WHAT’S IN STORE?
Play Audio
If you prefer listening to today’s Bible guide reading, play this audio file.
If the audio bar is not appearing, click here to play the audio.
Opening Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, help me to realize afresh today what your death and resurrection mean for me.
Read 1 CORINTHIANS 15:35–58
For additional translations of the passage, use this link to Bible Gateway.
The Resurrection Body
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised 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 natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”[a]; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we[b] bear the image of the heavenly man.
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”[c]
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”[d]
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
58 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
Footnotes
- 1 Corinthians 15:45 Gen. 2:7
- 1 Corinthians 15:49 Some early manuscripts so let us
- 1 Corinthians 15:54 Isaiah 25:8
- 1 Corinthians 15:55 Hosea 13:14
New International Version (NIV)Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Reflect
In what ways do you relate to the inevitability of your mortality?The Nobel Prize-winning writer Elias Canetti ‘rejected death,’* but we don’t know exactly how he planned to implement this rejection! We are compelled to acknowledge our limitations in this regard as perishable (sell-by date withheld), weak, earthly, and mortal (vv. 42–54). But Christians do live in defiance of death. It doesn’t have the final word over our frail bodies. Ours is a promise founded on the victory of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul’s writing is contrast-laden. Human bodies contrast with other bodies both in the heavens and on earth. Even in their present per- ishable form, they carry a degree of splendor (v. 40). They are God- given and therefore have beauty and value. But they are not God’s final masterpiece. If he can create all these splendid bodies, then he is quite capable of producing something even more magnificent. No longer tied to our family lineage in Adam, we share in the victory of Jesus, which signals transformation, tackling every previous limitation (vv. 52–54). In Jesus, we do ‘reject death.’ That’s not ‘pie in the sky when you die.’ It transforms life here, giving stability and value to all we do (v. 58).
Apply
Is there some work you have done for the Lord as a Christian that you feel was a failure? Is that the best way to think of it in the light of future resurrection?
Closing prayer
Thank you, Jesus, for the hope that is mine because of my faith in you—not just for today, but forever. Thank you that whatever you call me to do will not be wasted but indeed will be used for your glory.
* D Athill, Somewhere Towards the End (Granta, 2009), 6.
Book and Author Intros
Extras
Click here to sign up to receive the EXTRAs via email each quarter.
© 2025 Scripture Union U.S.A. All rights reserved. Reproduction of the whole or any part of the contents without written permission is prohibited.
Discovery is published in the USA under license from Scripture Union England and Wales, Trinity House, Opal Court, Opal Drive, Fox Milne, Milton Keynes, MK15 0DF.