4. the Christ died for our sins and was buried, and then according to the same truth of the Scriptures the Christ rose on the third day.
5. The witnesses of this resurrection are first Cephas, then the twelve,
6. then over five hundred brethren most of whom are alive at the present day,
7. then James, then all the Apostles. These all saw him alive and triumphant after death, and the appearances were in the order I have mentioned.
8. And last of all I myself saw the risen Christ,
9. last as though I were the least and unworthiest of all, the persecutor that is to say of that divine Church of God, which is His infinite body.
30-32. I have faced the beasts in the circus before the crowd at Ephesus, I have run every risk, endured every danger, and won through them successfully — that is your boast, and the glory which you accord me for my service of the Christ; but if in this daily death of mine there is no underlying meaning, if it does not mean that even now Christ in me is fighting his victory over death, and successfully putting it under his feet and rescuing me from it, then what is the use of it all? I would rather say with the disobedient “Let us eat and drink; for to-morrow we shall die” (Is. xxii. 13) for there is no longer any meaning in my struggles. Beware! Do not let sleep overtake you, and your spiritual perception be cheated and fade.
33. This is the result, as the tragic poet says, of that “bad company that doth corrupt the good.”
34. There are those in your midst who have no knowledge of God. Protect yourselves against their influence.
35. And now you ask me, How? What is that body which dies not, but comes again?
36. How can flesh and blood not perish for ever, but live on immortal? Does it seem so impossible?
37. Yet even in nature we see the seed buried in the ground, becoming a shrivelled extinct husk,
38. and out of that decay and dissolution springs the new body which the eternal power of God shapes and forms.
39. We see every type and pattern of shape and form given to various existences as their bodies, we see the elements of flesh and blood taking on the form of every type of being, man, beast, fish, bird — all distinct and separate entities with appropriate bodies.
40. On the same principle the form of body appropriate to the heavenly and spiritual things of God's creation is quite other than those which we see clothing things on earth. The things on earth all have their own special beauties, forms, types and their own splendour. And when we come to that which is spiritual and heavenly, we find that that too has its own appropriate expression and glory.
41. The sun, moon and stars are glorious bodies, each with its own distinct glory and splendour.