April 4 Daily Devotional

Bible Verse

"How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" (1 Corinthians 15:35).

Devotional

The very same body that was sown—and yet, so changed, so spiritualized, so glorified, so immortalized, as to rival in beauty the highest form of spirit, while it shall resemble, in its fashion, the glorious body of Christ himself. We can form only a faint conception of the glory of the raised body of the just, even from the glowing representations of the apostle. But this we know, it will be in every respect a makeup worthy of the perfected soul that will inhabit it.

At present, "the body" is more the antagonist than the assistant of "the soul." It is its clog, its prison, its foe. The moment that Jesus condescends to "grace this mean abode" with his indwelling presence, there commences that fierce and harassing conflict between holiness and sin which so often wrings the bitter cry from the believer, "Oh wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (Rom. 7:24). Oh, what a hindrance is this body of sin! Its corruptions, its infirmities, its weaknesses, its ailments, its diseases, all conspire to render it the tyrant of the soul, if grace does not keep it under, and bring it into subjection as its slave. How often, when the mind would pursue its favorite study, the wearied and over-tasked body enfeebles it! How often, when the spirit would dwell upon and soar in its contemplations of, and in its communings with, God, the inferior nature detains it by its weight, or occupies it with its needs! How often, when the soul thirsts for divine knowledge, and the heart pants for holiness, its highest aspirations and its strongest efforts are discouraged and thwarted by the clinging infirmities of a corrupt and suffering humanity!

But it will not be so at the resurrection. Then shall this perishable put on the imperishable, and the mortal put on immortality (1 Cor. 15:54). Mysterious and glorious change! "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump" (1 Cor. 15:52), the dead in Christ shall awake from their long sleep, and spring from their tombs into a blissful immortality. Oh, how altered! oh, how transformed! oh, how changed! "Sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Cor. 15:44).

"A spiritual body!" Who can imagine, who describe it? What anatomy can explain its mysteries? What pencil can paint its beauties! "A spiritual body!" All the remains and vestiges of corruption passed away. "A spiritual body!" So regenerated, so sanctified, so etherealized, so invested with the high and glorious attributes of spirit, yet retaining the form and pressure of matter; that now sympathizing and blending with the soul in its high employment of obeying the will and chanting the praises of God, it shall rise with it in its lofty soarings, and accompany and aid it in its deep exploration in the hidden and sublime mysteries of eternity.

Teach me to live, that I may dread
the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die, that so I may
rise glorious at the judgment day.

(Thomas Ken, 1674, "All praise to Thee, my God, this night")

Be sure to read the Preface by Octavius Winslow and A Note from the Editor by Larry E. Wilson.

Larry Wilson is an ordained minister in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In addition to having served as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education of the OPC (2000–2004) and having written a number of articles and booklets (such as God's Words for Worship and Why Does the OPC Baptize Infants) for New Horizons and elsewhere, he has pastored OPC churches in Minnesota, Indiana, and Ohio. We are grateful to him for his editing of Morning Thoughts, the OPC Daily Devotional for 2025.