Paul has been writing of the resurrection body – 15:44; and of the final resurrection victory – 15:52, 57. One might then have expected something like Revelation 4:1.
- How to live now.
- 15:58. Note the ‘therefore’. He is addressing ‘my beloved brothers’.
- Be steadfast and immovable. J. Gresham Machen used to say: ‘To move the world you must have a place to stand.’ Also Eph.6:11, 13.
- Be always abounding in the work of the Lord. This sounds like the opposite of being steadfast, but the two go together. The Christian is animated by the resurrection.
- This gives meaning to life. Otto von Bismarck: ‘Without the hope of an afterlife, this life is not even worth the effort of getting dressed in the morning.’ Ever wondered why there is so much meaninglessness in modern society? 1 Cor.15:14; Eccles.9:1-3. The resurrection gives us a place to stand, a reason to work, and meaning in all we do.
- Looking to what is to come.
- Rev.21:4. This reverses Genesis 3:16-19.
- Isa.35:10 (also in 51:11). Kim Phuc Phan Thi was a Vietnamese girl whose skin was badly scarred by napalm in 1972 when she was only nine. She now has to endure treatment that is very painful, consisting of burning of burns, what is ‘pain with a purpose’.
Isaac Watts:
Then shall I see and hear and know
All I desired and wished below,
And every power find sweet employ
In that eternal world of joy.