Part 104

In Luke 24:5, 6, the angels at the tomb from which the body of Jesus had disappeared are recorded as saying to the women who were seeking the body of Jesus to embalm it, +"Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here but is risen."+ Now what were the women seeking? The body of Jesus to embalm it, and the angels say that what they were seeking was not there but was risen, had been raised. Furthermore, in the remainder of the 6th verse and verse 7, they say: +"Remember how he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again."+ Here they told the women plainly that what was crucified, which of course was the body of Jesus, was raised. If the actual, literal body of Jesus had not been raised, then these angels were liars. Do you believe that? These are only a few of the very many passages in which it is very clearly taught that the very body of Jesus was raised from the dead. The body of Jesus was raised from the dead and our bodies shall be raised from the dead, else Christianity is a lie from start to finish. But Christ was raised from the dead and we shall be raised. Or, as Paul puts it in the 20th verse of this same chapter, "+But now hath Christ been raised from the dead, the first fruits of them that are asleep."+ Our resurrection, the resurrection of our bodies, will be _the harvest_ that follows the resurrection of the body of Christ, which was "_the first fruits_."