Sunday 7th May
Read 1 Corinthians 15:50-58
“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed – 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 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.’
55 ‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
56 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.
58 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 labour in the Lord is not in vain.” (NIVUK)
Paul now summarises and repeats the key points he has strived to establish concerning the future bodily resurrection of believers. We can see what that key point is if we consider the 53rd and 54th verses. For an apostle who very rarely uses repetition in this way, those two verses are nearly identical. We can only conclude they are very important!
What do they say? They say that our corruptible and decaying human bodies must be transformed so that they are fit for a future creation where death no longer reigns. We will have bodies renewed and transformed by God’s Spirit and fit to stand in God’s presence (cf. v50).
The sensible response to this amazing, and somewhat staggering, truth is two-fold. First is to sing and shout of the triumph over death that was won at the cross! The song is almost mocking of death’s impotence as God’s victory is so overwhelmingly comprehensive. Second, we must work hard for our Lord, knowing that anything we do for Him is not in vain but will continue on into eternity. For the life at work in us by God’s Spirit has already commenced – we are already renewed though the transformation wrought by the Spirit of God – although it is not yet fully revealed. Nothing we do in this life, by God’s Spirit, is in vain.
Bring on the sound of the trumpet (v52)!
