Alive in Christ

Toward a New Creation
Life on God's Terms

Death Becomes Life

1 Corinthians 15:51-57  The Message

^51-57 But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:

Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?

It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!

For Reflection

How we long to know what lies ahead in death.  Is it the end?  Is their nothing after this life?

In a sense, immortality is found in our children.  Immortality is found in the memory of the best and the worst of what we are.  The human story never ends. 

Paul writes that in death we will find a transformed existence.  He suggests that one of the important meanings of the resurrection is that death can no longer threaten us.  Death has no currency.  Fear has lost its power.

Pray

Thank God for removing the threat of Sin, Guilt and Death.  Pray to live fearlessly.  Pray to live your life in the hollow of God's hand.