This is a sample chapter from my Systematic Theology project "Theology for Thriving". 📎MORE TO THE STORY notes are not part of the main text of the book, but additional resources, charts, or other materials from Biblical Theology class resources.
1 Corinthians 15.21-26, 51-53 [21] For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; [22] for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. [23] But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. [24] Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. [25] For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. [26] The last enemy to be destroyed is death... [51] Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will 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 will be changed. [53] For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
🗝️ Key Concept: Resurrection
What will be the final state of our soul? For much of human history, the answers have been bleak. As we have seen: Six hundred years before Jesus, the common belief in Israelite religion was that after death, all people— good and bad alike— descended to a shadowy, semi-conscious existence in the dark pit of Sheol. There was no hope for a future life of joy or purpose, only a gray, disembodied twilight.
However, after the traumatic exile to Babylon, Israelite thinkers encountered the Zoroastrian religion of Persia, which had a robust belief in a final resurrection of the body and a day of judgment. This cross-pollination of ideas led prophets like Daniel, Isaiah, and Ezekiel to a new revelation: God’s justice and love were too powerful to be stopped by the grave. They began to speak of a day when God would raise the dead to face judgment and receive their final reward. By the time of Jesus, this hope in a final resurrection was a core belief for many Jews.
Resurrection is the final destiny for humanity, in which God will raise us from the dead and transform our mortal, perishable bodies into immortal, imperishable ones, fit for life in a New Creation. Jesus’s own resurrection from the dead is not a separate, standalone miracle, but the first fruits of this future harvest. Christ is a preview and promise of what God intends to do for all of us.
The final resurrection will be both individual and collective. Unlike some Eastern spiritual paths where the ultimate goal is for the individual self to be reabsorbed into a cosmic oneness, the Christian hope is that we will maintain our unique, distinct personhood. God delights in us as individuals and wants to relate to us as such for eternity. At the same time, we will be brought into the closest possible union with God and with each other, a state Jesus prayed for when he asked that his followers would be “one, as you, Father, are in me and I am in you” (John 17:21). Our destiny mirrors the Trinity itself: A community of distinct persons living in a perfect unity of Love.
📖 Scriptural Reflection: 1 Corinthians 15:21-26, 51-53
The Apostle Paul gives the most detailed explanation of the resurrection in the entire Bible. Writing to the church in Corinth, some of whom doubted the idea of a future bodily resurrection, Paul lays out the logic and the promise of this central Christian hope.
Paul’s argument is beautifully symmetrical. Just as one man, Adam, represents the broken humanity that is subject to death, one man, Jesus Christ, represents the restored humanity that is destined for new life. Christ’s resurrection is the decisive event that sets this new reality in motion. It’s the beachhead, the first victory in a war that will culminate in the final defeat of every power that opposes God's Love, including death itself.
Paul then reveals a “mystery”: Not a puzzle to be solved, but a divine truth now made known. The final resurrection will be an instantaneous, miraculous transformation. Our current bodies, which are subject to decay, disease, and death, will be gloriously remade into bodies that are immortal and incorruptible. This is the ultimate hope that fuels the Christian life and the final answer to the problem of death.
🔎 Why did Christians come to hope in the resurrection?
The resurrection of Jesus was an earth-shattering and completely unexpected event. When Jesus was arrested and crucified, his disciples were terrified, confused, and scattered. Their leader was dead, and their movement was a failure. Yet, within a few days, this scattered group of defeated followers was transformed into a bold, fearless community that, in the words of their opponents, “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6). What happened? They claimed to have seen, touched, and eaten with the risen Jesus. The empty tomb was God's stunning proof that Life is stronger than death, Love is stronger than hate, and Light is stronger than darkness.
But why should we believe this extraordinary claim? The philosopher David Hume rightly argued that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” So, what is the evidence?
The Witness List: In the same chapter as our reflection, Paul quotes a very early Christian creed that he himself had received, listing the witnesses to the resurrection: “that he was raised on the third day... and that he appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive” (1 Corinthians 15:4-6). Paul was essentially saying, “Don’t take my word for it; go ask the hundreds of eyewitnesses who are still around.”
The First Witnesses: All four Gospels agree that the first people to discover the empty tomb and encounter the risen Christ were women. In the ancient world, a woman’s testimony was considered unreliable in court. If you were inventing a story and wanted people to believe it, you would make men your primary witnesses. The most plausible reason for the story to be told this way is if it was what actually happened.
The Roman Factor: Romans were experts in execution. They knew how to humiliate and kill people to intimidate their enemies. The idea that Jesus just fainted on the cross and later revived in the tomb is implausible. He had been tortured, whipped, pierced, and crucified. To make sure he was dead, a Roman soldier ran a spear into his heart and "blood and water" flowed out (John 19:34). This was a sign his heart had stopped long enough that blood platelets had separated from the clear plasma, and flowed out of his side. Jesus was really dead, not just kind of dead, and there is no plausible way he merely woke up in the tomb and appeared healed.
But perhaps his scared disciples stole the body from a tomb guarded by a unit of well trained Roman soldiers. This is almost impossible, but even if the disciples had stolen the body, the Roman authorities could have rounded them up, tortured them until they gave up the body, and then carted Jesus' corpse through Jerusalem to end the "resurrection rumor". This would have stopped Christian movement before it began. The Romans never did this. Likely because there was no body to be found.
The Transformation: Ultimately, we must ask what explains the radical, sustained change in the disciples? They gave everything they had for decades to spread the Good News of Jesus. They didn’t get rich or famous from their preaching. They were persecuted, imprisoned, and executed. People will die for what they believe is true, but they will not die for what they know is a lie. Something happened that convinced them the resurrection was real.
None of this proves the resurrection in a scientific sense. But it does create a powerful, cumulative case that helps us understand why the first Christians believed it so fervently and why it remains the cornerstone of the faith today.
🔎 How is the resurrection different from other ideas of life after death?
The Christian hope for resurrection is unique and often misunderstood. The Bible teaches that our future resurrected state will be analogous to Jesus’s. As the apostle John wrote, “we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). This vision stands in sharp contrast to several other common ideas about the afterlife.
Versus Reincarnation: Some belief systems teach that after death, the soul is reborn into a new body. The resurrection, however, is not a new birth in a new body, but the one-time, glorious transformation of our original body. As it is written, “it is appointed for mortals to die once, and after that the judgment” (Hebrews 9:27).
Versus Reabsorption: In some forms of Eastern spirituality, the goal is for the individual “drop” of consciousness to merge back into the great cosmic “ocean,” losing its distinct identity. Instead, the Christian view is that God values our unique personhood, and will preserve our identities for eternity in the resurrection.
Versus an Ethereal "Heaven": Popular culture often pictures the afterlife as a disembodied existence on clouds with harps. The biblical vision is far more grounded. It is a New Creation: A renewed heaven and a renewed earth where we will have real, glorified bodies that can interact with God, each other, and the restored creation. The hope of Christianity is resurrection, not heaven.
Versus a Disembodied Ghost: The ancient heresy of Docetism taught that Jesus only seemed to be human, and that his body was a kind of hologram. The resurrection soundly refutes this. The risen Jesus bore the physical scars of his crucifixion, he could be touched, and he cooked and ate breakfast with his disciples. At the same time, his new body transcended the normal laws of physics, allowing him to access new dimensions, and appear in locked rooms. It was a physical body, but a transformed, glorified one. Just as Christ was in his resurrection, so shall we be.
Versus the "Rapture": A relatively recent theory, popularized in the last 200 years, teaches that Christians will be snatched up into a disembodied heaven to escape a period of tribulation on earth. This idea is foreign to the historic Christian faith. The pattern of Christ is that he went through the suffering of the cross to get to the glory of the resurrection. We are called to follow the same path: To go through hardship with Christ in order to share in his resurrection. There is no crown without a cross. Ancient teachers of the Bible knew this, and they also knew that Bible passages used to support the "rapture" before tribulation (such as 1Thessalonians 4-5) actually are teaching the resurrection after tribulation.
🔎 Will Christ resurrect everyone in the end?
If Christ’s victory over death is absolute, what does that mean for those who die apart from him? From the earliest days of the church, there has been a powerful stream of hope that Christ’s victory would ultimately be for everyone. This is not the modern idea of universalism, which suggests a sentimental God saves everyone without any need for change or repentance. Rather, this is the ancient Christian hope that Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, will save all people through a process of discipline, purgation, and healing. The belief is that Christ will rescue every soul out of their own self-made hells to bring them to the resurrection.
This hope is rooted in the ancient doctrine of the Harrowing of Hell. The Apostles' Creed states that after his death, Jesus “descended to the dead.” The New Testament teaches that in the time between his death and resurrection, Christ “went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison” (1 Peter 3:19). The Orthodox Church has always seen this as a rescue mission. Christ broke down the gates of Hell and led its captives into freedom, offering salvation to all who had died before him.
This vision of a universal, all-encompassing salvation is woven throughout the New Testament. The same Divine Word that spoke all things into being is the Incarnate Word who will bring all things to ultimate healing in the resurrection:
Paul argues that just as Adam’s one trespass led to condemnation for all, so Christ’s one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all (Romans 5:18). He states plainly, “as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:22).
Paul’s grand cosmic vision is that God’s plan is “to gather up all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth” (Ephesians 1:10), and “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross” (Colossians 1:20).
The ultimate result of Christ’s exaltation is that “at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:10-11).
John the Baptist called Jesus "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). Jesus himself said, “when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32).
The final goal of history is not a permanently divided universe, with some in bliss and others in eternal torment. The final goal is the complete and total victory of God's Love, where every enemy, including death itself, has been destroyed, and Christ hands the perfected kingdom over to the Father, so that God may be all in all.
📎MORE TO THE STORY: For a deeper dive, read this essay on Redemptive Hell and Universal Restoration in Christ.
📚 Topical Scriptures
Here are some Scripture passages which explore and elaborate on the themes of this chapter. As you look them up and study them, think about how they relate to the Key Concept and Guiding Questions.
Daniel 12:1-3
This is one of the clearest expressions of hope in a future resurrection in the Old Testament. Look for the promise that those who sleep "in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame."
Ezekiel 37:1-14
In this powerful prophetic vision, God places Ezekiel in a valley full of dry bones and commands him to prophesy to them. He watches as the bones miraculously come together and are covered with flesh, symbolizing God's power to resurrect the seemingly dead nation of Israel.
John 20:1-31
This is a detailed account of the first discovery of the empty tomb and Jesus's appearance to Mary Magdalene. Pay attention to the physical details and the emotional journey from grief to astonishment and faith.
Romans 8:18-39
Paul places the hope of our resurrection within a cosmic context. He describes all of creation as groaning in labor pains, eagerly awaiting the final redemption and liberation that will come when God's children are fully revealed.
1 Corinthians 15:3-11
Paul lists the primary evidence for the resurrection, quoting an early creed that includes a list of eyewitnesses. This passage emphasizes that the resurrection is a historical event, attested to by a large group of people who could be questioned.
1 Corinthians 15:20-28
Here, Paul explains the theological significance of Christ's resurrection as the "first fruits" of a greater harvest. He outlines the final victory of God, culminating in the destruction of death itself so that God may be "all in all."
Philippians 2:5-11
This is an early Christian hymn that traces Christ's journey from humility to exaltation. The climax is the universal scope of his lordship, where "every knee should bend" and "every tongue should confess" that Jesus is Lord.
Colossians 1:15-20
This passage presents a grand vision of Christ as the agent of both creation and new creation. Note the cosmic scale of God's redemptive plan, which is to "reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven."
1 Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
Paul writes to comfort a grieving church, assuring them that at the Lord's return, those who have died in Christ will be raised first. This passage offers a vivid depiction of the final resurrection as a joyful reunion.
1 John 3:1-3
John marvels at the love that allows us to be called "children of God," a reality that is true now but not yet fully revealed. He expresses the ultimate hope of theosis: "we will be like him, for we will see him as he is."
Revelation 21:1-7
This is John's vision of the ultimate destiny of creation. Look for the description of a "new heaven and a new earth" where God dwells with humanity, and all the effects of death— mourning, crying, and pain— are wiped away forever.
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