If This Life Only

People sometimes defend Christianity like this: even if none of it is true, look at what it does for people. It makes families steadier and neighbours kinder, and it gives you something to say at a graveside, so faith earns its keep either way. People say it kindly, and it has one obvious strength: nobody can disprove it.

Paul would not accept that defence. He follows the other possibility all the way to its end, and the list is hard to read. "But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain." Then it gets worse: "Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God." He would be a man who had told lies about God in public. "Your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins." "Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." That takes away every comfort at the graveside. Then comes today's verse: "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." Later in the chapter he says what he would do with his own life on those terms, using a line as old as Isaiah: "let us eat and drink; for to morrow we die."

So Paul's faith is one that can be checked, and it would be worthless if it failed the check. The kindness, the steadier family and the words at the graveside all flow from one claim, about one Man, on one morning, and Paul refuses to let them be sold separately. He leaves the other possibility standing without softening it, and then he answers it with a fact: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept." The firstfruits were the first part of the harvest, the sign that the rest was coming. Because Christ is risen, your hope reaches past this life, and those who have fallen asleep in Him are waiting for the same morning.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 360 is He Will Not Fail You (1 Chronicles 28:20).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna, Year Two