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Welcome to Faith of Our Fathers. Today we feature John Stott, described as the presumptive pope of the evangelicals. Stott says that the central message of the Gospel is not the teachings of Jesus, but Jesus himself, the human divine figure. He is always bringing people back to the concrete reality of Jesus life and sacrifice. Today, John Stott presents presents a study on freedom from bondage of decay.
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I've tried to emphasize in introducing the subject that Christian freedom is not primarily freedom from anything, but freedom for someone. It's freedom for God to live in love as God's children. But that if we're to enjoy this liberty, the liberty of the children of God, we need to be set free from all those tyrannies which inhibit our freedom and our enjoyment of it. And so far we have talked about four of those tyrannies. The condemnation of God, the opinions of men, the slavery of self, and the fear of evil. Today I take a fifth. The fifth, the final tyranny. And that is the bondage of decay. That, at least, is what Scripture calls it. This freedom, of which I'm speaking today is still future, and it cannot be enjoyed in this life. No Christian can claim to enjoy perfect freedom in this life. Let me explain that statement. Supposing, as Christians, we are free from the condemnation of God because in Christ we have forgiveness. Supposing, secondly, we are free from the opinions of men because our aim and ambition in life are not to follow the crowd, but to please God. Supposing, thirdly, that we are free from the slavery of self because the truth has set us free. And supposing, fourthly, that we're free from the fear of evil because nothing can separate us from God's love or resist his power. And we're deeply persuaded about these things. Here is a remarkable fourfold freedom. It's a freedom from the bondage of guilt, of fashion, of self and of fear. Four tremendous freedoms. And yet we have not attained so far what the apostle Paul called the glorious liberty of the children of God. Or as the phrase literally means if you translate the Greek, it's the liberty of the glory of the children of God. The word glory has many meanings. But here in this passage, which I'm going to read to you in a moment, it is contrasted with decay. Let's turn to the passage. It's in Romans 8 again, the letter of Paul to the Romans, chapter 8. And I want to read to you from verse 18. I'm reading from the Revised Standard Version, Romans 8. 18. I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. But the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but by the will of him who subjected it in hope. Because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty, or the liberty of the glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now. Not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now, hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees. But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. That's Romans 8, verses 18 to 25. Here Paul is describing the whole creation, the created order, and he uses three descriptive terms. Verse 20, he says it's been subjected to futility or frustration. In verse 21, he says it's in bondage, to decay. In verse 22, he says it's groaning in pain. And the Greek refers to the labor pains of a woman expecting her child. Here, then, are three expressions, futility, decay, and pain, which together summarize what we may call the fallen state of the universe. It's rather interesting that the Greek word that is translated futility is used in the Septuagint, the Greek version of the Old Testament, to translate the word vanity. In the book of Ecclesiastes, you know, with its repeated refrain, vanity of vanities, futility of futilities, if you like. And C.J. vaughan, in his commentary on the Letter to the Romans, says that the whole book of Ecclesiastes is a commentary upon this verse. Verse 20. The vanity of the creation lies in its decay. As we sometimes sing in the hymn, change and decay in all around, I see all animate nature is in bondage to decay. We simply cannot escape from the cycle of nature, birth, growth, death and decomposition, or the cycle, if you like, of spring, summer, autumn and winter. It is a cycle of decay and rebirth. Inanimate nature is also decaying. Mountains and plains are being eroded by the weather. Even the stars and galaxies, we're told, are slowly running down as their energy dissipates itself. So the futility of the creation is in its decay. And in this decay it groans. And this is a groan of pain, but it's also a groan that gives promise of the birth of a new order. The groaning of nature, moreover, Paul says, is universal. Not only are in our animate and inanimate nature involved in it together, but so are human beings, yes, and God's children also. How important it is for us to realize that birth into the family of God does not liberate us from our human mortality. Grace does not eliminate nature in Christian people, or not yet. But in this life we Christian people share with the whole creation, the decay which makes creation groaning. Look carefully at the text, verse 22. We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now. Verse 23. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, we Christian people, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, we groan inwardly. So the groaning is universal. It includes animate nature, inanimate nature, human beings, and Christian people too. Now this is tremendously important. It shows us that Christian people are only half redeemed. Our souls have been redeemed, but not yet our bodies. So in 2 Corinthians 5:2 we read here indeed we groan, and we long to put on our heavenly dwelling again. Verse 4 of 2 Corinthians 5 While we're still in this tent, which is a symbol for our mortal human body, while we're still in this tent, we sigh with anxiety. It's partly then our physical frailty and mortality which make us groan. For this is a bondage. It inhibits the the full freedom which we desire to serve God, the full freedom that is going to be ours one day. But it's also the fact of indwelling sin, what Paul calls the flesh, so that he can say at the end of Romans 7, a wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this bondage of death, or from this body of death, he feels that his body body in its mortality and its weakness, because it's the seat of indwelling sin pulling him down. He longs to be delivered from this body of death. You see then, that our physical frailty on the one hand, and our sinful nature on the other are the two characteristics of our continuing bondage. And it's only when we get new bodies that first, we shall be delivered from bondage, and second, the creation will be delivered as well. I think now at this stage I would like to draw your attention to the contrasts which the apostle Paul draws in 1 Corinthians 15 between the two bodies, between our present human physical, frail body and the new body, the resurrection body, that we're going to wear one day. The fullest description of this, the fullest revelation of what the resurrection of the body will be is given us in 1 Corinthians 15. First, Paul emphasizes the fact of our resurrection, and he asserts it from the fact of Christ's resurrection. But then he goes on from the fact of resurrection to the mode of it. What will it be like? Verse 35. But someone will say, or will ask, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? Paul's immediate response is, you foolish man. Not because the question itself is foolish, but because he detects foolish presuppositions behind the question. And the particular presupposition of the questioner which he detects is that the resurrection of the body will be a kind of resuscitation of the body, that it will return to this life, the life which the body is enjoying today. But that is not what the Christian doctrine of the resurrection means. Notice how he goes on. In verse 39 he points out that there are different kinds of flesh for animate nature. There is skin and fur and feathers and fish scales. According to whether you're talking about mammals or birds or fish or what, there are already different kinds of flesh. In verses 40 and 41, he says, there are different kinds of star. One star differs from another in glory. So he says, if there are different kinds of flesh, flesh, and different kinds of star, why should not God be able to create different kinds of body? And in particular, he draws an analogy from plants. Already in verse 37, he has said that what you sow when you drop it into the ground, is a bare grain or kernel. But verse 38, God gives it a body, and every seed has its own body. In other words, although there is some continuity between the plant and the seed out of which it grows, yet the flower is completely different. Different in shape and color, in fragrance, in elegance, completely different from the bare, ugly seed that you drop into the ground. Verse 42. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. In other words, the new body, the resurrection body, although it will have some continuity with this body that we're wearing today, will be as much different from this body as the plant is different from the seed out of which it grows. And in verses 42 to 44, he supplies four striking contrasts between this body and the new resurrection body. First he says, what you sow is perishable. What is raised is imperishable. Everything about this body is perishable. I sometimes think that our human body should be labeled perishable goods, fragile, handle with great care. Because when you come to think about it, this human body of Ours has considerable fragility. It is very perishable. It cannot endure the extremes, any extremes of temperature or climate. It easily dies from exposure to heat or cold. We have to clothe our body. We have to protect it. We have to nourish it with a balanced diet of food and drink. And our body is prone to fatigue, sickness, disease, and pain. But the new body, the resurrection body, will be imperishable. It will not only be immune to all germs and bacteria, so that there will be no more sickness or disease, but in addition to that, it will never grow old. The resurrection body will enjoy perennial youth. It will have no more fatigue or pain or death. As the Apostle Paul puts it at the end of this chapter, 1 Corinthians 15, this perishable shall put on the imperishable. This mortal shall put on immortality. That's the first contrast. The second is that what is sown is in dishonor, but it will be raised in glory. So if the first contrast is between what is perishable and what is imperishable, the second is between dishonor and glory. Let's be clear that the dishonor of this present mortal human body is not in itself. There is nothing dishonorable about corpority, that is about being in a bodily condition. The body is not what the Greeks thought it was, a kind of dungeon in which the human spirit is imprisoned. The Bible never teaches any such thing. It tells us that God himself created the body. Rather, is the body a vehicle through which the human spirit expresses itself, so that as I'm speaking to you, I'm expressing myself, my human spirit, through speech. If you could see me as well as listen to me, you would realize that I'm also moving about and gesticulating, and I'm expressing myself visibly as well as audibly through my body. God made man, a body, soul, and our eternal destiny. And the purpose of God is not to be a disembodied spirit, but to be a re embodied spirit. So the dishonour of the body does not lie in the body itself. There is nothing dishonourable about corporeity. The dishonour of the body lies rather in its connection with our fallen human nature, of which the body is the sphere. Thus some of our bodily appetites, which are perfectly right and natural in themselves and created by God, have become corrupted by sin. For example, eating easily degenerates into gluttony, drinking into drunkenness, sleep into sloth, and sex into immorality. The glory of the resurrection body on the other hand is that it will be entirely rid of this indwelling sin. Notice then that the word glory is contrasted here in this passage, not with corruption or decay, as it was in Romans 8, but with dishonor. So that if the dishonor, the shame of this present body is that it is the seat of sin, the glory of the new resurrection body is that it will no longer be the seat of sin. Our fallen nature will die with us. We shall leave it behind in the grave, and it will not be resurrected. When the human body is resurrected, our body will be raised in glory without any indwelling sin at all, any tendency to sin, any proneness to sin. All these things will belong to the past. That brings me to the third contrast, which is the contrast between we weakness and power. That is, you'll find here in this passage. What is sown is in weakness, and it is raised in power. The body has other weaknesses besides its mortality. It's conditioned by time and space. And when you think about it, these impairs severe limitations upon the human body. Our awareness of reality, the awareness of reality that we have while we're in this present body, is very limited. It's limited by what is experienced here and now. Although to be sure, modern technology has greatly expanded our awareness of what is going on elsewhere by electronic marvels like Radio Intelligence Division. Nevertheless, our body is to a large extent limited to what it can experience here and now. But the new body, the resurrection body, is going to have new powers. And our guesses as to what the new powers of the resurrection body will be are not altogether unfounded. I draw your attention now to verse 49 of 1 Corinthians 15, which says that just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven, that is Jesus Christ, the man of dust being Adam. And similarly, in Philippians 3, verse 21, we read that he shall change the body of our lowliness, that it may be like the body of his his glory. Now, those two verses, 1 Corinthians 15:49 and Philippians 3:21, quite clearly teach that Christ's resurrection body is the prototype of ours. Our resurrection body is going to be like his. So it is legitimate to draw tentative deductions about the resurrection body from the data that are supplied at the end of the Gospels about the resurrection body of Christ. To begin with, Christ's resurrection body had some continuity with the body of his flesh. It had flesh and bones. He called it flesh and bones, although incidentally it's never called flesh and blood. It's not the same kind of physiological evidence that his human body was before the resurrection. But flesh and bone speaks of it as being able at least to materialize. It could be seen, it could be felt. It still bore the scars in his hands and side, and he could still eat, although it seems certain that he didn't need to. But although his resurrection body had some continuity, and with his old body, it also passed through the grave clothes, leaving them undisturbed on the stone slab in the sepulcher. It burst from the tomb, it passed through closed doors, it could vanish from sight, and it ascended into heaven, defying the law of gravity. I would myself want to say that there's no reason to doubt that our new resurrection body will have similarly new powers. Precisely what they are, we do not have the capacity to understand or imagine, but we can guess in that kind of way. Our present body is weak. Our resurrection body will be powerful. It will have new powers. And the fourth difference, which Paul mentions here, is that our presentation body is physical, verse 44. And our new body will be a spiritual body. Now, the Greek word for physical here is psukicos, which is translated by the New English Bible, animal. It describes our natural, animal, unregenerate life. So the present body is a physical body because it is controlled by psuki, by the principle of animal or earthly life. But the resurrection body, it will be spiritual because it will be controlled by pneuma, the principle of heavenly or spiritual life. In a word, this body is adapted to life on earth. The resurrection body will be adapted to life in heaven. Now it's time to summarize and conclude. We've seen that this fifth tyranny we've been considering is due to the fact that we are both mortal and sinful beings. We're in bondage to decay and death on the one hand, and to the flesh that is our self centered nature on the other. So the liberty to which we're looking forward is the liberty of glory. And this glory, glory is deliverance from both physical and moral corruption, from decay and from sin. Now, three short points in conclusion. First, the Christian's perspective. Christians are looking forward to death. We're not just delivered from the fear of death, which is a bondage. Nor are we, I hope, unfeeling about our relatives who may survive us, be bereaved. Nor are we simply seeking to escape from this world. But we're longing for what death will bring us. As we read in 2 Corinthians 5, 4, not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. We need to learn to live this life in the light of the next, looking forward to our final liberation. Second, the Christian's assurance. We know about this renewal called resurrection, because God has already given us the first fruits of the Spirit, the indwelling Spirit, as a pledge of our final inheritance. Thirdly, the Christian's expectation. Thank God for the four freedoms he's already given us. But the fifth freedom is yet to come and it will be the best of all. It is the liberty of glory. We shall be freed from every impediment of body and flesh, free to love, serve and obey God without any hindrance.
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You've been listening to John Samuel. Listen to Faith of Our Fathers each Saturday and Sunday to hear more great 20th century preachers.