1 Corinthians: Day 53
SCRIPTURE
35But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 39Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. 41There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.
42So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 43It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. 45Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. 47The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. 49Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:35-49, NRSV)
WHAT
I noticed as my children grew toward adulthood; the nature of the questions they asked me changed. I see this development also now in my grandchildren. (Looking back, I see it in myself with my parents as well.)
At first, they accepted everything I told them as the gospel truth. But eventually they reached the stage where they started asking why questions. Why is what I just told them so? Why is it that way? Why must I do what you said? That was evidence that their minds were beginning to process on their own, independent of me. This happened at a surprisingly young age.
Then, as they grew and matured even more, while they still asked why questions, added to it were how questions. They wanted to know how what I just told them could be so. For example, they wanted to know how a thing or process operated as it did.
I thought of that experience when I read the opening of today’s passage on resurrection. Paul raises two questions of a hypothetical Corinthian who encounters his argument for the reality of resurrection. But these are questions many of us ask as well. Paul has addressed why resurrection is so important in God’s plan, so now they ask the how question:
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (1 Corinthians 15:35, NRSV)
Paul has in mind the person who is still highly skeptical of his arguments for the reality of resurrection, which is like nothing for which our experience prepares us. Despite hearing all the arguments Paul has already put forth, this hypothetical person is unconvinced. “Show me how this works, Paul. For example, what kind of body do the resurrected have?”
I believe it’s helpful to hear William Barclay’s introduction to his commentary on this important passage. He helps us avoid falling into a common trap. Professor Barclay writes:
“Before we begin to try to interpret this section, we would do well to remember one thing: all through it, Paul is talking about things that no one really knows anything about. He is talking not about verifiable matters of fact, but about matters of faith. Trying to express the inexpressible and to describe the indescribable, he is doing the best he can with the human ideas and human words that are all that he has to work with. If we remember that, it will save us from a crudely literalistic interpretation and make us fasten our thoughts on the underlying principles in Paul’s mind.” (Emphasis mine)
“Trying to express the inexpressible and to describe the indescribable, he is doing the best he can with the human ideas and human words that are all that he has to work with.” If we will remember that we will avoid falling into the trap of a too rigid literalism. There is great mystery in what we are studying.
That said, Paul starts with two types of analogies as he wades into answering the how question for this hypothetical Corinthian skeptic. Before looking at those, I would remind you of what we said on day 49. Citing John Eldridge’s book The Sacred Romance, we noted that Paul sees what he is describing as part of a larger story, of God’s Big Story. The entire gospel, including resurrection, is part of something God has been up to ever since Genesis 1. I quoted N. T. Wright saying:
“The whole Bible tells a story which has now exploded into new life with the Messiah, particularly with his death and resurrection. If they understand where they belong in this story, so many other things that have troubled them will be seen in the correct light.” (Emphasis mine)
Paul himself said earlier in this chapter:
Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you -- unless you have come to believe in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:1-2, NRSV)
So the resurrection he is describing is part of God’s Big Story, a Story of good news in which we stand, and through which we are being sozo’d, or “saved.”
For Paul’s first analogy to address the “how” question, he uses the experience we all have had with seeds:
Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. (1 Corinthians 15:36-38, NRSV)
Being a bit annoyed that his imaginary interlocutor still doesn’t get it, he invites the questioner to consider a seed. We’ve all been amazed by seeds. We plant something that looks one way – usually small and insignificant – and yet when it dies in the ground, when it ceases being its old kind of self, this seed yields something entirely different. It rises with a new kind of life into a new thing. An amazing oak tree that can live for decades and which provides shade for birds and humans alike and food for animals emerges from the death of a tiny acorn. The oak tree is entirely different from the acorn in form and function. And yet, it is the same. If Paul knew about DNA when he wrote this, he might point out that as different as the oak tree is from the acorn, it has the same DNA. Different. Yet the same. That turns out to be an important point for Paul. Different. Yet the same.
Professor Barclay says:
“Paul is showing that, at one and the same time, there can be dissolution, difference and yet continuity. The seed is dissolved; when it rises again, there is a vast difference in its body; and yet, in spite of the dissolution and the difference, it is the same seed. So, our earthly bodies will dissolve; they will rise again in very different form – but it is the same person who rises. Dissolved by death, changed by resurrection, it is still we who exist.” (Emphasis mine)
Furthermore, no human being can do anything once the seed is planted. Only God can make the seed grow into the kind of plant that the seed contains. God gives the seed the body which is connected to the kind of seed it is. Acorns do not grow into pine trees. Wheat seeds do not grow into barley plants. Each seed produces its own kind of body as God has determined.
We must heed Professor Barclay’s warning here and not be too literalistic. Paul is not suggesting that a dead human body when buried in the ground “grows” a new body like a seed does. The point he is making, as N. T. Wright points out, is simply that we understand from our experience with seeds the principle of transformation, of a new body emerging in continuity with the old yet still different. Bishop Wright highlights this principle from Paul’s example:
“(Paul) emphasizes particularly that this happens through the action of God: ‘God gives it a body.’ That’s the first thing to grasp: the resurrection is the work of God the creator, and it will involve transformation – not merely resuscitation, as though the seed, after a while underground, were to emerge as a seed once again.” (Emphasis mine)
Paul then shifts to another analogy from our human experience. We are all familiar with there being different kinds of bodies.
Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory. (1 Corinthians 15:39-41, NRSV)
Different kinds of animals have different kinds of bodies. The bodies of birds can fly. The bodies of fish can live and breathe underwater, for example. Their bodies are suited to the kind of life God has ordained for them.
And there are heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies. Each with its own kind of glory, or honor. We are amazed when we gaze into the night sky and see the glory of a passing comet, or the alignment of certain planets, or when we witness a total solar eclipse. The experience of wonder and glory is the same, yet different, when we look into a microscope and see a drop of lake water teeming with life. The same glory. Yet different.
Paul then applies these two examples to resurrection:
So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. (1 Corinthians 15:42-43, NRSV)
The same. Yet different.
Paul says something that is often misinterpreted (in my opinion). He says:
It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven. (1 Corinthians 15:44-49, NRSV)
The misunderstanding revolves around v. 44, where Paul says, “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.” In Greek he says, “It is sown a soma, it is raised a pneumatikós.” That word soma comes into English in words such as “somatic,” which means having to do with the body. Pneumatikós we have seen before in this letter, and means “things of the Spirit,” or “people of the Spirit.” The NRSV’s translation, which is common in English Bibles and leads to the confusion, suggests Paul is making a contrast simply between what we call a “body”, that is a physical object, and what we might call a non-physical or “spiritual” object, such as an angel or even a ghost. But that is exactly what he is NOT saying.
The problem is that we tend to read this as reinforcing our preconceived notion, derived more from Greek philosophy than biblical theology, that when a believer dies, his or her “soul” or “spirit” separates from the physical body and goes to “heaven” to live an eternal existence as a disembodied spirit.
That is NOT what Paul is describing. That would not address the problem introduced in Genesis 3, the garden of Eden story, which disrupts God’s original will, purpose, and intent described in Genesis 1-2. It is not consistent with God’s Big Story.
Well, if not that, what IS Paul saying?
As Bishop Wright points out, the contrast Paul is making is between a body animated by one type of life and a body animated by another type of life. “The difference,” he says, “between them is found, if you like, in what the two bodies run on.”
“The present body is animated by the normal life which all humans share. The word Paul uses for this often means ‘soul' [i.e., soma]; he means it in the sense of the ordinary life-force on which we all depend in this present body, the ordinary energy that keeps us breathing and our blood circulating. But the body that we shall be given in the resurrection is to be animated by God’s own Spirit. This is what Paul says in a simpler passage, Romans 8:10-11: the Spirit of Jesus the Messiah dwells within you at the moment, and God will give life to your mortal bodies through this Spirit who lives inside you.”
But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you. (Romans 8:10-11 (NRSV)
So the idea Paul is getting at is resurrection involves new life not as a disembodied soul or spirit living in heaven, but in a NEW BODY on earth energized by the Spirit. Only this can address the Genesis 3 crisis. God, through the resurrection of Jesus, is “rebooting” creation so that it will become what God always intended it to be, so that it will run as God always intended the creation to run as described in Genesis 1-2.
This is why the book of Revelation ends with a vision of a new heaven and a new earth, a new Jerusalem, coming down to earth. It’s not a vision of us going up to heaven leaving earth behind. God is coming from heaven toearth to live with a restored humanity in a “rebooted” creation:
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heavenfrom God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. (Revelation 21:1-2, NRSV)
Earlier, I kept emphasizing “the same but different.” Our resurrection bodies are “the same but different.” Bishop Wright emphasizes this, too. He says that Paul does in fact think that the resurrection body will be a differentkind of thing to the present one, even though it is “us” who live in these new and different bodies. In verses 51 and 52, and also in Philippians 3:20-21, Paul states that Christians who have not died at the moment when Jesus returns as Lord will need to be changed:
But our citizenship is in heaven, and it is from there that we are expecting a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will transform the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, by the power that also enables him to make all things subject to himself. (Philippians 3:20-21, NRSV)
Paul will say later in this chapter:
Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53, NRSV)
The contrast between the present body and the future resurrection body, or what he calls the perishable body and the imperishable, is not the contrast between “physical” and “spiritual”. Rather, the contrast as we have seen has to do with what energizes these two bodies, what they run on as Bishop Wright calls it.
“The contrast between the two bodies in themselves is stated in verses 42 and 43. It is the contrast between corruption (our present bodies fall sick, bits wear out, we decay, die, and return to dust) and incorruption (the new body won’t do any of those things). It is the contrast between shame (we know we were made for more than this decaying, corrupting life, and we are ashamed of frailty and death) and honor (the new body will be splendid, with nothing to be ashamed of). It is the contrast between weakness and power.”
So for Paul, resurrection is NOT the idea that as Christians when we die our soul or spirit separates from our body and we are “resurrected” by going to “heaven” to live eternally with Jesus, who died to save us from our sins. None of that is connected in any way to the Old Testament, which as we’ve seen, for Paul is “the scriptures.” Paul’s idea of resurrection is very much connected to the Old Testament, to the large “God Story” the Bible tells starting in Genesis 1.
Paul’s idea of resurrection is that through it, God is completing The Genesis Project, the project he began “in the beginning” in Genesis 1. In Jesus, God has been fulfilling The Genesis Project, which is God’s original will, purpose, and intent for creation. In Jesus, God has been reversing and undoing the effects of the human rebellion which began in Genesis 3 in the Garden of Eden and grew worse and worse from there. That’s why Paul interjects Adam into the discussion. That tells us Paul thinks of resurrection in terms of Genesis and creation. Through Adam, the first man, sin entered the world through his physical body powered by the usual physical stuff. But through Jesus, by contrast, resurrection life entered the world through his physical body powered by the Spirit.
In Jesus, God has defeated even death itself, a consequence of sin that is the great enemy that drags God’s beautiful world down into decay and dissolution.
Jesus is the first fruits, the “prototype” of what resurrection life looks like. It is not resuscitation, but resurrection. It is life that is the same. But different. And it is life that is different on earth. This new life has been kept safe in heaven, the base of God’s operation, until Jesus fulfilled his mission of restoring The Genesis Project. But now, it is being rolled out.
Paul sees human beings, who are created in the image of God to bear and reflect God’s image in God’s temple of heaven and earth, becoming at long last the very thing we were made for in the first place.
APPLY
In resurrection, of which Jesus is the first fruits, or “prototype,” I will not simply “go to heaven to live with Jesus forever.” Rather, I will be changed in my body to live at long last the way I was made to live in the first place. Resurrection is the fulfillment of The Genesis Project.
PRAYER
Thank you, Gracious God, for never giving up on The Genesis Project, even in its darkest days. Thank you that Jesus is the first fruits of resurrection that all who follow him will share on earth as it is in heaven. In Christ. Amen.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1. How do you understand William Barclay’s comments, “Paul is talking about things that no one really knows anything about. He is talking not about verifiable matters of fact, but about matters of faith. Trying to express the inexpressible and to describe the indescribable, he is doing the best he can with the human ideas and human words that are all that he has to work with.” How does this guide us in our work of interpreting this passage?
2. What is your answer now to the hypothetical Corinthian skeptic who asks, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”
3. How does the seed analogy help you understand resurrection? Where does it fall short? How does the different kind of bodies analogy help you understand resurrection? Where does it fall short?
4. In what way is resurrection a completion of The Genesis Project?
How can you apply these insights in your life?