As in Adam all die,
so in Christ all will be made alive.
1 CORINTHIANS 15:22
You just read the most exciting and thrilling and hopeful words that could possibly be written – ever. We will rise again. Death does not have the final say. Jesus does. He who was raised from the dead was the firstfruits, the downpayment, of those who have fallen asleep.
Job, thousands of years ago, had Holy Spirit insight into this magnificent truth, a glorious byproduct of Christ’s resurrection that will be preached to us this coming Sunday at Grace.
I know that my redeemer lives,
and that in the end he will stand on the earth.
And after my skin has been destroyed,
yet in my flesh I will see God.
JOB 19:25-26
This is some much encouraging hope to be extracted from the promise of bodily rising, for “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
This corruptible body will put on incorruption, when what is mortal will put on immortality. What is corruptible will put on incorruption, then we can truly say, “Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” 1 CORINTHIANS 15:52-55
This is a wonderful truth – rising up from the grave with a body recrafted for eternity. C. H. Spurgeon suffered greatly from gout, so much so that he was forced to miss months at a time of preaching to his London congregation. You can catch the hope in his voice as he anticipates his resurrected body.
Scarcely a day passes but you are tormented with some suffering or other; and if you were silly enough to be always doctoring yourselves, you might always be having the doctor in your home. Here is comfort for you. That poor old rickety body of yours will live again without its pains, without its agonies; that poor shaky frame will be repaid all it has suffered.
Ah! poor negro slave, every scar upon your back shall have a stripe of honor in heaven. Ah! poor martyr, the crackling of thy bones in the fire shall earn thee sonnets in glory; all thy sufferings shall be well repaid by the happiness thou shalt experience there.
Don’t fear to suffer in your frame, because your frame will one day share in your delights. Every nerve will thrill with delight, every muscle move with bliss; your eyes will flash with the fire of eternity; your heart will beat and pulsate with immortal blessedness; your frame shall be the channel of beatitude; the body which is now often a cup of wormwood will be a vessel of honey; this body which is often a comb out of which gall distills will be a honeycomb of blessedness to you. Comfort yourselves then, ye sufferers, weary languishers upon the bed: fear not, your bodies shall live.
Soar we now where Christ has led, Alleluia!
Following our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like him, like him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!
CHARLES WESLEY