The Evidence for the Resurrection  of Jesus part 8

I am preparing this devotion having received the following message from an Elim Global Pastor in India:

“We are in great pain at this time we are building church in Gollaigudem village near Eluru town where pastor Abraham is pastoring the construction has come to roof level and all of a sudden some fanatics came and warned us to stop the church construction in this area we approached government authorities and asked help to reduce from fanatics but they gave deaf ear and next day yesterday morning 4 am some 15 people came and with machines and demolished all the building. We are so much pain please pray for church in India to be protected by God and please pray for our local church pastor Abraham and for his family.”

These messages from Paul on the resurrection of Jesus and us are of enormous encouragement to the persecuted and suffering Christians around the world. The story above of what is being experienced in India reveal the painful experience of being under persecution. But what the enemy destroys God will raise. Whether that happens to buildings or not it definitely happens to the bodies of Christians who die.

“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 splendour of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another. ⁴¹ The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour. 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 dishonour, 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. (1 Corinthians 15 v 35-44)

My father has sadly had to move into a care home because his Alzheimers means he regularly falls to the floor. It is a struggle right now. But there will come a day when his earthly body will no longer fall to the ground for he will be raised imperishable, in glory and power, as a spiritual body. There will come a day when what breaks now will break no more; what is diseased now will be healed; what is destroyed now will be indestructible. There will come a day where there will be no limitations that the earthly body has now.

Evidence?

Paul gives an agricultural metaphor for the evidence. Just as a wheat seed bears little resemblance to the full plant it becomes, our resurrection bodies will be dramatically transformed from our current state to something glorious while still maintaining a continuity of identity.

Inside every acorn is an oak tree ready to come forward and inside every born again Christian is a heavenly body ready to be raised on that final day.