Tuesday 2nd May
Read 1 Corinthians 15:12-19
“But if it is preached that Christ has been raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13 If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15 More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God, for we have testified about God that he raised Christ from the dead. But he did not raise him if in fact the dead are not raised. 16 For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (NIVUK)
There are many believers who would affirm the truth that Christ rose from the dead yet have a hope for eternal life that is strangely at odds with this truth. The Corinthians, a mostly Gentile community of believers, were questioning bodily resurrection as it was at odds with their Greek conception of the afterlife. Like them, many Western Christian believers today (heirs of the Romans and Greeks in their understanding of the afterlife), have a hope that when they die they will go to be with Jesus in heaven and their spirit will live on forever in disembodied bliss.
However, Paul argues such a view is dangerous nonsense. To deny a future bodily resurrection calls into question the very basis of Christian faith. Twice Paul makes the point that future resurrection follows logically from the past resurrection of Christ – the essence of the preached good news that death has indeed been conquered (v13,16). Therefore, to deny future resurrection is to deny the gospel itself.
Surely a hope of disembodied bliss in heaven with Jesus is just as powerful and life-affirming as what is, let’s be honest, the nonsense idea that cremated or two-thousand-year-old decomposed bodies will be resurrected? Doesn’t common sense tell us that it is impossible for anyone whose ashes have been spread out at sea to somehow come back to life in bodily form? Paul will address the nature of our resurrection bodies later (v35-49) but it is important not to miss his main point. We know that bodily resurrection is true because Jesus was bodily resurrected. If you deny that, then you deny that death has been defeated and that sin has been paid for.
This denial has practical consequences. It means that this life is all we have and we will have spent it carrying around the death of Jesus only. Paul can’t emphasise enough just how pathetic and futile and hopeless that is. Sad beyond belief (v14, 18). Our hope is bound up in the resurrection – and it is a hope of bodily resurrection. We do well to banish all thoughts of disembodied bliss and cling to the new life Jesus has won for us!
