God raised Christ to live again
1Friends, I want you to know and remember well the Good_News that I have preached to you. You believed the message and you are sure that the message is true. 2It is this Good_News that saves you. But you must keep on believing this Good_News as I have preached it to you. If you believe something else, then your faith will not help you at all.
3The most important thing that I have taught you, and that the other apostles also taught me, is that Christ took away our sins when He died. It happened as the Old_Testament says.
4Christ was buried and God raised Him on the 3rd day to live again. It happened as it is written in the Old_Testament. 5Christ appeared to Cephas, then He also appeared to the 12 apostles. 6Then He appeared to more than 500 believers at the same time. Most of them are still_alive today but some have already died. 7Then Christ appeared to James and then to all the apostles.
8Last of all, He appeared to me. I was like a baby born at the wrong time. I am not important. 9All the other apostles are more important than I am. I am not good enough to be an apostle because I persecuted the people of the church of God.
10But God was merciful to me, and that is why I am an apostle now. Yes, God was merciful to me. He has changed me and I worked harder than all the other apostles. But it is not I who was so good. It was God who was so merciful to me and who always stayed with me. 11It is not important who preaches to you, I or the other apostles. What is important is that we all preach the same message and that you believed it.
God will raise dead people to live again
12We, the apostles, tell the message that God has raised Christ and that He lives again. Why do some of you say that people who have died will not live again? 13If people who have died can not live again, then God did not raise Christ to live again. 14And if God did not raise Christ to live again, then our message is worthless and then it does not help you to believe what we preach. 15Then we have lied and we are false_witnesses of God, because we said that God has raised Christ to live again. Because if the people who have died will not live again, then it is not_true that God has raised Christ to live again. 16I will say it again: If the people who have died will never live again, then God did not make Christ live again. 17And if God did not make Christ live again, then your faith is worthless and it does not help you to believe and then you are not free from your sins. 18Then everyone who belonged to Christ and has died is lost. 19If we hope that Christ saves us only for this_life on earth, then everyone must feel very sorry for us.
20But our message is true: God has raised Christ from death to live again, this is sure. Christ is the first One who died and was raised to live again. 21We all die because of what one man, Adam, did. But all believers will be raised to live again because of what one Man, Christ, did. 22We are all descendants of Adam. That is why we all die. But we also belong to Christ and that is why God will make us all live again. 23We must wait for the time when God will raise us. He raised Christ first. Later, when Christ comes again, He will raise the people who belong to Him and they will live again.
24Then the end will come. Christ is King, and the end will come when He gives all things from where He is King to God the Father. Yes, the end will come when Christ destroys all the other rulers and powers. 25Christ will rule until God has defeated all enemies of Christ and put them under his feet. 26The last enemy that Christ will defeat is death. 27It is written in the Old_Testament:
‘God has given Him everything
so that He can rule over it all.’
But when God says: ‘Christ must rule over all,’ it does not mean that Christ will also rule over God, because God the Father is the One who gave everything to Christ so that Christ may rule over it. 28When God gives everything to Christ so that Christ can rule over it, then Christ, the Son of God, will also give Himself to God. Remember, God is the One who gave everything to Christ so that Christ can rule over it. That is why God will also rule over Christ in the end. Then God will rule over everything and everyone.
29One more thing: Some people get baptised and they say they do it for the people who have died but could not be baptised. Why do they do it if the people who have died will not live again? 30And for us, if the people who have died will not live again, why do we do things for God that make other people want to kill us? 31Every day there are people who want to kill me. This is true and it is also true that I am proud of you. I am proud of you because Christ Jesus, our Lord, has blessed the work that I did with you. 32In Ephesus I had to fight against people who were like wild animals. They wanted to kill me. If people who have died will not live again, how did that fighting help me? No, if we will not live again, then we must say:
‘Let us eat and drink, and not worry
because tomorrow we will die.’
33Do not let people deceive you, and remember the proverb that says:
‘If you have bad friends,
then you will also become a bad person.’
34You must change your lives. You must stop sinning. Some of you are wrong when you think about God. I say this because I want you to be ashamed.
The bodies of people who will live again
35Some people ask: ‘What will it be like when the dead people live again? What will their bodies look like?’ 36Why do they ask these foolish questions? Look at the plants when you sow seeds. The seed must first die before it starts to live again and grow. 37And when you sow seeds, wheat or some other plants, the seed does not look the same as the plant that starts to grow later. 38But God gives the seed a plant or a body as He decided. He gives a different body to each seed. 39All plants or bodies of things do not look the same. There are bodies of people, bodies of animals, bodies of birds and of fish. 40And there are bodies of things in the sky, the sun, moon and stars, and there are bodies of things on earth. The bodies in the sky are beautiful, but they are different from the bodies on earth. 41The sun, the moon and the stars are all beautiful, but they are not the same. Yes, there are many stars and each star is beautiful, but they are not the same.
42That is how it will be when God raises the people who have died and He makes them live again. People bury a body of a dead person as they plant a grain of wheat into the ground. The body of that person becomes dust, but when God makes it live, it will never die again. 43People bury a body that is ugly and weak, but God raises a body that is beautiful and strong. 44People bury a human body that can not do what God wants, but God raises a spiritual body that can do what God wants. Just as there is a human body, there is also a spiritual body. 45In the Old_Testament it is written:
‘Adam, the first man,
became someone who lived.’
But the last Adam, Christ, became Someone who gives spiritual_life. 46Remember, the spiritual body did not come first. The human body was first and after that, the spiritual body came. 47God made the first man from the dust of the earth. But the 2nd Man came from heaven. 48People who belong to this world are like the first man. They are like the man who came from dust. But people who belong to heaven are like the Man who came from heaven. Christ is the One who came from heaven. 49Now we all are like the man of dust, but the time will come when we will be like the Man from heaven.
50Friends, you must know this: We can not go to God where He is King while we have these bodies that we have now. No, a body that becomes dust can not live forever. 51Now I want to tell you a secret: Not all of us will die, but God will change us all. 52It will happen very quickly, as fast as it takes to close your eyes. This will happen when the last trumpet blows. When that trumpet blows, God will make everyone who has died live again. He will also change us who are still_alive when Christ comes again. 53Because this body that we have now can become dust, God will give us a body that can not become dust. This body that we have now can die, but God will give us a body that will never die.
54When God has given us a body that can not die or become dust, we will know that the words in the Old_Testament are true where it is written:
‘God has defeated death.
55“Death, do you think that you will always win?
No, you will not.
Death, do you think that you will always
continue to cause people to die
like bees that kill people with their stings?
No, you will not.” ’
56The power and sting of death come from sin, and the power of sin comes from the laws. 57But we must thank God. He helps us win because we belong to our Lord, Jesus Christ.
58My friends, I love you very much. You must continue to believe the right things. Do not believe the things that are wrong. You must work hard for the Lord because you know that if you work for the Lord, you will never feel sorry about it.
