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Thoughts on Verse
Christians have the most wonderful and blessed hope. It is a hope that is based on scriptural facts, and the Word of God can never be broken. It is a future hope that is linked to the past, and a hope that starts and ends with the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul was one of many hundreds who were eye-witnesses of the risen Lord Jesus, but Paul was also unique in the encounter that He had with Jesus of Nazareth, for Paul saw the risen Lord Jesus was in His resurrected, ascended, and glorified body. No surprise that the blessed hope that we all have in Christ is the most wonderful assurance which was given to us at our rebirth and is established by the Word of God, with an inheritance that is kept for us in heaven.
It reminds us that because Christ is risen from the dead, we too shall rise. Because of His Resurrection we have an assurance that all those that trust in His name will also be resurrected. He has promised that all who die in the Lord shall never die but have the light of life, when we shall ever be with the Lord.
The first-fruit of a tree is the precursor that more fruit will follow. And Christ is the first Man to have risen from the dead. He is the First-Fruit from the grave and His Resurrection is a pledge and a guarantee that the rest of the harvest will certainly follow. Christ is risen from the dead, and He has become the First-Fruits of all who ‘sleep’ and because He lives, all those who are positioned IN Christ will also live.
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the complete assurance that all who have trusted on His name will be raised from the dead, with a new resurrected body that will be like His glorified body. The Lord is the Head of the Church and because He arose from the grave, He is the eternal witness that the Church, which is the Body, will also be raised: “For the perishable shall be clothed in the imperishable and the mortal will take on an immortal covering.” Those whose bodies are perishing in the grave will rise imperishable and those that are alive and remain will put on immortality. Paul goes on to write: “But when this perishable puts on the imperishable, and this mortal puts on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.'”
It was because the deathless Son of God, Who has eternal life within Himself, became the perfect Son of Man and gave Himself as a willing sacrifice for the sin of the whole world, that He broke the power of sin and death in the life of ALL who trust in His name. His death paid the price for sin, but His Resurrection broke the power of sin and death forever in all who believe, and together we will live with Him in glory.
Because He lives we too shall live. Praise His wonderful name.
My Prayer
Praise the Lord for the power of the Cross of Christ, and thank You, Father, for the death and Resurrection of Jesus. Thank You that my sins were dealt with at the Cross, and death has lost its sting through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus. In His name I pray, AMEN.
Bible References
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
1 And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins;
2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience:
3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
4 But God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us,
5 Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)
6 And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus:
7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.
8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:
9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
11 Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands;
12 That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:
13 But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.
14 For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us;
15 Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained in ordinances; for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace;
16 And that he might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby:
17 And came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.
18 For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father.
19 Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God;
20 And are built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone;
21 In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord:
22 In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit.
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