What Jesus Accomplished - Study 1-3

¹Now after the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. ²Suddenly there was a severe earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descending from heaven came and rolled away the stone and sat on it. ³His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴The guards were shaken and became like dead men because they were so afraid of him. ⁵But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶He is not here, for he has been raised, just as he said. Come and see the place where he was lying. ⁷Then go quickly and tell his disciples, ‘He has been raised from the dead. He is going ahead of you into Galilee. You will see him there.’ Listen, I have told you!” ⁸So they left the tomb quickly, with fear and great joy, and ran to tell his disciples. ⁹But Jesus met them, saying, “Greetings!” They came to him, held on to his feet and worshiped him. ¹⁰Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee. They will see me there.”

¹What shall we say then? Are we to remain in sin so that grace may increase? ²Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? ³Or do you not know that as many as were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴Therefore we have been buried with him through baptism into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too may live a new life. ⁵For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be united in the likeness of his resurrection. ⁶We know that our old man was crucified with him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷(For someone who has died has been freed from sin.) ⁸Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹We know that since Christ has been raised from the dead, he is never going to die again; death no longer has mastery over him. ¹⁰For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹So you too consider yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

¹Now I want to make clear for you, brothers and sisters, the gospel that I preached to you, that you received and on which you stand, ²and by which you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. ³For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, ⁴and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶Then he appeared to more than 500 of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. ⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. ⁹For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me has not been in vain. In fact, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God with me. ¹¹Whether then it was I or they, this is the way we preach and this is the way you believed. ¹²Now if Christ is being preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say there is no resurrection of the dead? ¹³But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁴And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is futile and your faith is empty. ¹⁵Also, we are found to be false witnesses about God, because we have testified against God that he raised Christ from the dead, when in reality he did not raise him, if indeed the dead are not raised. ¹⁶For if the dead are not raised, then not even Christ has been raised. ¹⁷And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is useless; you are still in your sins. ¹⁸Furthermore, those who have fallen asleep in Christ have also perished. ¹⁹For if only in this life we have hope in Christ, we should be pitied more than anyone. ²⁰But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead also came through a man. ²²For just as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive. ²³But each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits; then when Christ comes, those who belong to him. ²⁴Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, when he has brought to an end all rule and all authority and power. ²⁵For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. ²⁶The last enemy to be eliminated is death. ²⁷For he has put everything in subjection under his feet. But when it says “everything” has been put in subjection, it is clear that this does not include the one who put everything in subjection to him. ²⁸And when all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will be subjected to the one who subjected everything to him, so that God may be all in all.