Imagine if a medical expert announced that he no longer believed the brain to be located in the cranium but in the abdomen. Imagine an eminent Scottish QC acting according to the laws of Albania. Imagine an ecologist becoming convinced in her own mind that in fact the earth is flat. Ludicrous. And that is the way Paul regarded Christians who did not believe in the Resurrection. It was a concern to him because this lack of belief was gaining ground in Corinth and he had to respond clearly and urgently. That will strike a discordant note for many who do not like to be told what they have to believe but as far as Paul was concerned without the Resurrection the Church had no message and indeed nothing to believe: ‘ . . . if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.’ (I Corinthians 15: 14) And this is not something that can remain at just the intellectual level of what we believe. Paul says: ‘Think about what this means at the most personal level.’ He writes:
‘For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost.’ (1 Corinthians 15: 16-18)
As vital as this is Paul doesn’t leave it there. By the end of this magnificent chapter in 1 Corinthians each individual Christian is seen to be part of a bigger story when ‘the trumpet will sound’, when God’s promises will be fulfilled, when His Kingdom seen by us only in glimpses will be established in its fulness. I love the image of Jesus in v. 24 cleaning up the whole of creation, flushing out everything that has no place in the Kingdom and handing it over to the Father. It is then that the promises delivered through the prophets will become reality:
‘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.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.’ (vv. 54-57)
It is wonderful to read these words in these days of Covid-19 and to grasp God’s good purpose for creation. We can indeed look forward with faith. But there is also an imperative for the present in Paul’s teaching. We are not left in a defensive huddle against the worst, longing for the end of all things. Paul brings us to the present moment:
‘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.’ (verse 58)
With the hope of the Resurrection in our hearts we continue ‘the work of the Lord’, the work that shows the Kingdom in the present: the preaching of truth in the midst of confusion, the demand for justice where poverty and cruelty are unchallenged, the demonstration of love where lives wither and die for the lack of it. That is the ‘labour’ that is eternal, what will remain when the Son returns to cleanse and heal, those things that belong to the Kingdom that is to come. No work that we do for the Kingdom will be lost. Jesus’ Resurrection is the guarantee of that.
