1 Corinthians 15
15
Chapter 15
Christ became alive again after he died
1My Christian friends, I want you to remember the good news that I taught to you. You received it from me and you continue to believe it as a true message. 2Because of the message that I spoke to you, God will save you. He will save you if you continue to trust that same good news. If you do not, you have believed it for nothing.
3I received the good news from Christ, and I told that message to you. I told you the most important things:
Christ died as a sacrifice for our sins. The Bible already said how that would happen. 4People buried his dead body. On the third day after that God raised him up to live again. The Bible already spoke about that too.
5After that, Christ appeared to Peter. Later, he appeared to his 12 disciples. 6And after that, he appeared to more than 500 believers at the same time. Most of those 500 people are still alive, but some of them have died. 7Then Christ appeared to James. Later he appeared to all the apostles.
8After all these people had seen him, Christ also appeared to me. I was like someone who was born at the wrong time. 9Among all the apostles, I am the least important. I caused so much trouble for God's church that people should not really call me an apostle. 10But God was very kind to me. He helped me to become a different person. And because God has been so kind to me, the result has been great. I have worked more than all the other apostles. But it was not really I myself who could do that work. No, I could do it because God was so kind to me. 11So then, all of us apostles teach the same good news about Christ. That is the message that you have believed. It does not matter which of us told it to you, whether it was me or someone else.
People do live again after death
12We all speak this message: God raised Christ up after his death. But some of you say that dead people do not live again. 13Anyone who says that is wrong. If dead people do not live again, then Christ did not rise up after his death. He would still be dead. 14And if God did not raise Christ up, it does no good for us to tell God's good news to people. There would be nothing for you to believe. 15We would have been telling lies about God, because we told you that God raised Christ up after his death. But if dead people do not live again, that would not be true.
16So, if dead people never rise to a new life, then Christ himself did not rise after his death. 17And if Christ did not rise, then you have believed a false message. God would still say that you are guilty, because of your sins.
18Also, think about those people who believed in Christ but they have already died. If dead people do not rise to a new life, those people would have no life with God. 19As believers, we trust Christ to lead us into a new life after death. But if we only trust him to help us in this life, we should be very sad. Everybody should be very sorry for us, more than for anyone else.
20But it is really true that God raised Christ up after his death. He rose up to go to God in heaven. He was the first, so we know that believers who die will also rise up.
21All people die because of what one man did. That was Adam. #15:21 Adam was the first person that God made in the beginning. See Genesis 1:26-27. And it is because of another man that people can rise up after death to a new life. That is Christ. 22As people, all of us belong to Adam's family. So all of us must die. But all people who belong to Christ will live again after death. 23It is like this: First of all, Christ died and then he became alive again. Then, when Christ returns, his people will live again too. 24After that, the end of everything will happen. Christ will win against every ruler and power and authority. He will give the kingdom to God, the Father. God will rule over everything.
25Christ himself must rule as king until he has won against all his enemies. 26The last enemy that he must destroy is death. 27It says in the Bible, ‘God has put all things under his authority.’ #15:27 See Psalms 8:6.
But it is clear that the words ‘all things’ do not include God himself. No, because it is God who put all things under Christ's authority. 28When God has put all things under Christ's authority, then God's Son, Jesus Christ, will put himself under his Father's authority. Then God will have complete authority over all things, everywhere.
29Think about this. Some of you have let people baptize you on behalf of believers who have already died. But if dead people do not rise up to a new life, there is no reason to baptize anyone on their behalf. #15:29 It seems that some people in the church at Corinth did this. If a believer died before anyone baptized him, they might baptize another believer on behalf of the dead person. Paul does not say that this was a good thing to do. But it shows that they expected dead believers to rise to a new life.
30Also, think about us! All the time we are in great danger. 31Yes, every day I come near to death! Why do I tell you this? It is because I am proud of you. I am proud because we all belong to Christ Jesus our Lord. 32At Ephesus city, people attacked me like wild animals and I fought against them. #15:32 Ephesus was a city in the country that we call Turkey now. But that would be worth nothing to me if dead people do not rise to a new life. If dead people do not live again, then we could say:
‘Tomorrow we will probably die.
So we should just eat and drink as much as we like.’ #15:32 See Isaiah 22:13; 56:12.
33Do not let anyone deceive you. Remember this:
‘If you become a friend of bad people, you also will live in a bad way.’
34So start thinking properly! Stop doing wrong things! Some of you do not really know God. I am saying this to make you feel ashamed.
New bodies
35One of you may ask, ‘How does God raise dead people, to make them alive again? What kind of body will they have?’ 36Do not think like a fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it has to die first. Then it can become alive again and grow into a new plant. 37You put just a seed into the ground. It might be wheat or it might be another kind of seed. You do not put into the ground the whole plant that the seed will become. 38But God makes that seed become a plant. Each plant has its own special body that God has chosen for it.
39Also, things that are alive do not have the same kind of body. People have one kind of body. Animals have a different kind of body. Birds and fish also have a different kind of body. 40Also, there are things up in the sky that are different from the things here on the earth. They have different bodies. Also, the things in the sky are beautiful in a different way from the things on the earth. 41The sun is beautiful in a special way. The moon is also beautiful in a special way, but it is different from the sun. The stars are beautiful too, and each star is beautiful in its own special way.
42It is like that when God raises a dead person to a new life. We bury the dead person's body in the ground and it becomes spoiled. But when God raises it up, it will live for ever. 43When we bury the body, it is not beautiful. But when God raises it up, it is very beautiful. When we bury the body, it is weak. But when God raises it, it is strong. 44What we bury in the ground is a human body. But the body that God raises up is a spiritual body. There is a human body that belongs to this earth. So there also has to be a spiritual body that belongs to heaven.
45It says in the Bible, ‘The first man, Adam, became a person who received life.’ #15:45 See Genesis 2:7. But Christ is like the last Adam. He is a spirit who gives life to people.
46The spiritual body does not come first. No, what is human comes first. Then, after that, what is spiritual comes. 47God used soil from the ground to make the first man, Adam. But the second man came from heaven. 48People who live on the earth have bodies like the first man. That is the man that God made from the soil of the earth. People in heaven have bodies like the man who came from heaven. 49Now God has given us bodies that look like the first man. One day we will have bodies that look like the man who belongs in heaven.
50I tell you this, my Christian friends. Our weak human bodies cannot go to heaven, to join God in his kingdom there. Our human bodies will die. They cannot share in something that will continue for ever.
51Listen to me. I will explain a great secret to you. Not all of us will die, but God will change all of us. 52It will happen in a short moment, when the last trumpet makes a sound. When that trumpet makes its sound, God will raise up the believers who have died. He will give them bodies that can never die. In that way, he will change all of us.
53That has to happen. Our bodies that are becoming spoiled must change. They must change into bodies that never become spoiled. Our bodies that are dying must change into bodies that will never die. 54God will give us new bodies like that. When that happens, what is written in the Bible will become true. It says:
‘God has won against death. He has destroyed it completely!’ #15:54 See Isaiah 25:8.
55‘Death, you can no longer win!
Death, you no longer have any power to hurt us!’ #15:55 See Hosea 13:14.
56Death only has power to hurt us because of our sins. And it is the authority of God's Law that gives power to sins. 57But now we thank God! Because of our Lord Jesus Christ, we win against death and its power.
58So you must continue to be strong in your spirits, my Christian friends that I love. Do not let anything move you away from your faith. Continue to work hard as you serve the Lord. You know that whatever you do for him will not be useless.
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1 Corinthians 15
15
Resurrection
1-2Friends, let me go over the Message with you one final time—this Message that I proclaimed and that you made your own; this Message on which you took your stand and by which your life has been saved. (I’m assuming, now, that your belief was the real thing and not a passing fancy, that you’re in this for good and holding fast.)
3-9The first thing I did was place before you what was placed so emphatically before me: that the Messiah died for our sins, exactly as Scripture tells it; that he was buried; that he was raised from death on the third day, again exactly as Scripture says; that he presented himself alive to Peter, then to his closest followers, and later to more than five hundred of his followers all at the same time, most of them still around (although a few have since died); that he then spent time with James and the rest of those he commissioned to represent him; and that he finally presented himself alive to me. It was fitting that I bring up the rear. I don’t deserve to be included in that inner circle, as you well know, having spent all those early years trying my best to stamp God’s church right out of existence.
10-11But because God was so gracious, so very generous, here I am. And I’m not about to let his grace go to waste. Haven’t I worked hard trying to do more than any of the others? Even then, my work didn’t amount to all that much. It was God giving me the work to do, God giving me the energy to do it. So whether you heard it from me or from those others, it’s all the same: We spoke God’s truth and you entrusted your lives.
12-15Now, let me ask you something profound yet troubling. If you became believers because you trusted the proclamation that Christ is alive, risen from the dead, how can you let people say that there is no such thing as a resurrection? If there’s no resurrection, there’s no living Christ. And face it—if there’s no resurrection for Christ, everything we’ve told you is smoke and mirrors, and everything you’ve staked your life on is smoke and mirrors. Not only that, but we would be guilty of telling a string of barefaced lies about God, all these affidavits we passed on to you verifying that God raised up Christ—sheer fabrications, if there’s no resurrection.
16-20If corpses can’t be raised, then Christ wasn’t, because he was indeed dead. And if Christ weren’t raised, then all you’re doing is wandering about in the dark, as lost as ever. It’s even worse for those who died hoping in Christ and resurrection, because they’re already in their graves. If all we get out of Christ is a little inspiration for a few short years, we’re a pretty sorry lot. But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.
21-28There is a nice symmetry in this: Death initially came by a man, and resurrection from death came by a man. Everybody dies in Adam; everybody comes alive in Christ. But we have to wait our turn: Christ is first, then those with him at his Coming, the grand consummation when, after crushing the opposition, he hands over his kingdom to God the Father. He won’t let up until the last enemy is down—and the very last enemy is death! As the psalmist said, “He laid them low, one and all; he walked all over them.” When Scripture says that “he walked all over them,” it’s obvious that he couldn’t at the same time be walked on. When everything and everyone is finally under God’s rule, the Son will step down, taking his place with everyone else, showing that God’s rule is absolutely comprehensive—a perfect ending!
29Why do you think people offer themselves to be baptized for those already in the grave? If there’s no chance of resurrection for a corpse, if God’s power stops at the cemetery gates, why do we keep doing things that suggest he’s going to clean the place out someday, pulling everyone up on their feet alive?
30-33And why do you think I keep risking my neck in this dangerous work? I look death in the face practically every day I live. Do you think I’d do this if I wasn’t convinced of your resurrection and mine as guaranteed by the resurrected Messiah Jesus? Do you think I was just trying to act heroic when I fought the wild beasts at Ephesus, hoping it wouldn’t be the end of me? Not on your life! It’s resurrection, resurrection, always resurrection, that undergirds what I do and say, the way I live. If there’s no resurrection, “We eat, we drink, the next day we die,” and that’s all there is to it. But don’t fool yourselves. Don’t let yourselves be poisoned by this anti-resurrection loose talk. “Bad company ruins good manners.”
34Think straight. Awaken to the holiness of life. No more playing fast and loose with resurrection facts. Ignorance of God is a luxury you can’t afford in times like these. Aren’t you embarrassed that you’ve let this kind of thing go on as long as you have?
35-38Some skeptic is sure to ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
39-41You will notice that the variety of bodies is stunning. Just as there are different kinds of seeds, there are different kinds of bodies—humans, animals, birds, fish—each unprecedented in its form. You get a hint at the diversity of resurrection glory by looking at the diversity of bodies not only on earth but in the skies—sun, moon, stars—all these varieties of beauty and brightness. And we’re only looking at pre-resurrection “seeds”—who can imagine what the resurrection “plants” will be like!
42-44This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!
45-49We follow this sequence in Scripture: The First Adam received life, the Last Adam is a life-giving Spirit. Physical life comes first, then spiritual—a firm base shaped from the earth, a final completion coming out of heaven. The First Man was made out of earth, and people since then are earthy; the Second Man was made out of heaven, and people now can be heavenly. In the same way that we’ve worked from our earthy origins, let’s embrace our heavenly ends.
50I need to emphasize, friends, that our natural, earthy lives don’t in themselves lead us by their very nature into the kingdom of God. Their very “nature” is to die, so how could they “naturally” end up in the Life kingdom?
51-57But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?
It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
58With all this going for us, my dear, dear friends, stand your ground. And don’t hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Master, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
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THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson. All rights reserved. Used by permission of NavPress. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers.