Why We Must Die

This transcript has been lightly edited from an automated transcription for clarity and readability. While we've worked to preserve each speaker's words faithfully, errors may remain.

1. 00:09

   Michael Horton

   I found out talking to Jim Davis that we both nearly died a couple years ago. He had a heart attack and I had a freak accident. No heart trouble, but my mitral valve exploded. And so my lungs were filling up with blood, and they said, "Say goodbye to your family." And it was a slight chance that the surgery would work, but it did. And so I had one brother who died, and then a year later, another brother who died, and sister-in-law who died. And that's just after having lost my mom and then my dad. So it was not the best several years of my life, just surrounded by death.

2. 01:07

   Michael Horton

   And just as Jim Davis was saying, it's in times like that, it's in times of exile, it's when you feel the exile, that you realize truths that you never really understood before. You read passages that you've traversed, territory you've traversed over so many years, even preached on, but understand them in a new way. And one of those is 1 Corinthians 15. I'll read the passage and then introduce it. Verse 35. But someone will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or some other grain.

3. 02:12

   Michael Horton

   But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. For not all flesh is the same, but there's one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, another glory of the stars, for stars differ from stars in glory. So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor.

4. 02:56

   Michael Horton

   It is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness. It is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual.

5. 03:32

   Michael Horton

   The first man was from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust. And as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold, I tell you a mystery.

6. 04:04

   Michael Horton

   We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. Amen. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 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.

7. 05:14

   Michael Horton

   Now, there are lots of things that we do with death in our culture. Most of them not very good or helpful. The first thing that we do is deny it. We just push it off; we deny it. Forever young. Forever young. We'll do anything to change our appearance or to alter our status in some way to give the impression that we're still young, we're still at it. There's nothing wrong with wanting to stay healthy and stay in the game and all of that, but there's a grief that kind of comes with the realization that, oh my goodness, what happened to me? As you're looking in the mirror.

8. 06:11

   Michael Horton

   Okay, that's just me. Doris Day, famous celebrity from another generation, when she was interviewed, I remember seeing her interview just before she died, and the reporter asked her about it, and she said, "I don't talk about it." That's true of a lot of people. They made a decision not to talk about it. It's the most obvious—death and taxes—most obvious fact that is coming to all of us sitting here, standing here, but we deny it. I want to talk about it. Another way we do that is a little softer version. We downplay it.

9. 07:07

   Michael Horton

   My dad in his hospital—in his wing, as he just lay there, couldn't talk, he was completely paralyzed by a bad surgery. Walking into his room, it was so horrible. A couple of times he asked me to pull the plug, just by lifting his finger and pointing at the—that's all he could do. And yeah, as you walked in, it had this banner: "The setting of the sun is as beautiful as its rising." I wanted to burn that thing. That is miserable. Are you serious? This is as beautiful as the birth of my child over here, who I brought to my dad to hold in his arm, lay on his belly? You got to be joking. What kind of sadistic, weird New Age nonsense is that? We deny it; we downplay it.

10. 08:31

    Michael Horton

    We have euphemisms like "passing on," which we got from Mary Baker Eddy. No Christian should ever speak of passing away or passing on. That's from Christian Science. Denies evil, denies death. It's all part of the cycle of life. It's natural. And then we think of our loved ones living on in our memories. They're still living on.

11. 09:04

    Michael Horton

    Well, that doesn't give them much value, does it? That it's enough that they're living on in our memories? No, our memories remind us they're not here. That's what memories do. More adults believe in reincarnation than the resurrection in the United States today, according to statistics. 35% of those who say they're Christians believe in reincarnation. And so you just keep coming into a different body till you get it right, but you're finally going to be freed up from this cycle of karma, salvation by works. And the grand prize is you disappear like a drop of water in an ocean. That's the good news? Only 26% of Americans think that they'll have bodies in heaven. And this is—Lisa Miller wrote about this in Newsweek, Newsweek editor, wrote about this in an article titled "We're All Hindus Now."

12. 10:36

    Michael Horton

    But actually, it's also on the Western side with Plato. And this is germane to the passage, so I'll just mention briefly. According to Plato and Platonism, there are two creations. There is, first of all, the archetypal creation of the androgynous human being, and then it gets divided into two. Mm-hmm. Male and female. The spiritual creation is first, and then you have the physical creation, because the physical is always lower than and a falling away from the purity of spiritual existence. Spirit is always higher than body, so the spiritual comes first.

13. 11:28

    Michael Horton

    The real you is spirit. That's the doctrine of Plato and Platonism. And Philo, one of the leaders of Jewish Platonism, took on that very view. He argues in one of his important essays that there is first of all the spiritual Adam, kind of an idea, the pure idea of humanity, and then its copy, which was not so good, its physical copy, and that was inherently fallen, inherently inferior to the archetype. The second-century pagan philosopher Celsus also used this kind of Platonism against Christianity. He said, why would anybody want to rise again? What a nasty idea. No, we return to our spiritual state, to spiritual unity. Finally being freed of this body.

14. 12:50

    Michael Horton

    The whole point of salvation is to be free of the body, not for us to live in it forever. It's the prison house of the soul. Christianity is crazy, Celsus said. Evidently, the Apostle Paul encountered some false teachers in these various churches that were outposts of the Roman Empire that were influenced by this sort of teaching. Paul even warns Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:18 that some deny the resurrection, saying it has already taken place. In other words, what they believed was, I'm born again. That's the resurrection.

15. 13:38

    Michael Horton

    It's my regeneration. It's my rebirth, the rebirth of the Spirit. The body just goes into the grave, but my soul or my spirit will live forever. So what did I come up with when I was thinking? 1 Corinthians 15 was always one of my favorite chapters, but it was mainly for apologetics. It was mainly to show people the argument that if Christ is not raised, then we are of all people the most to be pitied, and I still love the first part of 1 Corinthians. The second part, though, I was like, I don't know, I'm not sure what to make of this. I'll do my best, but I'm not sure what to make of it. And after these experiences, I really came back to this and said—I used to say, well, we die, and it's really a death.

16. 14:36

    Michael Horton

    We really do die. And I want to emphasize that we don't pass away, we die. That's a Christian word that we just have to bring back into use. We do, we die. What never really hit me was that that's not Paul's argument. It's not what he's concerned about here. It's not his main point, at least. His main point is why we have to die.

17. 15:05

    Michael Horton

    Why do we have to die? We all know we're going to die, but why do we have to die? Why? When somebody is baptized or somebody comes to faith in Christ or somewhere along the way, why can't they just be assumed into heaven bodily? Why do they have to live on these years and then die? Why do we have to get sick? Why do we have to become crippled? Why do we have to die? But that's what Paul focuses on here, why we must die. But someone, he says, who denies the resurrection will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? Okay, that's not just an inquirer. That is one of the Gnostics or bodily resurrection deniers in Corinth he has in mind, but I think it's also Philo he has in mind, the Jewish Platonist these people are relying on for this doctrine, and it'll make sense as we go. So how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? This is not a real question; this is a rhetorical question. What kind of body? You foolish person. He's not talking to the average member, parishioner. He's saying, you deniers of the resurrection, you foolish person. What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

18. 17:12

    Michael Horton

    And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or some other grain, but God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. In other words, you're not getting another body. You're getting this body back. You're getting this body glorified. You're getting this body not only the way it was in its pristine—when you were 22. You're getting this body back in a way that no eye has seen nor ear has heard. But you're getting this body back. Some people talk about my new body. No, your body in a new condition.

19. 18:10

    Michael Horton

    That's what Paul's talking about here, your body in a new condition. Amen. New condition. So we're all going to die, but we only know from the Bible exactly why we must die. First, because it's a sentence. It's a death sentence. We're sinners. As in Adam all die, verse 22.

20. 18:32

    Michael Horton

    And then also as transgressors ourselves. The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law, verse 56. So that's pretty bad news for all of us. We have to die, first of all, because the law says so, and we're transgressors of the law. But second, and really what Paul focuses on here in our text, is that death is actually part of our salvation. And this is the thing that really hit me between the eyes. We must die, not be improved, extended, upgraded, enhanced, or modified. Every cell, every nerve, every thought of my heart needs to die.

21. 19:33

    Michael Horton

    And it's not just a reboot. It needs to die and go into the ground, whether you cremate or you bury it in the dust. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. We all fall down. There is nothing in this present age that can save us. No health plan, the greatest medical doctors—nothing in this present evil age. And those are God's masks. God is working through those professions to help extend our lives, but nothing in this present age has the power to make you happy, holy, and truly healthy.

22. 20:41

    Michael Horton

    We must die. Everything has to die. God isn't going to throw away your body, but he's not going to just improve it. It's not a better you; it's a new creation. Amen. He's coming to raise your body in a completely new condition, but first it has to die. Everything has to turn off that, when turned on, led to your cancer or led to your terrible addiction—it all has to be turned off, buried, so that none of it enters into the Promised Land where you'll be spending the rest of your existence forever and ever.

23. 21:32

    Michael Horton

    So the New Testament contrasts not two worlds, physical and spiritual, but two ages, this age and the age to come. Even when Paul uses Greek terms like spirit and flesh, he's not talking like a Platonist about spirit and flesh. He's talking about the age of the flesh, what human beings can accomplish by their own power, and the age of the Spirit, which is the age to come. It is from the Holy Spirit that we have morsels of the age to come breaking in on this present evil age and being delivered to us like the dove and the beak bringing Noah a twig from a place of land. That happens every time we gather as the Lord's people. And so death is not a natural biological occurrence. It is part of the law.

24. 22:39

    Michael Horton

    It's a death sentence. But for those united to Christ, it's also part of the gospel. Paul says that the man from heaven, Jesus Christ, the man from heaven is life-giving. Adam was alive. And so from Adam we have aliveness, but it's mortal aliveness. Not even our soul is immortal by nature. That is a gift of grace that he gives to our whole person, body as well as soul. And so our destiny is secured by the one who was raised and is the Lord of the age to come.

25. 23:41

    Michael Horton

    He's seated at the right hand of the Father. He is the source of life. He is life-giving. God's saving powers and accomplishments versus our futile attempts to save ourselves. He's the last Adam who won the right for us to eat from the tree of life. Praise the Lord. In fact, he is the tree of life. But before the whole of us can be raised, the whole of us must be buried.

26. 24:16

    Michael Horton

    So here's the interesting thing. Philo said the spiritual comes first, then the physical, right? First the archetypal spiritual Adam, and then the division into sexes and so on and so forth with the inferior physical Adam and Eve. Then we go back to being spiritual beings again. The end is like the beginning. No, Paul says. No, no, that's not actually the way it works, he says. The physical comes first, then the spiritual. There is no archetypal Adam that was a pure idea and so forth.

27. 25:05

    Michael Horton

    God created Adam from the dirt and breathed a soul into him. Both are created, body and soul. Human beings are fully created. My soul is no more divine than my fingernails. We're created, Paul says. The physical comes first, but the spiritual comes second, and it's not what you're thinking. The spiritual here means from the Holy Spirit, because of the man from heaven, versus the one who could only give us aliveness, but not everlasting life.

28. 25:49

    Michael Horton

    From Adam, our father, we receive mere biological existence, but from Christ, the exalted and glorified Son, we receive eschatological existence. That's the point that Paul is making here. Look, there's no hope for world peace, justice, and righteousness through the powers that already exist in nature and history. There are wonderful drugs. They can't keep you alive forever. Jesus didn't come to make the world better. He came to save the world, first of all, by the progress of the gospel reaching the ends of the earth, and then giving it a good burial so that he can make it all new again, a condition that we've never seen before. So, Paul isn't giving up on life.

29. 26:55

    Michael Horton

    Paul isn't a downer here. Paul isn't just anti-human—he's the most pro-human. This is Christian humanism here. Really, the whole person is valuable. The whole person must die because the whole person must be raised. Here's a mystery, Paul says: we shall not all sleep, or die, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. The whole harvest will be raised together with its firstfruit, when the firstfruit appears again in the flesh. And that's why he keeps saying, when the mortal puts on immortality—not when this physical body puts on a different kind of body, but what spiritual means for Paul is immortal.

30. 28:06

    Michael Horton

    It's not that we take off our physicality; we take off our mortality and we put on immortality. Brothers and sisters, we are going to be the immortals. Amen. Tell your kids that, grandkids. They'll say, well, talk to me about that. The unrighteous cannot justify themselves. They must put on Christ. He is our righteousness.

31. 28:37

    Michael Horton

    And the mortal cannot become immortal by his works. It must put on immortality. We don't have that suit in our wardrobe. But because there is no condemnation anymore, the sting of death is taken out, so the power of the law doesn't reach us. Actually, the law exonerates us. The law says not guilty and perfectly righteous because Christ is our righteousness. We have put on Christ. And so this orients our lives in this present age in a way very similar to what Jim Davis was saying.

32. 29:16

    Michael Horton

    This body must die, but then finally this body must be raised. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Why? This body must be raised. Why? Your body must be raised because it is united to the body of Christ.

33. 30:08

    Michael Horton

    The head will not live without its members. John Calvin has a striking statement where he says that we are so entwined with Jesus Christ as parts of his body that even in his ascended glory, he considers himself imperfect and incomplete until his whole body is raised with him as the head. Think of it: we're all drowning. Jesus has gone through it and come through that exodus that he had to undergo. We will follow him in that. Amen. The head is already out of the water.

34. 31:08

    Michael Horton

    And only when the whole person, the whole body is out of that terrible turmoil, sin and death, will the head himself be content. In the meantime, it's a period of proclaiming the gospel. That's what this exile is for. Again, as we've heard, that's what this exile is for, the proclamation of the gospel. What if Jesus had made it all better at that moment? Well, you'd have to have the Last Judgment and the resurrection of the dead. It would all have happened then and there in the first century. What then would have happened? You and I wouldn't be here. Generation after generation would keep coming from the loins of Adam and Eve, dying, not just one death, but a second death forever.

35. 32:12

    Michael Horton

    Immortal damnation for us all. But this exile opens up the intermission, literally, for the Holy Spirit to be poured out on all flesh and for the gospel to go forth. And that's why we're here to the ends of the earth. If Jesus Christ is risen, then the age to come has already dawned, and this age of sin and death is fading away. It's not heaven that's shadowy, it's earth. And I don't mean matter; I mean it's this present existence that we have right now. There won't be any difference between heaven and earth in the age to come. This earth will be full of the glory of God.

36. 33:06

    Michael Horton

    It's not going to be late great planet Earth. Amen. It's going to be a beautiful restored creation that no eye has seen nor ear heard. And so you know what the harvest is going to look like, the promise of the harvest from the firstfruits. What buds first, that tells you really about the whole harvest. We must be raised because we're part of that harvest. Look at the firstfruits. And that's why the gospel doesn't come just to make our lives a little better and happier and make you maybe a little less afraid of the fires in Southern California.

37. 33:56

    Michael Horton

    The gospel comes for something bigger than that. Gospel comes to save us from the fear of death. Amen. The mother of all fears that we have. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Wonderful. Now we're free. Now we're free actually to work as much as we can.

38. 34:31

    Michael Horton

    Maybe all you can do is pray. You lose your mobility, and you say, well, all I can do is pray right now. Good grief. We need millions of people doing that, interceding for the Church. Be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. See, justified and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit, united to Christ, we struggle, struggle against indwelling sin, groaning for our release, not from embodiedness, but from pain and suffering. And our hope is not in vain because Christ has been raised.

39. 35:30

    Michael Horton

    And because of that, our labors are not in vain either. As the gospel is proclaimed to the ends of the earth, those dead in trespasses and sins are raised, justified, seated with Christ in heavenly places, are being conformed to his image, and will one day be glorified together with him, as much like God as it is possible for a creature to be without becoming God himself. We will have the same glorified humanity as Jesus Christ at the Father's right hand. It doesn't get better than that. And therefore, we can be steadfast, immovable, and always abounding in the work of the Lord. Brothers and sisters, this is the vista Paul has placed before us. This is why we must die. This is why we must be raised with him.

40. 36:31

    Michael Horton

    Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. Amen. Amen.