1 Corinthians 15:19

1 Corinthians 15:19

What is the exact hope respecting the future that we owe to our risen Lord? Is it the hope that we shall exist for ever? Is our continuous existence hereafter altogether dependent upon faith in communion with the risen Christ? No, this is not what the Apostle meant; our immortality is not a gift of the Redeemer, it is a gift of the Creator; and it is just as much a part of our being as any of the limbs of our body, or as reason, imagination, or any of the natural endowments of our mind.

I. We look forward as reasonable beings to immortality. But to what sort of immortality does this anticipation point? Is it, for instance, (1) the immortality of the race, and does the individual really perish at death? No, it is not this to which we men look forward. A race of beings does not really live apart from the individuals which compose it; only a person, only a feeling, thinking, and resolving centre and seat of life can be properly immortal. (2) Is it, then, an immortality of fame? How many in each generation could hope to share in such an immortality as this? (3) Is it an immortality of good deeds? No; the immortality of our actions is not an immortality which ever can satisfy the heart or the reason of man, since this yearning for immortality is above all things based on a sense of justice.

II. The hope in Christ is the hope of a blessed immortality. This He has won for us by His perfect and sufficient sacrifice on the cross, whereby our sins are blotted out; and His cross and His virtue is proved to us by His resurrection from the dead, that He lives in order that we may live also is the very basis of our hope in Him. Apart from this conviction, Christianity is indeed a dream; the efforts and sacrifices of Christian life are wasted; we are the victims of vain delusion, and we are of all men most miserable.

H. P. Liddon, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiii., p. 209.

References: 1 Corinthians 15:19. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. x., No. 562; H. P. Liddon, Easter Sermons,vol. i., p. 1; Homilist,2nd series, vol. iv., p. 61; J. Fordyce, Christian World Pulpit,vol. viii., p. 342; H.W. Beecher, Ibid.,vol. xxii., p. 36; J. G. Rogers, Ibid.,vol. xxxvi., p. 59. 1 Corinthians 15:20. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. viii., No. 445; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 131; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College,p. 126; J. Kennedy, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 369; J. B. Brown, Ibid.,vol. viii., p. 347; A. Craig, Ibid.,vol. xvi., p. 197; Plain Sermons,vol. vii., p. 118. 1 Corinthians 15:20; 1 Corinthians 15:21. G. Huntington, Sermons for Holy Seasons,p. 99. 1 Corinthians 15:21. E. White, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiii., p. 185. 1 Corinthians 15:21. F. W. Robertson, Lectures on Corinthians,p. 223.