1 Corinthians 15:23-52
New Catholic Bible
23 but each one in proper order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward, at his coming, those who belong to Christ. 24 Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every sovereignty and authority and power.[a] 25 For he is destined to reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
26 The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 27 For he has put all things under his feet. But when it says “all things are put under,” it is obvious that this excludes the one who subjected everything to him. 28 When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who made all things subject to him, so that God may be all in all.
29 Practical Faith. Otherwise, what will people accomplish when they have themselves baptized for the dead?[b] If the dead are not raised at all, why should anyone be baptized for them? 30 And why should we be placing ourselves in danger every hour? 31 I face death every day—that is as sure as the pride that I have in you, brethren, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
32 With only human hopes, what would I have gained by fighting those wild beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised,
“Let us eat and drink,
for tomorrow we die.”
33 Do not let anyone lead you astray. “Bad company corrupts good morals.” 34 Come to your senses and sin no more. For some of you have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
The Mode of the Resurrection
35 The Resurrected Body. Someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? What sort of body will they have when they come back?” 36 This is foolish. What you sow must die before it is given new life, 37 and what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare grain of wheat or of something else. 38 God gives to it a body that he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own particular body.
39 Not all flesh is alike. There is one kind for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The splendor of heavenly bodies is of one kind, and that of earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has a splendor of its own, the moon another splendor, and the stars still another. Indeed, the stars differ among themselves in splendor.
42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 What is sown in dishonor is raised as glorious. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. 44 What is sown is a physical body; what is raised is a spiritual body.
The Natural and the Spiritual Body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 As it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam has become a lifegiving spirit. 46 But the spiritual body did not come first. Rather the natural body came first, and then the spiritual.
47 The first man was formed from the dust of the earth; the second man is from heaven. 48 The man formed from dust is the pattern for earthly people; the heavenly man is the pattern for those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man formed from dust, so shall we also bear the likeness of the heavenly one.
50 Where, O Death, Is Your Victory?[c] What I am asserting, brethren, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can the perishable inherit what is imperishable.
51 Listen while I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed 52 in an instant, in the twinkling of an eye, at the sound of the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.[d]
Read full chapterFootnotes
- 1 Corinthians 15:24 Sovereignty and authority and power: these words signify all the forces, angelic and human, that are opposed to the Kingdom of God (see 1 Cor 2:6; Col 2:15).
- 1 Corinthians 15:29 Baptized for the dead (v. 29) refers to a rite, unknown to us, a type of baptism by proxy. Paul uses the image of wild beasts (v. 32) to express the hostility he encountered at Ephesus. In v. 33 he is citing Menander, a Greek comic poet, although by this time the saying may already have become a popular proverb.
- 1 Corinthians 15:50 Using images traditional in the Bible, Paul describes in a few lines the great day of universal salvation, when humanity reaches its destiny.
- 1 Corinthians 15:52 The trumpet was part of apocalyptic choreography (see Mt 24:31; 1 Thes 4:16); it symbolized the solemn proclamation of the divine plan (see the seven trumpets of the Book of Revelation: 8:6-12; 9:1-21; 11:15-19).
