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1 Corinthians 15:54-58
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
New International Version (NIV)
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We seem to have gotten off track in some of our understanding of death and resurrection. Plato said the body is bad and the spirit is good. Christianity disagreed. So when Paul thought through the implications of the resurrection, he saw the dead body as a seed planted in the ground. It is planted as perishable, raised imperishable, planted in dishonor, raised in glory, planted in weakness, raised in power, planted a natural body, raised a spiritual one. The scriptures teach that our bodies were given by God who created us in his own image. At the final resurrection, our old bodies will be raised as new bodies like the resurrection body of Jesus Christ.
But wait: don’t we do to be with the Lord immediately when we die? Yes. Paul teaches in his second letter to the Corinthians and in his letter to the Philippians that absent from the body we are present with the Lord. To live is Christ. To die is gain. We will be better by far. So what is the whole deal about the resurrection of the body? Our hope of salvation is rooted not only in Jesus’ death but in his bodily resurrection. At Christ’s return, those who are already with Christ will be reunited with their bodies and those who are alive will be translated into new bodies. When the heavenly city New Jerusalem comes down to the earth, we will all have bodies.
I know this can be confusing. How does it help our understanding of life here and eternity with God? Some day our mortal bodies will be made new and they will never die again. This means that Christians do not deny death. It is a painful reality as we all know and will know again. We do, on the other hand, defy death. Listen to Paul’s taunting of death: “Where is your victory? Where is your sting?” God has given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
John Donne must have been thinking about this when he wrote his Holy Sonnet which also taunts death:
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so;
For those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,
Much pleasure; then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery.
Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally
And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.
Until death dies, we hold on to this hope. This empowers us to stand firm and give ourselves fully to the work of the Lord. All that we do for the risen Christ can never be in vain!
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Pray with me:
Father, we thank you for the good gift of our bodies. Remind us that you who created us will someday recreate us with perfect, undying spiritual bodies. Help us to glorify you with our bodies and spirits which belong to you. As we observe our own mortality, fill us with the hope of immortality. In the name of Jesus, death’s Conqueror, we pray. Amen.
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| This year our Every Day with Jesus readings will follow The Bible Project Read Scripture Plan. Copies of this reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download
the app at readscripture.org. Read through the Bible with us in 2019!
Joyfully,
Duane
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