1 Corinthians 15
15
Jesus Christ died, then he came alive again
1My Christian friends, I want you to remember the good news that I taught you. You listened to that message and believed it, and you still strongly believe it. 2And if you keep on believing that good news, God will save you. If you don’t keep on believing it, I reckon you didn’t believe it properly in the first place.
3You know, God told me that message, and then I taught it to you. And, you know, a long time ago, God got his men to write about some of those things, and they are in God’s book. Now I’ll tell you the important part of that message again. Everybody did bad things. We are all bad, but Jesus Christ died instead of us. That message is in God’s book.#Isaiah 53:5-12 4People buried Jesus. Then after 2 nights, on the 3rd day, God made him alive again. That message is in God’s book too.#Psalm 16:8-10; Matthew 12:40; Acts 2:24-32 5After that, Jesus showed himself to Peter. Then later he showed himself to all of his 12 special workers.#Matthew 28:16-17; Mark 16:14; Luke 24:34, 36; John 20:19 6After that, he showed himself to more than 500 of his followers at the same time. Most of those 500 people are still alive, but some of them have died. 7Then he showed himself to James, and later he showed himself to all of his special workers.
8All those people saw Jesus. But I was different from Jesus’s other special workers. He didn’t show himself to me until some time later.#Acts 9:3-6
9But before I ever saw Jesus, he sent out his other special workers. They were the first people to go out and tell his message, so they are all more important than me. You see, I used to make a lot of trouble for God’s own people, so I’m not really good enough for anyone to call me one of Jesus’s special workers.#Acts 8:3 10But God was very good to me. He changed me and made me the way I am now. And so more people heard the good news about Jesus. You see, I’ve worked harder than any of his other special workers. But it wasn’t really me that did that work. No. It was God that gave me the power to do his work, so he is the one that did it. 11So it doesn’t really matter who told you God’s message. Maybe it was me, or maybe it was one of his other special workers. We all tell people the same good news about Jesus Christ, and that is the good news that you believed. That is the important thing.
God will make dead people come alive again
12This is our message. Jesus Christ died, and then God made him alive again. But some of you reckon that God never makes dead people alive again. But you are wrong. 13You see, if you reckon that God never makes dead people alive again, you are also saying that God didn’t make Jesus Christ alive again. 14And if you reckon that God didn’t make Jesus Christ alive again, you are saying that our message is useless, and that you believed something that was wrong. 15If that’s what you reckon, you are saying that we lied to you about God when we told you that he made Jesus Christ alive again. But you are not right. 16You see, if you reckon that God never makes dead people alive again, you are saying that he didn’t make Jesus Christ alive again. 17And if God didn’t make Jesus Christ alive again, like you reckon, then you believed in Jesus for nothing, and it means that you are still guilty of the bad things you did. 18And if you reckon that God never makes dead people alive again, you are saying that the Christians that died are now lost and gone for ever. 19You reckon that we can only be sure that Jesus Christ will look after us here in this life. But we Christians get trouble in this life, and other people in the world are more happy than us. So if God will not make us alive again after we die, they can feel sorry for us. But that is not true.
20Listen, this is the true story. Jesus Christ died, and God made him alive again. Jesus was the first person to die and then come back to life again, and to live for ever.
21-22You see, it’s like this. God said that everyone that does bad things has to die. Remember the first man, called Adam. He did something bad, so he died. And we are all from Adam, so we are all in his family, and we all do bad things too, so we all have to die. But then another man came, and he only did good things. That man is Jesus Christ. So now, after people die, God can make them alive again. You see, everyone that believes in Jesus Christ is in Jesus’s family now, so God will make them alive again. 23But we each have to wait for our turn. The first one was Jesus Christ. He died, and then God made him alive again. He is the first one to live again. After he comes back, all his people will live again too. 24Then Jesus will finish up all the bad spirits. Some of them are bosses, and some of them have power. He will take away their power, and he will finish them all up. Then the end will come, and Jesus will give everything to God, the father, and God will be the biggest boss for everybody.
25You see, Jesus Christ will keep on being the big boss, until he wins against his enemies, and God makes all those enemies do what Jesus says.#Psalm 110:1 26In the end he will stop us from dying. He will keep everything alive, and nobody will die any more. 27God’s book says this,
“God will win, and he will make everything do what he says.”#Psalm 8:6
Those words tell us that God is the one that will make everything do what Jesus says. You see, Jesus will not be the boss over God, but he will be the boss over everything else. 28When God makes everything do what Jesus Christ says, then Jesus, God’s son, will have God as his boss. Then God will control everything everywhere. He will be the one and only biggest boss.
29You know, sometimes a Christian dies before anyone baptised them, so sometimes you mob try to help them, and you baptise another Christian instead of them. But think about it, if dead people will never live again, that is a useless thing for you to do.
30And think about me and the other people that work with me. We tell everyone God’s message, and some people get angry with us and they want to kill us. 31Every day, I worry that somebody might kill me. My Christian friends, I’m very happy that you are trusting our leader Jesus Christ, so I’m telling you this. 32At that town called Ephesus, I got trouble for telling people about Jesus. Some men there tried to kill me, and I had to fight back. I was like a man fighting wild animals. But, if God will not make me alive again after I die, it means I got all that trouble for nothing. Some of you reckon that dead people will never live again. If that is true, then we can be like the people that say this,
“We are going to die tomorrow, so today we will have fun.
We will eat and drink as much as we like, and we will not worry about tomorrow.”#Isaiah 22:13
That is what they say, but it is not true.
33Listen, don’t let anyone trick you with that sort of talk. Remember that wise people say this, “Don’t have friends that do bad things, or they will get you to do bad things too.”
34So start thinking properly, and do what is right. Stop doing bad things. I think that some of you don’t really know God. I’m saying this to make you feel shame.
We will get new bodies
35Somebody might hear me say that dead people will come alive again, and they might ask me, “How can that happen? What sort of bodies will they have?” 36That’s a stupid question. You know, all sorts of things die and then they get new bodies. Think about seeds and plants. If you plant a seed in the ground, that seed dies. But that is not the end. A new plant grows up. That seed comes alive again and grows up into a new plant. 37The thing you put into the ground was just a seed (maybe a wheat seed, or whatever). You don’t put the body of the plant in the ground, but just the seed. 38Then God makes it grow up and become a new plant, with its own sort of body. God gives every sort of seed its own sort of body.
39Every sort of thing that is alive has a different sort of body from every other sort of thing. People have one sort of body. Animals have a different sort of body. Birds have another sort of body, and fish have another sort of body. 40And other things have different sorts of bodies too. There are bodies in the sky, and there are bodies here on the earth. They are all beautiful in their own way. The bodies in the sky are beautiful in a different way from the bodies on the earth. 41The sun is bright and beautiful. And the moon is beautiful too, in a different way from the sun. The stars are bright and beautiful too, but they are different again, and some stars are brighter than other stars.
42Well, it will be like that for us when God makes us alive again. The bodies we have now will die. But after God makes us alive again, our new bodies will never die. 43The bodies we have now are weak and not very good. But after God makes us alive again, our new bodies will be beautiful and strong. 44The bodies we have when we die are normal bodies. But after God makes us alive again, we will have new bodies, and they will be spiritual bodies. You see, there are normal bodies, and there are spiritual bodies. 45This is what God says in his book,
“The 1st man, Adam, became a living person.”#Genesis 2:7
But we can think of Jesus, that he is the last Adam. You see, he is the spirit that makes people alive. 46It is like this. Right now, each of us has a normal body. They are the bodies we got at first. But later we will each get a new spiritual body. 47And think about Adam. He was the 1st man, and he came from the ground. But Jesus, the 2nd man, came from heaven. 48Everyone on earth has a body like the man that came from the ground. But the people that belong to heaven will have a body like the man that came from heaven. 49You see, the bodies that we have now are like Adam’s body. He was the 1st man, and God made him out of the ground. But our spiritual bodies will be different. They will be like Jesus’s body. He is the man that came from heaven.
50My Christian friends, this is what I’m telling you. We can’t go to God and live for ever in his family in our normal bodies. They are made of meat, blood, bones, skin, and all that. These bodies that we have now have to die. They can’t go on for ever.
51Listen, I’m telling you something new. God didn’t tell other people this message before, but it is important. He will change all of us. Some of us will still be alive at that time, but maybe some of us will be dead. It doesn’t matter, God will change all of us. 52It will happen like this. We will hear the sound of somebody blowing the last trumpet, then straight away God will change us. It will be quick, as quick as you can blink your eyes. You see, as soon as that trumpet makes its sound, God will make his dead people alive again. At that time, he will give us new bodies that will never die. God will change all of us, those of us that are alive and those of us that are dead at that time.#1 Thessalonians 4:15-17 53You see, the bodies we have now will die, but they will get new life. God will change our normal bodies into bodies that can never die.
54-56You know, whenever we do bad things, we break God’s law, and God’s law says we have to die for doing those bad things. There is a power that gets us to go wrong and die like that. It is like a cheeky scorpion that stings us and kills us. But God will change our bodies into bodies that will never die, and at that same time God will finish up that power that makes us go wrong. You know, a long time ago, one of God’s men wrote about this, and it is in God’s book. He wrote,
“God will finish up that power that makes everything die.”#Isaiah 25:8
“It will be gone. It will not sting us any more,
and people will not die any more.”#Hosea 13:14
And it will happen just like those men wrote.
57You see, our leader Jesus Christ has won the fight. So with Jesus we win too. And we say, “Thank you God.”
58So always remember those things, my Christian friends. I love you, and I want you to stay strong for God. Don’t let anything take you away from him. Keep on working hard for our leader Jesus. Remember, he will help you, so that everything you do with him will be good. It will not be useless.
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© 2021, Wycliffe Bible Translators, Inc. All rights reserved.
1 Corinthians 15
15
The Question About Rising From the Dead
1Brothers and sisters, I want to remind you of the good news that I preached to you. You received it, you belong to it, 2and you’re being saved by it. But you must hold firmly to the message I preached to you. Otherwise, you’ll have believed it for nothing.
3When I passed on to you what I received, I told you that the most important thing was that Christ died for our sins, just as Scripture said he would; 4that he was buried; and that he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as Scripture said he would be. 5He appeared to Peter, then he appeared to the 12 apostles, 6and after that, he appeared to more than 500 brothers and sisters at the same time. (Most of them are still living, although some have died.) 7He appeared to James, then he appeared to all the apostles, 8and last of all he also appeared to me, as if I’d been born almost too late to see him.
9I’m the least important of the apostles, and I’m not even fit to be called an apostle, because I tried to destroy God’s church. 10But by the grace of God, I am what I am, and his grace wasn’t wasted on me. No, I worked harder than all the other apostles—though it wasn’t me doing the work. God’s grace was with me. 11But whether it’s me or the other apostles, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
Believers Will Rise From the Dead
12But since we do preach that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that no one rises from the dead? 13If no one rises from the dead, then Christ hasn’t been raised. 14And if Christ hasn’t been raised, then what we preach doesn’t mean anything, and your faith doesn’t mean anything either. 15Even worse, that would make us false witnesses about God, because we testified that God raised Christ from the dead. But God didn’t do that if the dead aren’t really raised. 16If the dead aren’t raised, then Christ hasn’t been raised either. 17And if Christ hasn’t been raised, then your faith doesn’t mean anything. Your sins haven’t been forgiven, 18and those who have died believing in Christ are lost. 19If we have hope in Christ only for this life, then people should pity us more than anyone else.
20But Christ truly has been raised from the dead. He is the first of all those who will rise from the dead. 21Since death came because of what one man did, rising from the dead also comes because of what one man did. 22Because of Adam, all people die, and because of Christ, all will be made alive. 23But this will happen in a particular order. Christ is the first of those who rise from the dead. When he comes back, those who belong to him will be raised. 24And then the end will come, when he will hand the kingdom over to God the Father, after he has destroyed all other rulers, authorities, and powers. 25Christ must rule until he has put all his enemies under his control. 26The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. 27Scripture says that God “has put everything under his control.” (When it says that “everything” has been put under him, it’s clear that this doesn’t include God himself, who put everything under Christ.) 28When he has put everything under his control, the Son will then put himself under the rule of God, who put everything under him. In that way, God will be all in all.
29If no one rises from the dead, where does that leave people who are baptized for the dead? If the dead aren’t raised at all, why are people baptized for them? 30And why would we put ourselves in danger every hour? 31I face death every day, just as surely as I take pride in what Christ Jesus our Lord has done for you through my work. 32If I fought wild animals in Ephesus with nothing more than human hopes, then what did I gain by that? If the dead aren’t raised,
“Let us eat and drink,
because tomorrow we’ll die.”
33Don’t let anyone fool you. “Having bad friends turns a good person into a bad one.” 34Come back to your senses and stop sinning. Some of you don’t know anything about God. You should be ashamed of that!
The Body That Rises From the Dead
35But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? What kind of body will they have?” 36How foolish! What you plant doesn’t come to life unless it dies. 37When you plant something, you don’t put a completely grown plant into the ground. You plant only a seed, maybe of wheat or something else. 38But God gives the seed a body just as he has planned, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39Not all earthly creatures are the same. People have one kind of body, animals have another kind, birds another, and fish still another. 40There are also heavenly bodies as well as earthly bodies. Heavenly bodies have one kind of glory, and earthly bodies have a different kind. 41The sun has one kind of brightness, the moon has another kind, and stars have still another. And one star’s brightness is different from that of another star.
42It will be like that with bodies that are raised from the dead. The body that is planted doesn’t last forever; the body that is raised from the dead does. 43It is planted without honor, but it is raised in glory. It is planted in weakness, but it is raised in power. 44It is planted as a body made alive in the natural way, but it is raised as a body made alive by spirit.
Just as there is a naturally living body, there is also a spiritually living body. 45It is written, “The first man Adam became a living person.” But the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46What is animated by spirit didn’t come first; the natural came first. What is spiritual came after that. 47The first man came from the dust of the earth, but the second man came from heaven. 48Those who belong to the earth are like the one who came from the earth, and those who are spiritual are like the one who came from heaven. 49Right now we’re like the earthly man, but one day we’ll be like the heavenly man.
50Brothers and sisters, here’s what I’m telling you. Bodies made of flesh and blood can’t inherit the kingdom of God. Things that perish can’t share in what never perishes. 51Listen! I’m telling you a mystery. We’re not all going to die, but we will all be changed. 52That will happen in a flash, as quickly as you can blink an eye. It will happen at the blast of the last trumpet. Then the dead will be raised to live forever, and we will be changed. 53Our bodies that don’t last forever must be dressed with what does last forever. These bodies that perish must be dressed with what doesn’t perish, and these bodies that don’t last must be dressed with what lasts forever. 54And when our bodies that die are dressed with what doesn’t die, then the saying that is written will come true, “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55“Death, where is your victory?
Death, where is your sting?”
56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58My dear brothers and sisters, remain strong in the faith. Don’t let anything move you. Always give yourselves completely to the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord, your work isn’t for nothing.
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