| I Corinthians 15 is the "resurrection
chapter" of the Bible. Read the whole chapter! Paul said....... If Christ be preached that He rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen." Yet today there are many Christian-professing ministers and "believers" who would insist there is no need for an alleged "resurrection of the dead," thus setting aside this massive weight of Scripture, attempting to twist or abrogate even the words of their very Savior! Think for a moment! If there were such a thing as an "immortal soul," and if that "soul" went to heaven or elsewhere when it departed the body at death, then why would there be any need for a resurrection? Why take a corrupted, disease-ridden dead body and reunite it once again hundreds of thousands of years later with a beautiful, spirit-like, uncorrupted "soul"? Does this make any sense to your rational mind? Does the Bible anywhere justify the ridiculous assumption that after the patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testament have allegedly spent thousands of years in "heaven," God is someday going to yank their "souls" back out of heaven, project them back down to earth into the dust and caves of our physical environment, put those "souls" back into those corrupted and wasted (totally disappeared!) bodies, and then decide whether they belonged in heaven all the time? Of course, this whole suggestion is ludicrous. The reason it is so ludicrous is that the pagan notion of the "immortality of the soul" simply cannot be made to fit the Bible! Yes, there are those today who say there is no necessity for a resurrection of the dead. But they lie, and do not know the truth. Paul said, "For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: and if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain: ye are yet in your sins." Notice verse 22: "...As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits: afterward they that are Christ's at His coming." Notice carefully that Jesus is called the firstfruits from the dead! That means He has complete precedence. No one has preceded Him! That clearly means that none of the righteous men of the past—Noah, Abraham, Job, Daniel or David—preceded Jesus Christ in life after death. The apostle Peter said plainly, "Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day ... For David is not ascended into the heavens: but he saith himself, "The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool" (Acts 2:29-34). Jesus is the firstborn from the dead. He is the first human being in all history to be resurrected from the grave to spirit life. As such, He must have the "preeminence in everything." These unshakable proofs completely obliterate the idea of the "immortality of the soul." Great church bodies on this earth suppose, wrongfully, that there are hosts of "saints" occupying various compartments of "heaven." Some even pray to these "saints," supposing there are living ears to hear them. But the Bible says all these righteous men of old have completely perished, are dead. In the case of one of the best-known biblical figures of all time, a man "after God's own heart" and a man who is promised to become a great king over all Israel in the resurrection—David—"hath not ascended into the heavens, " but is dead. Study the rest of this famous "resurrection chapter." "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive" (I Corinthians 15:19-22). Notice the two opposites again. Death is the complete absence of life. The resurrection is life after death. But when? Notice the order set forth in the Bible. "But every man in his own order.- Christ the firstfruits: afterward they that are Christ's, at His coming" (I Corinthians 15:23). Notice how exactly this corroborates what Daniel said concerning the great resurrection at the time of the end, what Jesus said concerning the resurrection of the "good" who shall hear the voice of God, and what the apostle Peter said about righteous men of the past who are lying oblivious in their graves! The Bible says the great resurrection to life will come at the precise moment of the second coming of Jesus Christ. "Then cometh the end, when He shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. "For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death" (I Corinthians 15:24-26). Yes, death is our great and dreaded enemy. We hate it—and most fear it. But Jesus Christ of Nazareth has conquered death! As the apostle Paul urged the Corinthians to understand, if we only had hope during this physical lifetime, we would be of all people most miserable. But, because Jesus Christ has already been resurrected, and promises to raise from the grave those that are His at His coming, we may have the faith to believe in our Savior, who has not only conquered life but conquered death! |
