Graduation Day

October 1, 2023

Whether your last graduation was from college, high school, or pre-school, there is another graduation day that awaits all of us and for some of us it will be the greatest graduation day of all. It will mean no more death, no more disease, no more sin, no more sorrow, and no more suffering. For others, it will be a day of dread and disappointment, discouragement and defeat that no mind can even conceive. I am talking about that time when we are all physically raised from the dead. Today’s key text, 1 Corinthians 15, is what you could call Paul’s doctoral thesis on the subject of the resurrection. Specifically, he talks about the resurrection of the Christians. So as we study this text, let’s consider what the resurrection is and why it is so important.

Topics: Salvation, Heaven

In this series

From Here To Eternity

Death is a scary concept for a lot of people. As believers, we have a lot of hope that death is not the end for us, but that doesn’t mean that death isn’t scary or unnerving at all. And because it is such a morbid topic, many people don’t like to talk about death and the topics surrounding it. But in this series called “From Here To Eternity,” we aren’t going to shy away from the conversation. We are going to explore what the Word of God says about what happens at death, what happens after death, between death, and the time when we believe Jesus will return.

Bible Reference

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”

You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.

But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.

For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.

There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.

There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.

It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.

As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.

Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,

in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality.

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

“O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Graduation Day

October 1, 2023

In this series

From Here To Eternity

Bible Reference

1 Corinthians 15:35-58