Your Dead Shall Live!

# 38 Today's Prime Time Devo comes from: 1Ti 1:19b,20 - “which some having rejected, concerning the faith have suffered shipwreck, 20 of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I delivered to Satan that they may learn not to blaspheme. (1 Tim 1:19b,20) As we mentioned last time, one of the doctrines that Hymenaeus and his ilk espoused was that there would be no bodily resurrection. 2 Tim 2:17,18 says, “ And their message will spread like cancer. Hymenaeus and Philetus are of this sort, 18 who have strayed concerning the truth, saying that the resurrection is already past; and they overthrow the faith of some. “ Hymenaeus taught that the resurrection was a “spiritual one” and took place at the moment of conversion and therefore was “already past,” So what's wrong with that? Isn't believing that Jesus died for my sins enough? Why do I have to believe that HE bodily rose from the dead? Well first of all, because the Bible tells us to believe that way. Ro 10:9 says, “that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” You see, it's a matter of. “What Jesus you are putting your faith in? Because the Jesus who is the true God-man Messiah would rise from the dead just as the prophets proclaimed, and just as Jesus explained. Jesus said in Joh 2:19, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." and John tells us in Jn 2:21, “But He was speaking of the temple of His body.” There is a beautiful prophecy in Isa 26:19 concerning the resurrection: “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.” Bottom line is this, if Jesus did not bodily rise from the dead, then the Messiah, (who's body would not suffer corruption, Ps 16:10) has not yet come, and if the God-Man Messiah spoken of in prophecy and attested to by Jesus has not yet come we are all still in our sins as Paul stated in 1Co 15:17. And as he stated in 1Co 15:19, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable.” The bodily resurrection of Jesus and subsequent bodily resurrection of the saints is a fundamental part of the proclamation of the Gospel. He is risen! He is risen indeed!