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1 Corinthians 15 - Good News Bible bible

1 Corinthians 15

¹And now I want to remind you, my friends, of the Good News which I preached to you, which you received, and on which your faith stands firm.

²That is the gospel, the message that I preached to you. You are saved by the gospel if you hold firmly to it---unless it was for nothing that you believed.

³I passed on to you what I received, which is of the greatest importance: that Christ died for our sins, as written in the Scriptures;

⁴that he was buried and that he was raised to life three days later, as written in the Scriptures;

⁵that he appeared to Peter and then to all twelve apostles.

⁶Then he appeared to more than five hundred of his followers at once, most of whom are still alive, although some have died.

⁷Then he appeared to James, and afterward to all the apostles.

⁸Last of all he appeared also to me---even though I am like someone whose birth was abnormal.

⁹For I am the least of all the apostles---I do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted God's church.

¹⁰But by God's grace I am what I am, and the grace that he gave me was not without effect. On the contrary, I have worked harder than any of the other apostles, although it was not really my own doing, but God's grace working with me.

¹¹So then, whether it came from me or from them, this is what we all preach, and this is what you believe.

¹²Now, since our message is that Christ has been raised from death, how can some of you say that the dead will not be raised to life?

¹³If that is true, it means that Christ was not raised;

¹⁴and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe.

¹⁵More than that, we are shown to be lying about God, because we said that he raised Christ from death---but if it is true that the dead are not raised to life, then he did not raise Christ.

¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised.

¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, then your faith is a delusion and you are still lost in your sins.

¹⁸It would also mean that the believers in Christ who have died are lost.

¹⁹If our hope in Christ is good for this life only and no more, then we deserve more pity than anyone else in all the world.

²⁰But the truth is that Christ has been raised from death, as the guarantee that those who sleep in death will also be raised.

²¹For just as death came by means of a man, in the same way the rising from death comes by means of a man.

²²For just as all people die because of their union with Adam, in the same way all will be raised to life because of their union with Christ.

²³But each one will be raised in proper order: Christ, first of all; then, at the time of his coming, those who belong to him.

²⁴Then the end will come; Christ will overcome all spiritual rulers, authorities, and powers, and will hand over the Kingdom to God the Father.

²⁵For Christ must rule until God defeats all enemies and puts them under his feet.

²⁶The last enemy to be defeated will be death.

²⁷For the scripture says, "God put all things under his feet." It is clear, of course, that the words "all things" do not include God himself, who puts all things under Christ.

²⁸But when all things have been placed under Christ's rule, then he himself, the Son, will place himself under God, who placed all things under him; and God will rule completely over all.

²⁹Now, what about those people who are baptized for the dead? What do they hope to accomplish? If it is true, as some claim, that the dead are not raised to life, why are those people being baptized for the dead?

³⁰And as for us---why would we run the risk of danger every hour?

³¹My friends, I face death every day! The pride I have in you, in our life in union with Christ Jesus our Lord, makes me declare this.

³²If I have, as it were, fought "wild beasts" here in Ephesus simply from human motives, what have I gained? But if the dead are not raised to life, then, as the saying goes, "Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die."

³³Do not be fooled. "Bad companions ruin good character."

³⁴Come back to your right senses and stop your sinful ways. I declare to your shame that some of you do not know God.

³⁵Someone will ask, "How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?"

³⁶You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies.

³⁷And what you plant is a bare seed, perhaps a grain of wheat or some other grain, not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up.

³⁸God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body.

³⁹And the flesh of living beings is not all the same kind of flesh; human beings have one kind of flesh, animals another, birds another, and fish another.

⁴⁰And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beauty that belongs to earthly bodies.

⁴¹The sun has its own beauty, the moon another beauty, and the stars a different beauty; and even among stars there are different kinds of beauty.

⁴²This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life. When the body is buried, it is mortal; when raised, it will be immortal.

⁴³When buried, it is ugly and weak; when raised, it will be beautiful and strong.

⁴⁴When buried, it is a physical body; when raised, it will be a spiritual body. There is, of course, a physical body, so there has to be a spiritual body.

⁴⁵For the scripture says, "The first man, Adam, was created a living being"; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit.

⁴⁶It is not the spiritual that comes first, but the physical, and then the spiritual.

⁴⁷The first Adam, made of earth, came from the earth; the second Adam came from heaven.

⁴⁸Those who belong to the earth are like the one who was made of earth; those who are of heaven are like the one who came from heaven.

⁴⁹Just as we wear the likeness of the man made of earth, so we will wear the likeness of the Man from heaven.

⁵⁰What I mean, friends, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God's Kingdom, and what is mortal cannot possess immortality.

⁵¹Listen to this secret truth: we shall not all die, but when the last trumpet sounds, we shall all be changed in an instant, as quickly as the blinking of an eye. For when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed.

⁵²

⁵³For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what cannot die.

⁵⁴So when this takes place, and the mortal has been changed into the immortal, then the scripture will come true: "Death is destroyed; victory is complete!"

⁵⁵"Where, Death, is your victory? Where, Death, is your power to hurt?"

⁵⁶Death gets its power to hurt from sin, and sin gets its power from the Law.

⁵⁷But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

⁵⁸So then, my dear friends, stand firm and steady. Keep busy always in your work for the Lord, since you know that nothing you do in the Lord's service is ever useless.