| 15:1 | NOW, my brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel which I have previously preached to you, which you accepted, on which you have taken your stand |
| 15:2 | and by which, if you remain faithful to the message I gave you, your salvation is being worked outunless, of course, your faith had no meaning behind it at all. |
| 15:3 | For I passed on to you, as essential, the message I had myself receivedthat Christ died for our sins, as the scriptures said he would; |
| 15:4 | that he was buried and rose again on the third day, again as the scriptures foretold. |
| 15:5 | He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve, |
| 15:6 | and subsequently he was seen simultaneously by over five hundred Christians, of whom the majority are still alive, though some have since died. |
| 15:7 | He was then seen by James, then by all the messengers. |
| 15:8 | And last of all, as to one born abnormally late, he appeared even to me! |
| 15:9 | I am the least of the messengers, and indeed I do not deserve that title at all, because I persecuted the Church of God. |
| 15:10 | But what I am now I am by the grace of God. The grace he gave me has not proved a barren gift. I have worked harder than any of the othersand yet it was not I but this same grace of God within me. |
| 15:11 | In any event, whoever has done the work, whether I or they, this has been our message and this has been your faith. |
| 15:12 | Now if the rising of Christ from the dead is the very heart of our message, how can some of you deny that there is any resurrection? |
| 15:13 | For if there is no such thing as the resurrection of the dead, then Christ was never raised. |
| 15:14 | And if Christ was not raised then neither our preaching nor your faith has any meaning at all. |
| 15:15 | Further it would mean that we are lying in our witness for God, for we have given our solemn testimony that he did raise up Christand that is utterly false if it should be true that the dead do not, in fact, rise again! |
| 15:16 | For if the dead do not rise neither did Christ rise, |
| 15:17 | and if Christ did not rise your faith is futile and your sins have never been forgiven. |
| 15:18 | Moreover these who have died believing in Christ are utterly dead and gone. |
| 15:19 | Truly, if our hope in Christ were limited to this life only we should, of all mankind, be the most to be pitied! |
| 15:20 | But the glorious fact is that Christ was raised from the dead: he has become the very first to rise of all who sleep the sleep of death. |
| 15:21 | As death entered the world through a man, so has rising from the dead come to us through a man! |
| 15:22 | As members of a sinful race all men die; as members of Christ all men shall be raised to life, |
| 15:23 | each in his proper order, with Christ the very first and after him all who belong to him when he comes. |
| 15:24 | Then, and not till then, comes the end when Christ, having abolished all other rule, authority and power, |
| 15:25 | hands over the kingdom to God the Father. Christ's reign will and must continue until every enemy has been conquered. |
| 15:26 | The last enemy of all to he destroyed is death itself. |
| 15:27 | The scripture says: He hath put all things in subjection under his feet. But in the term "all things" it is quite obvious that God, who brings them all under subjection to Christ, is himself excepted. |
| 15:28 | Nevertheless, when everything has been made subject to God, then shall the Son himself be subject to God, who gave him power over all things. Thus, in the end, shall God be wholly and absolutely God. |
| 15:29 | Further, you should consider this, that if there is to be no resurrection what is the point of some of you being baptized for the dead by proxy? Why should you be baptized for [dead bodies]? |
| 15:30 | And why should we live a life of such hourly danger? |
| 15:31 | I assure you, by the proud certainty which we share in Christ Jesus our Lord, that I face death every day of my life! |
| 15:32 | And if, to use the popular expression, I have "fought with wild beasts" here in Ephesus, what is the good of an ordeal like that if there is no life after this one? Let us rather eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die! |
| 15:33 | Don't let yourselves be deceived. It is true that "evil communications corrupt good manners". |
| 15:34 | Come back to your right senses, and stop sinning like this! Remember that there are men who have no knowledge of God. You should be ashamed that I have to write like this! |
| 15:35 | But perhaps someone will ask, "How is the resurrection achieved? With what sort of body do the dead arrive?" |
| 15:36 | Now that is a silly question! In your own experience you know that a seed does not germinate without itself "dying". |
| 15:37 | When you sow a seed you do not sow the "body" that will eventually be produced, but bare grain, of wheat, for example, or one of the other seeds. |
| 15:38 | God gives the seed a "body" according to his lawsa different "body" to each kind of seed. |
| 15:39 | Then again, all flesh is not identical. There is a difference in the flesh of human beings, animals, birds and fish. |
| 15:40 | There are bodies which exist in the heavens, and bodies which exist in this world. The splendor of an earthly body is quite a different thing from the splendor of a heavenly body. |
| 15:41 | The sun, the moon and the stars all have their own particular splendor; and one star differs from another in splendor. |
| 15:42 | There are illustrations here of the raising of the dead. The body is "sown" in corruption; it is raised beyond the reach of corruption. |
| 15:43 | It is "sown" in dishonour; it is raised in splendor. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. |
| 15:44 | It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. As there is a natural body so will there be a spiritual body. |
| 15:45 | It is written, moreover, that: The first man Adam became a living soul. So the last Adam is a lifegiving Spirit. |
| 15:46 | But we should notice that the "spiritual" does not come first: the order is "natural" first and then "spiritual". |
| 15:47 | The first man came out of the earth, a material creature; the second man came from heaven. |
| 15:48 | For the life of this world men are made like the material man; but for the life that is to come they are made like the one from heaven. |
| 15:49 | So that just as we have been made like the material pattern, so we shall be made like the heavenly pattern. |
| 15:50 | For I assure you, my brothers, it is utterly impossible for flesh and blood to possess the kingdom God. The transitory could never possess the everlasting. |
| 15:51 | Listen, and I will tell you a secret. We shall not all die, |
| 15:52 | but suddenly, in the twinkling of an eye, every one of us will be changed as the last trumpet sounds! For the trumpet will sound and the dead shall be raised beyond the reach of corruption, and we shall be changed. |
| 15:53 | For this perishable nature of ours must be wrapped in imperishability, these bodies which are mortal must he wrapped in immortality. |
| 15:54 | So when the perishable is lost in the imperishable, the mortal lost in the immortal, this scripture will come true: Death is swallowed up in victory. |
| 15:55 | Where now, O death, is your victory; where now is your stinging power? |
| 15:56 | It is sin which gives death its sting, and it is the Law which gives sin its power. |
| 15:57 | All thanks to God, then, who gives us the victory over these things through our Lord Jesus Christ! |
| 15:58 | And so, brothers of mine, stand firm! Let nothing move you as you busy yourselves in the Lord's work. Be sure that nothing you do for him is ever lost or ever wasted. |
1 Korintus 15 - Philips NT in Modern English
