On a recent trip to Kent my family visited St. Martin’s Church, the oldest church building in the English speaking world, c. 597. Aside from the indebtedness felt to the Lord for Christianity coming to the English, we found another treasure on the Church grounds.

We love looking around old cemeteries. Call it creepy if you must but we love to learn of people’s stories, enjoy the peace and quiet, and perhaps most of all look over the Christian imagery on the stones, or in this case the grave itself. We came across this grave which had an iron rail around it, inscribed with “In Adam all die, in Christ shall all be made alive.” It is a reference to 1 Cor 15:22.

Far from teaching universalism (that because of Jesus all will be well for all), Paul is making an important argument in a famous chapter on the Resurrection. It is a great encouragement for the Christian and a wonderful invitation to trust in Jesus for the non-believer. Verse 21 says that sin and death entered the human experience because of one man’s sin, Adam. He is our figurehead. Likewise when we trust in Jesus He becomes our new figure head and we gain all His benefits, which in this case is a Resurrection like His! Whilst we are made alive the moment we believe in part (Jn 10:10) through the gift of the Spirit, still the Christian will know death. In God’s plan “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” But when Christ returns and the dead are raised, the Christian—in their Resurrected and glorified body—they will be made alive forever more, to reign with Jesus in the New Heavens and the New Earth. What a glorious hope someone has when they are in Christ.

The Lord’s Sweetest Blessings,

Pastor Chris