Christ died and God raised him up to live again
1 My Christian friends, I want you to remember the good news that I taught to you. You received it from me and you continue to trust it as a true message. 2 Because of that good news, God will save you. But you must continue to trust the message that I told you. If you do not, you have believed it for nothing.
3 I received the good news from Christ, and I told that message to you. I told you the most important things:
Christ died as a sacrifice for our sins. The Bible already said how that would happen. 4 People buried his dead body. On the third day after that, God raised him up to live again. The Bible speaks about that too.
5 After that, Christ appeared to Peter. Later, he appeared to his 12 disciples. 6 And after that, he appeared to more than 500 believers at the same time. Most of those 500 people are still alive, but some of them have died. 7 Then Christ appeared to James. Later he appeared to all the apostles.
8 After all these people had seen him, Christ also appeared to me. I was like someone who was born at the wrong time. 9 Among all the apostles, I am the least important. I caused a lot of trouble for God's church. So I do not deserve for people to call me an apostle. 10 But God was very kind to me. He helped me to become a different person. And because God has been so kind to me, the result has been great. I have worked harder than all the other apostles. But I could not do that work myself. No, I could only do it because God is kind and he helped me. 11 So, all of us apostles teach the same good news about Christ. That is the message that you have believed. It does not matter which of us told it to you, whether it was me or someone else.
Christians will live again after death
12 We all teach this message: God raised Christ up after his death. But some of you say that dead people do not live again. 13 Anyone who says that is wrong. If dead people do not live again, Christ also did not rise up after his death. He would still be dead. 14 And if God did not raise Christ up, it would be useless for us to teach you. There would be nothing for you to believe. 15 We would have been telling lies about God, because we told you that God raised Christ up after his death. But if dead people do not live again, it means that God did not raise Christ.
16 So, if dead people never rise to a new life, even Christ himself did not rise after his death. 17 And if Christ did not rise, then you have believed a false message. God would still say that you are guilty, because of your sins.
18 Also, think about those people who believed in Christ but they have already died. If dead people do not rise to a new life, those people would have no life with God. 19 As believers, we trust Christ to give us a new life after death. But if we only trust him to help us in this life, we should be very sad. Everybody should be very sorry for us, more than for anyone else.
20 But God did raise Christ up after his death. We know that is true! Christ rose up to go to God in heaven. He was the first, so we know that believers who die will also rise up.
21 All people die because of what one man did. That man was Adam. And it is because of another man that people can rise up after death to a new life. That man is Christ. 22 As people, all of us belong to Adam's family. So all of us must die. In the same way, all people who belong to Christ will live again after death. 23 But it must happen like this: first of all, Christ became alive again after his death. Then, when Christ returns, his people will also rise to new life.
