Tom writes:

This glorious passage has more fizz than 10,000 soda pops. The source of its tanginess is the explosive idea of Jesus as first-fruits. First-fruits by definition carry a promise. Firstfruits show what is coming. One has been raised from the dead, not as a freak event, but as a sign of what will happen to all who carry His name. We also will be raised. This is the defining hope of our faith. Not just that we are forgiven, not just that we live in relationship with God, but that we will journey right through death into a richer and purer way of being alive. We will do as Jesus did. We taste already some of the delight of the resurrection that is to come. But it is just a taste - the full fizz is a future feast. And so we see all our suffering now as just short days before our Greatest Days. We don’t start to stutter when the wild beasts attack. Nor do we get lured to the temporary comforts of sin. No, we know a trumpet will sound and an eye will twinkle and then the full promise of resurrection will be achieved in us. We know that this body may die every day, but on That Day it will be clothed with impregnable immortality. We know that our relatives, and maybe even ourselves, may die a painful death. But we know that we will be brought out of our tombs to live something much stronger, something much purer, something better, that never ends. We know we will live in the new Eden, in a perfect place where the horrific consequences of Adam’s sin can no longer be seen. We know that the great and wise God will be all in all in every single way. He will reign everything in his benevolent goodness. We know those things because the firstfruits of Jesus confirmed they must be so.

So what do we do now? How should we live? That, ultimately is what Paul is interested in here. Paul wants every believer to understand that there is an unbreakable link between labour in the Lord now and the luscious splendour of life in the Second Man. He wants us to stop our sin and lend ourselves fully to the labour of the Lord. He wants us to work hard and suffer well and not be moved. There are days when our faith feels weaker. On those days we should look at the resurrection. On those days we look at the fact of the firstfruits; the glorious glimpse of what we have in store. For what has happened to Jesus will also happen to us if we continue to remain in him.

Question for reflection

Do you have a habit of intentionally thinking about your coming resurrection?

1 Corinthians 15 - Wednesday 5th June