, to return on a cloud, to rain again on this Earth,	13:19
	we have a right to ask, where will he begin His journey	13:23
	if heaven is not somewhere out there as it seems not to be?	13:27
	What if the dead rise again to inhabit the Earth,	13:35
	and the sun then burns out or explodes	13:38
	as some astronomy tell us that it may?	13:42
	What if man through his folly simply succeeds	13:46
	in extinguishing life upon this planet	13:48
	before any of the prophesies are fulfilled,	13:51
	or any of the expectations?	13:53
	Indeed, we may well ask, how are the dead raised?	13:57
	And with what body do they come?	14:00
	And the questions posed for the man of faith today,	14:03
	seem insurmountable.	14:07
	And yet, are they any more insurmountable in our age	14:10
	than they were in Paul's?	14:15
	In a sense they are perhaps,	14:18
	for sense, for better or for worse.	14:19
	We live in a world in which all the crucial activities	14:22
	and thoughts are,	14:25
	or all the thoughts that man deemed crucial,	14:26
	for better or for worse, tend to exclude God.	14:29
	Thus the world can function or thinks it can,	14:34
	can function and understand itself	14:37
	without the hypothesis of a God,	14:39
	much less of a God who raises the dead.	14:42
	And this world often makes the biblical ways of thinking	14:46
	and speaking of God,	14:49
	and His relation to men seem antiquated,	14:50
	impossible, or incredible.	14:54
	And this is nowhere more true	14:57
	than in the case of the doctrine	15:00
	of the resurrection of the dead.	15:02
	What can it mean to us as modern men in the 20th century?	15:04
	But first, we ought to observe a few very important things.	15:11
	Paul does not argue that God is required	15:17
	to explain the world,	15:19
	nor does Paul insist on a three-storey,	15:21
	or a heaven of seven-storey universe	15:24
	with the Earth in the center.	15:26
	Paul does not attempt to describe	15:29
	the mode of the resurrection of the dead.	15:31
	He says, "Nothing about the nature of the life	15:34
	of the resurrected, rather His thought moves	15:37
	in an entirely different direction	15:41
	as He actually chide to those	15:44
	who expect this kind of explanation.	15:47
	Paul is here very much like Jesus	15:51
	who dismissed the question about whose wife	15:53
	the widow of seven brothers would be in the resurrection.	15:55
	With the flat statement that in the resurrection,	15:58
	they are neither married nor given in marriage.	16:01
	Neither Paul nor Jesus has time for such speculations.	16:06
	Both hold that the resurrection is the end	16:11
	of this worldly conditions and relations.	16:14
	It is not merely a continuation of worldly life.	16:18
	It is not based on anything that you or I possess,	16:24
	not even an immortal soul that cannot die, for example.	16:29
	It is the gift of God, His kingdom,	16:34
	His creation, the new creation, or the new Jerusalem.	16:37
	To believe in the resurrection of the dead	16:42
	is to believe that the God who is creator can,	16:46
	does, and will revive and renew His creation.	16:49
	More specifically, in Christian terms	16:55
	to believe in the resurrection of the dead,	16:57
	is to believe on the basis of the present reality	17:00
	of the risen Christ.	17:04
	Paul rightly says, "The resurrection of the dead	17:07
	is the very essence of Christian faith.	17:11
	Or if the dead are not raised,	17:15
	then Christ has not been raised.	17:17
	If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile,	17:20
	and your are still in your sins.	17:24
	Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ	17:26
	have also perished."	17:29
	Christian faith is at bottom,	17:33
	faith in the righteousness,	17:35
	and dependability of the God who at the beginning,	17:37
	created the world and us,	17:40
	and who at the end, abandoned neither the world nor us.	17:43
	The risen Christ is the ground of this faith and hope,	17:48
	the reason for believing that it is true.	17:53
	So resurrection, faith then turns out to be not faith	17:58
	in an apocalyptic worldview,	18:02
	but faith in the God who, as Paul says,	18:05
	"Gives life to the dead and calls into existence,	18:08
	the things that do not exist."	18:12
	But after all this is said,	18:16
	you certainly have the right to say, "So what?	18:17
	So what if we grant the centrality	18:22
	of the resurrection for Christian faith?"	18:24
	Every doubt is not satisfied, nor every question answered.	18:27
	What if I simply not interested in Christian faith?	18:33
	What if I do not, in fact believe?	18:36
	Now, the question of whether or not one is interested,	18:39
	or whether or not one believes,	18:42
	is I think a good fit more complicated	18:45
	than some people would have us think.	18:47
	Who are the true believers?	18:50
	Perhaps they're not always those who wave the banners,	18:53
	or shout the loudest.	18:56
	But be that as it may,	18:59
	a man can certainly choose not to concern himself	19:01
	or not to believe.	19:05
	And in the face of this attitude,	19:07
	no convincing or overwhelming proof,	19:09
	or reputation is possible.	19:11
	We cannot dibil to sight, but only finally to faith.	19:13
	And yet, the gospel of which we are speaking,	19:18
	yes, the gospel of the resurrection does not say to this man	19:21
	who may or may not believe,	19:24
	may or may not be concerned,	19:26
	"Here it is, take it or leave it."	19:28
	Rather, it does speak to his condition and to ours.	19:31
	it is relevant to his life,	19:36
	and it is relevant to our situation in the world.	19:39
	And this is not sold just because we are afraid to die.	19:44
	Although we may be,	19:49
	and the resurrection offers the possibility	19:50
	of not dying permanently or forever.	19:53
	Given who we are and what we are,	19:57
	perhaps the worst thing that we could imagine	19:59
	would be the prospect of having to endure ourselves	20:02
	in this state eternally.	20:05
	On the other hand, that we should die	20:08
	in the midst of our frustration,	20:10
	guilt, anxiety, unfulfilled hopes and plans,	20:12
	all of this makes death sad and tragic.	20:18
	"The sting of death is sin," says Paul.	20:22
	But over and beyond this,	20:27
	the hope of the resurrection of the dead	20:29
	has a direct and decisive effect upon this life.	20:30
	In a little noticed verse.	20:34
	Little notice, because it is not	20:37
	a part of the funeral service	20:38
	to which this text is usually relegated,	20:40
	Paul his concluding, and perhaps his climactic point	20:44
	in discussing the resurrection of the dead.	20:48
	When he says, "Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast,	20:50
	immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord.	20:53
	Knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain."	20:58
	Paul does not tell his reader surprisingly enough	21:03
	to relax because their future is assured.	21:05
	He does not renew his attack upon those who,	21:08
	for whatever reason,	21:11
	call the resurrection of the dead into question.	21:12
	Neither does he imply that because God	21:16
	swears everything in the resurrection,	21:18
	the destruction of human life on Earth	21:21
	is a matter of little consequence.	21:24
	Paul has nothing in common with any heirs	21:27
	of the inquisition who may be unconcerned	21:30
	about the incineration of mankind, for example,	21:33
	because after all, God knows His own.	21:36
	Far from using the resurrection as an escape patch,	21:41
	or a way of reducing the importance	21:46
	of our actions in this world,	21:48
	Paul does just the opposite.	21:51
	On the basis of faith and hope in the resurrection,	21:54
	Paul exhorts his readers.	21:58
	In effect, he encourages them to greater,	22:00
	not less effort in the work of the Lord in this world.	22:03
	The resurrection for Paul	22:10
	is not the end of human responsibility,	22:12
	but the basis for it, why?	22:15
	Because it relieves the threat of nothingness,	22:19
	of futility in my life.	22:22
	After all, why should I care about matters of love,	22:25
	justice, mercy	22:28
	if human effort begins and ends in meaninglessness?	22:30
	Or on the other hand,	22:36
	why should I not assert my own desires,	22:37
	or those of my nation, race, or class	22:40
	with all the force in my command	22:42
	and without regard for others?	22:44
	If the only meaning to be found in life	22:47
	is to be found in the realization of myself or of my group.	22:50
	Now, there is no point in arguing,	22:56
	but all of those who do not explicitly profess faith	22:58
	in the resurrection of the dead,	23:01
	or faith in the risen Christ are hedonists,	23:03
	tyrants, or something worse.	23:07
	This is not the case,	23:09
	obviously, not the case,	23:11
	and we have no need or desire to say that it is.	23:12
	What we can say, is that faith in the resurrection	23:16
	removes from life the threat that gives rise	23:19
	to such willful self assertion.	23:22
	Is this the threat of death?	23:26
	Yes, but that is not all.	23:28
	Perhaps it is not even the primary thing.	23:33
	Faith in the resurrection does away	23:36
	with the threat of death as meaninglessness.	23:38
	And therefore with the lurking fear	23:42
	that my life or our lives will eventually dissipate	23:44
	into absolute nothingness.	23:49
	Are we going anywhere?	23:53
	Are we doing anything?	23:55
	Are we living to any purpose?	23:57
	Why or for what do we strive?	24:00
	Or is there in fact, any point in striving at all?	24:04
	To all of these and other similar questions,	24:09
	Paul answers on the basis of faith in the resurrection,	24:11
	"Be steadfast, immovable,	24:16
	always abounding in the work of the Lord	24:18
	knowing that in the Lord, your labor is not in vain."	24:22
	There is a point in life, and man's work is not vanity,	24:28
	because God is the God of the resurrection,	24:35
	the God who gives life to the dead,	24:39
	and to call into existence the things that do not exist,	24:42
	life is not futile.	24:47
	The meaning of what I am and what I do,	24:50
	is not confined to the meaning of what,	24:53
	or the meaning that I can create,	24:56
	or the experiences which I enjoy, or endure.	25:00
	My assurance that what I am,	25:06
	and do, and think, and say,	25:09
	is significant, makes a difference, counts for something.	25:15
	This is faith in the resurrection of the dead.	25:21
	Or put in a slightly different way,	25:24
	this is faith in the God who raises the dead.	25:27
	Let us pray.	25:32
	Direct us, oh Lord, in all our doings	25:43
	with thy most gracious favor	25:45
	and further us with thy continual help	25:49
	that in all our works, begun, continued,	25:52
	and ended in thee.	25:56
	We may glorify thy Holy name,	25:58
	and finally by thy mercy,	26:00
	obtain everlasting life through Jesus Christ our Lord.	26:03
	Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead,	26:09
	our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep,	26:12
	by the blood of the eternal covenant,	26:14
	equip you with everything good	26:17
	that you may do His will,	26:18
	working in you that which is pleasing in His sight	26:20
	through Jesus Christ to whom be glory,	26:23
	forever and ever, Amen.	26:26

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Title:

D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Resurrection of the Dead" (August 28, 1966)

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https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4nk3b637

Date:

August 28, 1966

Speaker:

Smith, D. Moody, Jr.

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Duke University. Chapel

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UA.17.01.0003 RR-0351
ref5905_z74
uachapelsermaud
duke:628342
dcrau002347
ark:/87924/r4nk3b637
cb7e3ee6-4960-461e-be67-d5751e27cd96

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D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Resurrection of the Dead" (August 28, 1966)

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1. D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Resurrection of the Dead" (August 28, 1966)

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D. Moody Smith, Jr. - "The Resurrection of the Dead" (August 28, 1966)

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