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.
10. But the grace of God pierced even down to those depths where I lay, and made me such as I am, and abode with me, in my labours, labours exceeding those of all the others; for the grace of God has worked with me in an extraordinary manner in every way, not only in my first conversion from the lowest depths of opposition to God but in my subsequent labours.
11. This then is the gist and burden of the message, I care not who it be that preaches it, whether I or they.
12. Then what means this contention amongst some of you that the dead do not rise?
13-16. But the Christ did rise. For death came through Adam, it came through a man, and through a man must come eternal life. If in Adam all die, then must death be conquered where it began, in a man. So rose the Christ from the dead. But if you say there is no resurrection from the dead, then neither did the Christ rise from the dead, and the whole of our teaching collapses,
17. it falls to earth, empty, void, a perfect nothing, a falsity.
18. The testimony we bear concerning God, namely, that He raised the Christ-man from the dead, has no meaning in it.
19. If the Christ exists for this world only and has no eternal existence, we are the most miserable of all the dwellers on this planet!
20. But the Christ has risen, and his rising is the commencement of a similar resurrection for the whole world.
21-22. His re-appearance after death is like the first fruits of a mighty harvest.
23. The increase and growth of this vast divine process will first include all who belong to him, when his eternal presence will become apparent throughout the world;
24. and this process will continue till “the end” when there shall exist not one single power, influence or authority that moves contrary to His will, but everything will be subordinate to the infinite God and Father of All, the Creator.
25-27. Everything that opposes must be reversed and subdued just there where it arose, namely in man on earth, until there be nothing left that opposes, and until death itself has been completely obliterated. That will be the end, when death is ended, and God is All-in-all, and even the Christ that saves and redeems exists only as the eternally perfect son subject to the infinite Father, there being no more enemies from which to save and redeem us, thus fulfilling the meaning of the Scriptures. For the reign of the Christ will continue on earth for a finite period, namely, until “He has made his enemies his foot-stool” (Ps. cx. 1), until all finite death-conditioned things are overruled. “He hath put all things under his feet” (Ps. viii. 6).
28. All things, but not the Christ himself, for though the Christ has appeared amidst these things, he is not their subject, he is not conditioned by them, he is eternally, spiritually royal, existing only as subject to God, the All-in-all.