i believe in eternal life
Intro/scripture
I believe in the resurrection of the body
What is the resurrection?
So Paul tries to explain it using the image of a seed (1 Cor 15:35–49). The body now is like a seed, and the life of the resurrection is like the tree. There is an unimaginable difference between the seed and the tree. They do not look alike. You would not be able to guess the appearance of the tree by looking at the seed. Yet their identity is the same. In the same way, Paul says, our mortal bodies will be planted and will be raised immortal in Christ. Paul calls this “a mystery” (15:51). In the coming life we will be the same identical persons that we are now—yet unimaginably different. “We will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye” (15:51–52).
Why is this our ultimate hope?
I believe in life eternal
The Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges tells the story of a man who drinks from a river of immortality and becomes immortal. But without death, life lacks definition; it doesn’t mean anything. One day the man learns of another river that can take immortality away. And so for centuries he wanders the earth and drinks from every spring and river, seeking to end the curse of endless life. “Death,” writes Borges, “makes men precious and pathetic; their ghostliness is touching; any act they perform may be their last.”