121. Resurrected Firstfruits
1 Corinthians 15:20-23 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
The firstfruits of a crop is the early appearing of some of the fruit at harvest time signifying that a full harvest is still coming. Jesus is the firstfruits of the coming “harvest” of resurrected bodies. The firstfruits is the “first resurrection;” blessed are those who have a part of the first resurrection. The first resurrection is the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ. Those who believe in Christ have a part of His resurrection by faith. This means believers will definitely be resurrected in their bodies afterward. This promise is as sure as the firstfruits resurrection of Jesus. And Christ is risen, indeed. So we shall rise, indeed.
There has been only one resurrection in the history of the universe: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There have been thousands of “resuscitations,” but every one of them died again. Jesus is the only one to rise and never die again forever. And those in Christ shall be made alive. We shall rise, because He is risen. We shall live and not die, because He lives. We may doubt many things and wonder about many more, but one promise we have no doubt about at all is our own bodily resurrection.
The promise is not that the soul will be immortal and continue to live in heaven after we die. The immortality of the soul is not a promise of the Bible: the resurrection of the body is. Our hope is not in some ethereal existence, floating around like ghosts or angels. Our hope is in the wholeness of life, in which the spiritual and invisible is joined as one with the substantial and visible. This is much like the oneness of soul and body we live with now, though we still do not “see” the soul. The promise is that we shall be united in an oxymoronic “spiritual body.”