What does Tribe teach about life after death?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At Tribe, the teaching on life after death starts with the resurrection of Jesus as the anchor for everything that follows. Brian has worked through what Paul calls the 'first fruits' pattern in 1 Corinthians 15, arguing that Jesus was the first to be raised from the dead and that his resurrection is not a standalone miracle but the beginning of a sequence. Everyone who belongs to him is coming after him, in the same way a harvest follows the first ripe grain. The word Paul uses for being 'made alive' is a farming word, the same language used for a seed going into the ground and sprouting into something categorically different from what was buried.
The teaching gets specific about what resurrection actually looks like. Pastor Brian has walked the room through the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in Luke 24, pulling apart the details: Jesus walked through a locked room, invited people to touch him, and ate broiled fish in front of them, yet had also gone unrecognized on the road to Emmaus. The picture that emerges is a body that is physically real and continuous with this one, but no longer bound by the same physics. Brian puts it plainly: 'Put the bulb of your body in the ground and up comes the rose of your resurrected body.' The earth suit we have now, with all its weakness and brokenness, is not the final form. As Brian said, 'Death is in the rearview mirror. We've already done all the dying we're ever gonna do.'
On the question of when, the teaching draws from 1 Thessalonians 4 and 1 Corinthians 15 to describe a moment, at the return of Jesus, when those who have already died are raised first and those still living are changed in an instant. The series has also been clear that the destination for those in Christ is nothing less than total victory, even when the road between now and then involves real trouble. The final outcome is not in question. What Jesus started with his own resurrection, he finishes with ours.
Taught from 1 Corinthians 15:20-23 · 1 Corinthians 15:35-49 · 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 · Luke 24:31-43 · 1 Corinthians 15:50-53
The passage taught · 1 Corinthians 15:20-23
20 But now Christ has been raised from the dead. He became the first fruits of those who are asleep.
21 For since death came by man, the resurrection of the dead also came by man.
22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive.
23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then those who are Christ’s, at his coming.
World English Bible
Messages that go deeper
- May 11, 2025 Our Destiny is Total Victory A Mother's Day sermon exploring resurrection, the Feast of First Fruits, and why Scripture says total victory is the destiny of every believer in Christ.
- November 7, 2022 New Body Coming Brian Hunter walks through 1 Corinthians 15 and Luke 24 to explore what the Bible says about resurrection bodies, when we receive them, and why it matters now.