The Resurrection of the Dead
Homiletic Monthly
Acts 26:8
Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?


It would be difficult to explain how the identity of the body can be preserved while the matter composing it is changed; but our difficulty in explaining can present no reason for denying the fact.

I. IT IS NEITHER AGAINST THE POWER, THE WISDOM, NOR THE WILL OF GOD. God wills nothing that is not wise and good, and whatever He wills He has the power to accomplish. He has performed greater things than raising the dead.

II. WE SEE VITAL EXEMPLIFICATIONS OF IT DAILY. The matter of our bodies undergoes a change every seven years, yet our body's identity is preserved. Look at trees and plants in winter time, and see them when the breath of spring has touched them into life. Study the insect, at first a crawling worm. The hour arrives when it bursts its cerements and becomes a pure-winged, beautiful creature, sailing in sunny skies. Paul saw our grave in the furrow of the plough; our burial in the corn dropped in the soil; and our resurrection in the grain bursting its sheath to wave its head in summer sunshine.

III. THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY IS LESS INEXPLICABLE THAN ITS CREATION. It is not the same thing to rekindle an extinguished lamp and to show fire that has never yet appeared.

IV. THE LORD JESUS CHRIST PURPOSELY ROSE AGAIN IN HIS HUMAN BODY AS A PATTERN AND FIRST FRUIT OF OUR RESURRECTION.

(Homiletic Monthly.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?

WEB: Why is it judged incredible with you, if God does raise the dead?




The Resurrection of the Dead
Top of Page
Top of Page