Isaiah 26:19
Your Dead Shall Live
“Your dead shall live;
Together with my dead body they shall arise.
Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust;
For your dew is like the dew of herbs,
And the earth shall cast out the dead.” Isaiah 26:19
Isaiah 24-27 is referred to as “Isaiah’s Apocalypse.” There is judgment, woe, and death recorded there, but there is also restoration and life. Scholars argue over the context and whether the words are referring to an actual resurrection, or whether they are being used figuratively when speaking of enemies in a conflict.
For example, the words, “Your dead shall live,” could be speaking of actual dead, or it could be speaking of the state of Israel – in a dead condition and sorely needing revival.
The next words, “Together with my dead body they shall arise,” are more complicated. The words “Together with” are inserted and immediately give an impression not necessarily intended. The Hebrew reads “my dead body they shall arise.” Thus, it may be two separate clauses – “My dead body” and “they shall arise.”
In other words, “My dead body” is a singular construct and thus it would refer collectively to the dead of the Lord. Then as individuals “they shall arise,” being third person plural, would refer to each individual of that body arising. But what does it mean?
Again, this could be figurative language speaking of Israel in a hopeless condition but being spiritually revived – as in the valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. Or it could be referring to the actual dead of the Lord being brought back to life.
At the end of Isaiah’s apocalypse, in Isaiah 27, it refers to the great trumpet being blown that will bring Israel’s outcasts back to the land. That is echoed by Jesus in Matthew 24:31. Both speak of a time of great trouble for Israel, a time of hiding for the Lord’s people, and then a time of regathering of the people.
Having said that, there is no reason to not take this in both a literal and a figurative sense. Israel, as a nation, is seen as a template of what God does in Christ for the individual believer. As elsewhere, the words then could have a twofold significance.
The point and purpose of the coming of the Messiah is that of restoration and life. There is a problem that needs fixing, we cannot fix it, and the Lord sent Christ Jesus to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves.
Text Verse: “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” 2 Corinthians 1:20
The day before typing this Resurrection Day sermon, after a long day of church, video editing, and so on, I was sitting at the table having dinner when Sergio emailed me and asked about this particular verse from 2 Corinthians. He said, “I’m not sure what it means in context. I’ve heard pastors take it out of context.” At first, that seems contradictory.
But he knew what they were saying was out of context, even if he couldn’t put his finger on what the correct context was. As I had lamb chop all over my fingers, and as I was wiped out from the day’s work, I simply punted and sent him the link to my 2 Corinthians commentary.
Five minutes later, he excitedly emailed back citing my commentary, “Christ is the incarnate answer to the promises of God.” He then said, “Woooooooooowwewww. It makes ALL the sense in the world now!!!! I have tears understanding this verse now!!!” His use of accompanying emoticons was quite impressive.
He then said, “All the pastors (and recent famous worship songs) I’ve heard made this verse about ‘me’ and ‘us.’ But it’s all about Christ! Fulfilled in Him!!!!”
With that, I really wanted to know what someone else had said about the verse to get him so inquisitive at 1am Israel time. His answer was –
“He said (paraphrase): ‘what’s your purpose in life? What’s your motive? It’s important to establish one! Paul’s purpose was to share the gospel amongst the nations while being imprisoned… but we are free. So, our purpose is to have eternal life, get better life, and get God’s promises for us. The promises of Yes, and Amen, and the spirit.”
With that, I called the analysis “minty bubbles.” They taste good, but they have no substance. The sad part was that he said it was a discipleship video for young believers.
The next morning, Sergio said he was still thinking about the verse from the night before. My response was, “Me too. The minty bubbles are not completely wrong, but they have come at the idea in the wrong way. If they are treating the reception of the promises as being first directed to us, it is a self-centered doctrine. If we acknowledge that all promises of God are fulfilled in Christ, then it is Christ-centered. The secondary reception is us. Obviously, there would be no need to send Jesus if we didn’t exist. But the purpose is not for us to be exalted or blessed apart from Christ. Rather, it is for us to exalt God because He did this for us through Jesus. We are the recipients, but the purpose is the glory of God.”
Whether Isaiah’s words immediately speak of a spiritually dead condition of Israel or not, they convey a literal truth that God has done something in the world of which we are the recipients of that effort.
It is true that there would have been no need for it to have been done if we didn’t exist. But the purpose of the doing wasn’t so that we would have abundance and prosperity. Rather, the purpose of what He has done is first and foremost to bring glory to Himself. The good that we receive is not the purpose, it is the result.
Today is Resurrection Day 2021. But Resurrection Day is a day that comes after Good Friday. There would have been no resurrection without Christ’s death first. And there would have been no need for Christ’s death if we weren’t already separated from God.
Let us remember this. What God has done is because we are in a pit, God promised to get us out of that pit, and God sent Jesus to make that possible. To God be the glory. This is a truth that is to be found in His superior word. And so, let us turn to that precious word once again and… May God speak to us through His word today and may His glorious name ever be praised.
I. Sadness at the Graveside
Regardless as to whether Isaiah’s words are to be taken figuratively, literally, or both, the fact that we could even debate them tells us that we have an understanding of what it means to die. And of that which results from death.
Taking the words and analyzing them from a negative perspective shows us this. In saying “Your dead shall live.” It means that something is dead. If we are talking about something that is dead, we are – by default – referring to something that was alive.
We don’t talk about rocks being dead. They were never alive, and so we don’t speak of them in that way. When someone says, “My car died,” it means that it has stopped running. It is not in the state it was intended to be. Such is the case with people. We are alive, and then we die.
To say “your dead” signifies a close and personal connection to the dead. If someone in Bolivia dies, there is nothing close and personal to us, unless we are from Bolivia. We wouldn’t say to a person from Czechoslovakia “your dead” when referring to the dead guy from Bolivia.
When the Lord, through Isaiah, says, “Your dead shall live,” it is confirming that there was a personal connection to the dead. If you take the Bible as the truth of man’s history on the earth, then you know that death was never the intent for people.
God created man for a particular purpose. In the Genesis narrative, when did He create the man? Was it on the first day? The second? The third? No. When God created man, it was on the sixth and final day of His creative effort. And not only did He do it on the sixth day, He did it at the end of the sixth day – after creating the land animals.
Man was the crowning aspect of the creation, the finishing touch. Everything was prepared for him first, and then the Lord God worked the dust, formed the man, and called him to life.
Chapter 2 of Genesis immediately began with –
“Thus the heavens and the earth, and all the host of them, were finished. 2 And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had done, and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done.” Genesis 2:1, 2
Only after stating that does it go back and fill in the information left out of Chapter 1. God created man on the sixth day, and then it says that He, the Lord, planted a garden in Eden and placed the man there.
The word used in Genesis 2:15 is yanakh. It means to lay down, set, and so on. It is from the same root as nuakh, or to rest. The verb, being causative, signifies that the Lord “rested” the man in the garden.
It then says that he was rested there for a purpose. Most translations say that the action was so that man could “tend and keep” the garden, but that is not the intent at all. Such a translation causes a gender discord between the verbs and the object of those verbs.
Also, if the man was rested in the garden, it would make no sense to have him tend the garden. This is especially so for two reasons.
The first is that man was created on the sixth day. The seventh day is a day of rest and that day, according to Hebrews 4:3, continues on forever. God worked and then rested. The second reason is that the man’s responsibility was not to the garden, but to God.
The man was not rested there to tend and keep the garden, but to worship and serve the Lord. This is the purpose of the Sabbath. The seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord. In Exodus, the Lord provided the manna for the people, and they were to rest, not work.
This was to recall to their minds the rest that man had lost. God created man at the end of His week of work. He rested the man in the garden after the work was complete. The relationship was to be one of worshiping and serving the Lord in intimate fellowship.
My friend Kyle picked up on this while watching the Genesis sermon and helped me to expand on it for this sermon. It is in this state of rest that man was to live. As it was in fellowship with God, the intent was that it was to be forever. But intent and result are not always the same. The Lord gave the man a choice, a garden of delight and life, or the knowledge of good and evil, and death.
The very fact that death was an option means that the other option was not just life, but life without death. One tree was law – “You shall not eat of its fruit,” while the other tree was grace. It was simply there in the garden with no prohibition attached to it.
Man chose life under the law by choosing the fruit forbidden by the law. But as Paul tells us, “The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56). And the word confirms that. The Lord said to the man –
“In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19
So, there is what Isaiah is referring to. The man was taken from the dust and he became a living being. The man would return to the dust, because he was no longer alive. In saying, “your dead,” he was noting that they were once alive. In saying they “shall live,” he is indicating that this state of death would end.
The Lord then says through Isaiah: nebelati yequmum – “my dead body; they shall arise.” The people of the Lord are “His dead body,” meaning His body of people who have died.
That is a stated fact, but it doesn’t explain how they became His dead body. That is a completely separate part of the matter, and it also goes back to the Genesis narrative. The man failed to accept the grace, and instead he opted for the law, meaning disobeying it.
The serpent deceived the woman, calling into question the truth of the Lord’s word. But it was in the act of eating the fruit of the tree, the fruit forbidden by the Lord – meaning in violating the law – that death resulted. The law was given, violating the law was sin, and death was the inevitable consequence. As Paul says in Romans 3:20, “by the law is the knowledge of sin.”
If the Lord had put the tree in the garden and said nothing about eating its fruit, then they could have eaten it and not died. It isn’t the fruit, but the violation of the law, that brought the death. As this is so, then it cannot be by the law that life can come.
When Isaiah says “my dead body” while referring to the people of the Lord, it cannot be by the law that they became His dead body, only that they became dead by the law. So how did they become His, if not by law? The answer is introduced in the curse upon the serpent –
“And I will put enmity
Between you and the woman,
And between your seed and her Seed;
He shall bruise your head,
And you shall bruise His heel.” Genesis 3:15
The Lord promised that the Seed of the woman would come to correct the matter. Shortly after that was stated, and after the Lord told the man that he would toil the ground until he returned to the dust, the account says –
“And Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.” Genesis 3:20
The man was told that he would die on the day he ate the forbidden fruit. He then was told that he would toil all the days of his life until he returned to the dust. Obviously, and putting two and two together, he was able to grasp that he was already dead in one sense, and then he would also die in another sense because he was alive still.
Thus, “death” has more than one meaning. As this is so, then “life” has more than one meaning as well. In calling His wife Eve, he was acknowledging this.
Her name is Khavah, “Life.” Abraim, in analyzing the name, says, “The name Eve denotes the collectivity that is common to the behavior of living things.” In this, they translate her name Symbiosis. There is a commonality to the life that would come through her.
In other words, Adam had come to understand that the life that he had lost would be restored. He did this while standing there as a living, breathing man. And therefore, he could not have been thinking of physical life at all, but of the spiritual life that he had lost. This was his “death” that occurred on the day he ate of the fruit.
But he had believed what the Lord said concerning One who would crush the serpent. In his belief, it then says –
“Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21
The clear implication is that this action by the Lord was in response to the man’s naming of His wife. There they were, dead. And yet, he called her “Life.” Not because of the life they possessed, but because of the life that they would possess.
Adam believed, and the Lord covered the man’s nakedness. As these were garments of skin, it means the Lord took an animal and slayed it in order to cover him. A transfer was made. An innocent died, a guilty one was covered – all because of a simple act of faith.
The Lord was, at that time, showing what pleased Him. He was also showing in typology how He would come to cover all who pleased Him, meaning by their faith. However, there are consequences for our actions, even if our sins are covered. In His sentence upon the man, the Lord had said that he would toil for his food until he returned to the dust.
But the garden is a place of rest, not toil. And in the garden is the tree of life by which man can eat and live forever. Because of these things, the man was driven out from the garden to abad, or work, the ground. It is the same word that was used of his purpose in the garden, but with an entirely different context. He was to worship and serve the Lord, now he would serve the ground.
The rest, in the place of rest, was removed from him because he was removed from it. From this point on, everything in Scripture is, in one way or another, given to reveal how man would be returned to that lost rest in the place of rest.
Adam, though destined to die, had found the way to life. The narrative then immediately went from the account in the garden to the two sons of Adam and Eve. With very little in the narrative to explain why things turned out as they did, a contrast is set between the offerings the two made to the Lord.
The Lord accepted the offering of Abel, and he rejected the offering of Cain. However, there is enough said that the author of Hebrews explains what the difference between the two was. It wasn’t the type of offering, but the attitude behind the offering. Of this, he says –
“By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks.” Hebrews 11:4
The offering of Abel was one of faith. This is what made the offering more excellent. It was a hope-filled offering anticipating the life that was promised to his parents. Cain’s offering lacked this, and it was rejected.
From there, Hebrews 11 lists one person after another from one biblical account after another. And each time he does, he introduces him or her with the words, “By faith.” The deed or act they did is placed secondary to the idea of it being a deed or act of faith.
It is this, then, that distinguishes the people of God from all others. And it is those who died in faith that are collectively called “my dead body” in Isaiah 26. It is of this group of whom it then says, “they shall arise.” They are alive because of faith, even if they are dead in the body.
Someday, their bodies will arise because the Life is in them, and that is because they have believed the word of the Lord, meaning the Seed of the woman will come to accomplish His work. It is this simple hope that gives life, even in a body of death.
We know this is the case, and that it is not by a particular genealogy, that the life is granted. It is true that a particular genealogy was selected in order to bring in the Messiah. But being a part of that genealogy or not has no bearing on whether one is truly of the Messiah.
We know this because the line through which the Messiah comes is through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But from Jacob, it is only through Judah that He would come. And yet, all twelve sons of Israel possessed the same hope, even though they were not all in His direct genealogy.
And we also know it is so because at times in the narrative, people are brought in from outside of the twelve sons of Israel, and they also possessed that same hope. Some of them were even brought directly into the line of the Messiah through marriage.
And we also know it so because Job was not of this genealogy at all, and yet, his record of interaction with the Lord, and the faith he possessed, assures us that he too possessed the same life as those of faith in Israel. As he himself said –
“And after my skin is destroyed, this I know,
That in my flesh I shall see God,
27 Whom I shall see for myself,
And my eyes shall behold, and not another.
How my heart yearns within me!” Job 19:26, 27
Only a person with a complete lack of understanding, or a personal bias against such a notion, would argue that Job is not included in the collective described as “my dead body.” Indeed, when they arise, Job will be among them. It is the hope in Messiah that makes it so. Job’s faith made him a son of God.
It is the amount of available revelation that sets the boundaries of this saving faith. One cannot have faith in a false Messiah. As the revelation of God concerning Him is increased, it is the responsibility of the individual to accept what has been presented and believe it.
This is why the Jew who has rejected Jesus will not be saved. God has provided the increased revelation, this has been rejected, and his trust is in something other than the Lord’s provision. On the other hand, Job’s understanding of the promise was far more limited. He had the word passed down from Adam until Noah, and then from Noah down to him.
As limited as his understanding was, it was enough. He sought after God, knowing that God had a plan and a purpose for him because of the promise. He had faith in that promise, and by faith the Bible calls him a son of the God, meaning the true God.
This is the pattern set forth for man to be saved, and faith in the promise is the expectation. There may be sadness at the graveside for those who mourn their dead, but for those who have lived in faith, they shall rise. For those who mourn and yet know this, it is a mourning of temporary loss, but also of hope-filled anticipation. Because of Messiah, there is a day coming when there will be a blessed reunion.
Your dead shall live; they shall rise to life again
My dead body will not be lost; they shall arise
To them, life I give, the faithful sons of men
The gift without money and without cost, even a glorious prize
Awake and sing, you who dwell in dust
You shall rise again when I make the call
Because in My Son, you placed your trust
No more shall you be covered by death’s terrible pall
For your dew is like the dew of lights, reinvigorating the soul
And the earth shall cast out the dead
You shall receive heavenly rights; you are entered on the scroll
The days of dust are gone, replaced with beauty instead
II. To the Glory of God
As we opened, I told you about Sergio’s inquiry concerning 2 Corinthians 1:20. He seemed almost dejected about what he had heard from others. The reason this was so is that they had made the plan of God me-centered.
That is fine if you want the Bible, and indeed your life, to be all about you. But if it is all about you, it is actually a sincerely vapid existence, and a truly miserable hope you have. Sergio caught onto this, and so it caused an internal conflict.
The promises of God are to us, but they are realized in Christ. He is the incarnate answer to the promises of God. When Sergio saw the clarity of what Paul is conveying, he was moved to tears.
One can see the contrast between Cain and Abel. Cain, like that pastor Sergio cited, would have been elated at the news that God’s promises are realized in him. Abel, on the other hand, like Sergio, would have been appalled. “Me? That’s why I’m bringing this offering to You! It’s not about me, but about my hope in what You have promised.”
Abel had a hope beyond his earthly life. It was a hope of rest in the place of rest that his parents had once known. Someday, his hope will be realized. As Isaiah says: haqitsu v’ranenu shokene aphar – “Awake and shout for joy, dwellers of dust.”
It takes the reader right back to Genesis 3 once again –
“In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread
Till you return to the ground,
For out of it you were taken;
For dust you are,
And to dust you shall return.” Genesis 3:19
The man from the dust would return to the dust. Likewise, so would all who follow him. But for those who lived in faith, that state would not be final. In the curse upon the serpent, he was told that he would eat the dust. But despite this, he would not prevail over the faithful who had returned to the dust.
The hope of Messiah is that the bonds of death would be broken. Those the earth had reclaimed would be brought forth once again to shout aloud in joy. If you think about it, it is right that man is born, lives, and dies in this hope. Generation after generation it is so, telling us that when our renewal comes, it is because of what He has done, not what we have done.
If it were because of our deeds, the ground could not hold us. But it does. Even for two thousand years it has. Death has continued to reign, and the dust continues to receive more. And yet, those who hope continue to hope.
If it were merely God’s promises fulfilled in us, they surely would have been fulfilled by now. But being God’s promises fulfilled in Christ, every soul that is added to those who will rise only increases the glory. Someday the call will be made, and those in the dust shall awaken.
Isaiah describes how this will happen, saying, ki tal oroth talekha – “for dew lights your dew.” It is a poetic way of saying that the dew that settles upon those dead is like the dew that comes in the morning. When the completeness of the light shines forth, everything is nourished by this morning dew, and it is brought to vigor.
In the same manner, a time is coming when life will be suddenly and completely reinvigorated into those who dwell in the dust. They will reanimate in a new form and come forth. Paul describes the two states as they were and as they will be –
“The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.” 1 Corinthians 15:47-49
This change will be so sudden and so abrupt because of the reinvigorating power of Christ that Isaiah continues with the words, va’arets rephaim tapil – “and land ghosts will overthrow.” It is a poetic way of saying that the place where the dead are will be cast down and defeated. That is again reflective of Paul’s words –
“For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So, when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’
55 ‘O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?’” 1 Corinthians 15:54
This is the promise, and this is the wonder that we anticipate each year as we celebrate Resurrection Day. But before we finish, we need to remember that in order for Christ to come forth from the grave, He first had to go to the grave.
Adam disobeyed God. Through this, sin entered the world. And death came through that sin. From there, the Bible reveals that death spread to all men, because – as Paul says – all sinned. In other words, because we were in Adam when he sinned, we bear the guilt of Adam.
This is true in several ways. It is true legally because Adam is our federal head. He is the first man from whom all other men come. Just as the leader of a nation represents his citizens, so Adam represents all who come from Adam.
It is true potentially. It says in Genesis 5 –
“And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. 4 After he begot Seth, the days of Adam were eight hundred years; and he had sons and daughters. 5 So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years; and he died.” Genesis 5:3-5
We have no idea how many children Adam had. It could have been 10 or it could have been 150. All were potentially in him and all that were born actually came from him. In the same way, any normally functioning person could have any number of children, or they could have no children. Every person who comes after someone is potentially in that person, and any number of possible people could come from that same stream.
And it is true seminally. Acts 17:26 says, “…and He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth.”
Again, in Hebrews 7, Levi is said to be in the loins of Abraham, and that because he was, he paid tithes to Melchizedek through Abraham even though he wasn’t yet born, and even though he wouldn’t come for three more generations. He was seminally in his father before he ever existed.
Because of these things, all of us are in Adam in these three ways and thus we all bear his sin in these ways. We are born spiritually dead – as we saw from the account of Cain and Abel.
There is a disconnect between us and God, and there is a sentence of condemnation hanging over our heads from the moment of our conception. It is a sentence that is merely waiting to be executed. (John 3:18)
As this is so, something external needs to be introduced in order for the sentence to be changed from condemnation to restoration. The way that external correction came about was for God Himself to unite with human flesh in the Person of Jesus. He did this in the womb of Mary.
As His father is God, He did not receive Adam’s sin. He was born qualified to cover our sins, just as the innocent animal’s skin covered Adam and Eve of their nakedness.
Further, Christ Jesus was born under the Law of Moses – the covenant God made between Himself and the people of Israel. In that covenant, He stipulated that the man who did the things of the law would live by them. Christ already had life in Him, but being born under the law, He had to fulfill that law.
This is what the gospels then record. The Son of Man was born without sin, and He lived out the law without ever sinning, proving Himself not only qualified, but capable. He did what we could not do because the sin already existed in us.
And then, in fulfillment of the law, He died. In other words, as He had no sin, and as He committed no sin, the law found its completion in Him. In its completion, it ended, and a New Covenant replaced it. It is the Christ covenant.
It is the fulfillment of what was promised. It is what Adam anticipated when he named his wife “Life.” It is what Abel anticipated when he made his offering. It is what Job hoped for when he sat and spoke with those with him.
Christ Jesus gave up His life so that we could be granted what we could not otherwise possess. In His death, God provided an atonement – a covering – for sin. And that covering is offered in the exact same manner for us as it was for those in the past, meaning by faith. Adam had faith and was covered. That was only a type of what God would do in Christ.
Now, in Christ the final, full, and forever covering of sin is granted for those who simply believe. Though it has been two thousand years, God is still imputing to His people the same righteousness in the exact same way. And with each person who accepts the premise and is saved, the glory to God increases.
Sergio asked about Paul’s words concerning Christ, “For all the promises of God in Him are Yes, and in Him Amen, to the glory of God through us.” The answer is that God’s promises are fulfilled in Christ. From there, and only from there, do those promises then belong to us.
Jesus Christ is the answer to the problem that plagues us. His death is the remedy for our condition. In His burial, He bore our sin into the grave. And His resurrection is the proof that it is so. The atonement is made, the sin is expiated, the life is granted, and eternity lies just ahead for those who will – by faith – accept the premise and receive what God has done through Him.
This is the love of God that is found in Christ Jesus, and this is the grace of God that says, “I have done the work so that you may enter My rest.” Please be wise and receive this wonderful gift of life and restoration. May it be so, and may it be today.
Closing Verse: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.” 1 Corinthians 15:20-23
Next Week: Deuteronomy 15:12-23 So hard to imagine, and yet it is true… (The Lord Your God Redeemed You) (48th Deuteronomy Sermon)
A Celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ
This is the gospel which was preached to you
It is also the one you received and on which you stand
It is the gospel of salvation, providing life that’s new
And which will carry you to the promised Holy Land
What is delivered to you is what was before received
That Christ died for our sins according to God’s word
He was buried and He rose, and so we have believed
And many witnesses testify to this message you have heard
Now, if Christ is preached that He is risen from the dead
How can some among you say the resurrection isn’t true?
If there is no resurrection after Christ was crucified and bled
Then our faith as well as yours is certainly askew
And if so, we are found false witnesses of God
Because we have wrongly testified of this mighty deed
And our faith is futile, no heavenly streets we’ll trod
And we are still dead in our sins; fallen Adam’s seed
Even more, those who have fallen asleep in the Lord are gone
And we are the most pitiable creatures
———-the world could ever look upon
But indeed, Christ is risen from the dead
He is the Firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep
And as death came through one man, Adam, our federal head
So, Christ will make all alive; our souls He will keep
But there is an order to the Resurrection call
Christ was first, the pattern for the rest when He comes
When He does, He will make a shout out to us all
And we will rise as if to the sound of heavenly battle drums
Then comes the time, when He delivers the kingdom to the Father
When all rule, authority, and power have come to an end
The last enemy to be destroyed is death, never more to bother
Then the Son will to the Father eternal rule extend
But you ask, what will we be like after our time of sleep?
After we have been buried in corruption’s pit so deep?
Our body is sown in dishonor, but it will be raised in glory
It is sown in weakness, but raised in power – the resurrection story
The first man Adam became a living being, it is true
The last Adam became a life-giving Spirit, life to me and you
And as was the man of dust, created so long ago
So are those likened unto him, also made of dust
And as is the Man, the Lord from heaven, you know
That we shall bear His image for eternity just as we’ve discussed
Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God
Nor can corruption inherit that which is incorrupt
Be we shall all be changed, and so, heavenly streets we’ll trod
In the twinkling of an eye, the change will be abrupt
When the last trumpet sounds, we will be taken to glory
We shall all be changed, completion of the gospel story
Where O Death, O where is your sting?
When Christ our Savior, us to Himself does He bring
Where O Hades, O where is your victory?
When Christ translates His children to eternal glory
The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin the law
But thanks be to God who gives us victory through our Lord
My beloved brethren be steadfast in all you’ve heard and saw
And cling confidently to God’s eternal word
Know for certain that your labor is not in vain
Be of good cheer, Christ is coming again
Hallelujah and Amen…
