1 Corinthians 15:1-58
The Resurrection of the Dead
1Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, 5and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
9For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
The Resurrection of the Dead
12But 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? 13If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith. 15More 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. 16For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. 17And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.
20But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. 22For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive. 23But each in his own turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him. 24Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has destroyed all dominion, authority and power. 25For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. 26The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27For he "has put everything under his feet." Now when it says that "everything" has been put under him, it is clear that this does not include God himself, who put everything under Christ. 28When he has done this, then the Son himself will be made subject to him who put everything under him, so that God may be all in all.
29Now if there is no resurrection, what will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized for them? 30And as for us, why do we endanger ourselves every hour? 31I die every day—I mean that, brothers—just as surely as I glory over you in Christ Jesus our Lord. 32If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for merely human reasons, what have I gained? If the dead are not raised,
"Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die." 33Do not be misled: "Bad company corrupts good character." 34Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God—I say this to your shame.
The Resurrection Body
35But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;44it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. 48As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.
50I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52in 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. 53For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54When 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?" 56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58Therefore, my dear brothers, 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.
Acts 23:1-11
Paul on the Resurrection
1 Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, “My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day.” 2 At this the high priest Ananias ordered those standing near Paul to strike him on the mouth. 3 Then Paul said to him, “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall! You sit there to judge me according to the law, yet you yourself violate the law by commanding that I be struck!”
4 Those who were standing near Paul said, “How dare you insult God’s high priest!”
5 Paul replied, “Brothers, I did not realize that he was the high priest; for it is written: ‘Do not speak evil about the ruler of your people.”
6 Then Paul, knowing that some of them were Sadducees and the others Pharisees, called out in the Sanhedrin, “My brothers, I am a Pharisee, descended from Pharisees. I stand on trial because of the hope of the resurrection of the dead.” 7 When he said this, a dispute broke out between the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and the assembly was divided. 8 (The Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, and that there are neither angels nor spirits, but the Pharisees believe all these things.)
9 There was a great uproar, and some of the teachers of the law who were Pharisees stood up and argued vigorously. “We find nothing wrong with this man,” they said. “What if a spirit or an angel has spoken to him?” 10 The dispute became so violent that the commander was afraid Paul would be torn to pieces by them. He ordered the troops to go down and take him away from them by force and bring him into the barracks.
11 The following night the Lord stood near Paul and said, “Take courage! As you have testified about me in Jerusalem, so you must also testify in Rome.”
For me, the most important fact in history, is the resurrection of Jesus, our LORD and our God...Paul was not at the resurrection...Paul was not with the Eleven remaining disciples when Jesus returned from His death...In fact, Paul in what we know reading about him he did not know the disciples (or Jesus' half brothers)...He did not know the ones closest to Jesus and His teachings...As we read through the New Testament, if Paul did know Jesus' immediate followers, he knows very little about them...Therefore, he would know much less about Jesus than the original Twelve Disciples and His resurrection....
But Paul did see Jesus after His death on the road to Damascus...And that is an important fact for him and us...Paul talks about our faith and his faith being useless, if there is not a resurrection after death...If there is no resurrection of Jesus then faith means and little to Paul and followers of Jesus...
For Paul to know all he did about Jesus's life and His resurrection, he had to meet and get to know those closest to our LORD, if he really wants to find out all he can about our Savior (and His resurrection)...Paul's first connection to Jesus' disciples, as we read the Acts, is with Stephen, the first Christian Martyr...Stephen was one chosen by the original disciples of Jesus to help with the disbursement of food to the Grecian and Jewish widows (Acts 6:1-5)...Stephen soon gets stoned to death (Acts 7)...Paul was at the stoning of Stephen giving approval to his death (Acts 8:2)...Paul saw Jesus after His death on the road to Damascus (after the stoning death of Stephen)...This meeting with Jesus' converted Paul from his Pharisaic roots to the belief in Jesus....Then latter, Paul would write this detailed account about his ideas on the resurrection of Jesus in his first letter to the Corinthians...The point is Paul did not know the apostles, and did not see Jesus the forty days after their Teacher's immediate death...He would have had to gotten much of this information from the disciples, who were his immediate followers...Yet Paul gives his story on the resurrection, in my opinion, in most detail, of any of the authors of the New Testament (probably from the meetings he has with the original group of followers around Christ, when He walked the earth)...(As a side note, this for me, is evidence of God at work, choosing Paul to be His chosen instrument to carry the word of Jesus to the Gentiles -while not even knowing much about the teachings as many other followers...Paul would have to meet the people, who knew Jesus, and study with them and come to his own conclusions, who Jesus was and is...And even during this process he to me would be spreading the word, with his belief and zeal)...
In St. Luke's writing about the Acts of the Apostles, Paul says the reason he is on trial is because he believes in the hope of the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6)...There was a group of people then who did not believe in the resurrection of the dead...Life after death was in Jesus and Paul's time not something everyone agreed upon...There are people today, who do no believe that Jesus resurrected...I think the debate Paul had with the Sadducee group, could easily be debated among many groups today, who do not believe in the resurrection of the dead..
I believe what St. Paul says that if there is no such thing as a resurrection, then not even Christ was resurrected...And if Jesus has not been raised, then what we read in the Bible and our faith, our hope, and our belief, is dead and untrue and is in vain...This is why the resurrection is the most important fact in history...Without Jesus' resurrection our faith, our hopes, our beliefs are all in vain...Forty days after Jesus' death and resurrection was the last time He was on earth...Jesus' resurrection connects our death to eternal life...Time, especially over long periods of time, has a way of diluting things...But in a sense, now two thousand years removed from us, but He is still alive...The resurrection of our Savior and Messiah remains our hope of hopes and that there is eternal life...