Selected Sunday Scriptures- #55

The conversation in my latest Tradition Thursday Post has drifted to the subject of the resurrection, along with righteousness and depravity. This inspired my choice of scripture for today’s post. We begin with St. Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians:

^35 But some one will ask, âHow are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?â ^36 You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ^37 And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. ^38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. ^39 For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. ^40 There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. ^41 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.

^42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. ^43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. ^44 It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. ^45 Thus it is written, âThe first man Adam became a living beingâ; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ^46 But it is not the spiritual which is first but the physical, and then the spiritual. ^47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ^48 As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. ^49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. ^50 I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

^51 Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ^52 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. ^53 For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. ^54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

âDeath is swallowed up in victory.â
^55 âO death, where is thy victory?
O death, where is thy sting?â

^56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. ^57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

^58 Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

(1 Cor 15:35-58)

Another part from the same letter:

^3 For though absent in body I am present in spirit, and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment ^4 in the name of the Lord Jesus on the man who has done such a thing. When you are assembled, and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus, ^5 you are to deliver this man to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

(1 Cor 5:3-5)

Here we can see, along with other parts of scripture, that suffering is necessary to purge us from our sins. Which gives us all the more reason to avoid sinning, for it means less purging will be necessary.