But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.
The apostle Paul wrote this letter to the church in the Greek city of Corinth around 55 AD, addressing a controversy that had broken out among believers: some people were claiming there was no resurrection of the dead. Paul responds with one of the most sustained arguments in the New Testament — if there's no resurrection, then Jesus wasn't raised, and if Jesus wasn't raised, the entire Christian faith collapses. Then he pivots hard: *but he was raised.* The word 'firstfruits' comes from Jewish harvest tradition — the first portion of any crop was brought to God as a sacred offering, and it was also understood as a guarantee that the full harvest was on its way. Paul is making a breathtaking claim: Jesus's resurrection is not an isolated miracle. It is the opening act of everyone else's.
Jesus, I confess that sometimes the grave feels bigger than the empty tomb. Root the resurrection in me like something real — not a comfort phrase I reach for automatically, but an anchor I trust when the water gets deep. You were the firstfruits. Let that be enough. Amen.
"Firstfruits" is a farming word, and it carries the smell of dirt and sun-warm grain. In ancient Israel, you brought the very first crops of the season to the temple — not the best of the harvest, but the *first* — as an offering and a declaration: more is coming. The season has turned. Paul reaches for this image to describe Easter morning. Jesus rising from the dead wasn't a miraculous asterisk in history, a one-time event sealed off in the past. He was the first of a harvest. The announcement that the season has changed. Paul wrote this to people who had already buried people they loved. "Fallen asleep" is his gentle phrase for the dead — tender, but not dishonest. He doesn't pretend grief isn't real. He just refuses to let the grave be the final word. This verse doesn't ask you to feel cheerful about death. It asks you to hold, even at a graveside — even at 3 AM when the loss feels absolute — a hard, specific, historical claim: if Jesus got up, the grave is not the end of the people you love. That's not a sentiment. It's either the most important fact in the universe or it isn't. Paul believed it was. The whole bet rides on it.
What does the agricultural image of 'firstfruits' add to your understanding of the resurrection that a word like 'proof' or 'miracle' wouldn't capture?
When you think about people you've lost, does the idea of bodily resurrection feel like genuine hope or does it feel abstract and hard to hold — and what makes the difference?
Paul wrote this to people *inside* the church who were doubting the resurrection — not skeptical outsiders. Why do you think this doubt was so widespread even among early believers, and what does that tell you about your own doubts?
If you genuinely believed — not just intellectually affirmed, but actually believed — that death is not final, how would it change the way you grieve alongside someone who has just lost someone?
What would it look like to live *this week* as someone whose story does not end — not recklessly, but with the kind of grounded, unhurried hope that comes from believing the season has already turned?
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.
Colossians 1:18
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
John 11:25
And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
Matthew 27:52
But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.
Romans 8:11
Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed,
1 Corinthians 15:51
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
1 Peter 1:3
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
Daniel 12:2
And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood,
Revelation 1:5
But now [as things really are] Christ has in fact been raised from the dead, [and He became] the first fruits [that is, the first to be resurrected with an incorruptible, immortal body, foreshadowing the resurrection] of those who have fallen asleep [in death].
AMP
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
ESV
But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who are asleep.
NASB
But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
NIV
But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
NKJV
But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.
NLT
But the truth is that Christ has been raised up, the first in a long legacy of those who are going to leave the cemeteries.
MSG