1 Corinthians 15:35-57

Butler's Comments

SECTION 3

Its Heavenliness (1 Corinthians 15:35-57)

35 But some one will ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? 36You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, 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. 39For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

42 So is it 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 which 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 shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. 50I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

51 Lo! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52in 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 shall be changed. 53For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality. 54When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

Death is swallowed up in victory.

55 O death, where is thy victory?

O death, where is thy sting?

56The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15:35-41 It Is Manageable: Questions about the mechanics of bodily resurrection have been raised throughout the history of mankind. Alleged absence of observed demonstration of such mechanics has been put forward repeatedly as proof that bodily resurrection is impossible. People want to know how human bodies that have died and returned to dust, have been consumed by fire, or have been eaten by animals or sea-life, which in turn have died and dissolved, may be raised from the dead. How can this be possible?

First, we must accept the revelation of God that he can manage it. When God reveals, by special enlightenment through his Spirit, things which eye has not seen. (1 Corinthians 2:6-16), it is folly and irreverence to try to prove whether God told the truth. It is unreasonable to expect the scope of human experience and reason to provide the proof of things reaching so far beyond both reason and experience.. No method of science or of philosophy can prove some statements which are of central importance in the Bible.. These. must be accepted upon the authority or reliability of the one who says it is so.. The demand that all Bible statements must be discovered by scientific method, proved by rational processes, or confirmed by results in practice, before they can be regarded as authoritative or established truth, is simply a demand that God must not be greater than man and must not reveal anything man could not find out for himself with his own closely limited, earthbound senses. (Seth Wilson, in, Reflections Christian Standard, June 17, 1984).

Second, in the light of all the evidence of resurrection in the natural creation surrounding him, it is foolish for man to question the manageability of it. Paul uses the Greek word aphron, literally, mindless, without sense. Those who cannot believe in a resurrection of the human body because it dissolves back into dust after death are not very observant. The miracle of resurrection occurs every time a seed falls into the ground, dissolves, and produces a new green plant. It is no accident that the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ took place in the Spring season of the earth.

There are two important lessons about resurrection taught in nature. (1) Death is necessary. It is not an obstacle to resurrection. In fact, if there is no death, there will be no resurrection. That which does not die shall never be resurrected (John 12:24-26). Any farmer or gardener knows a seed must die, rot and dissolve (and yet it is the seed which has the life in it) before the new and completely different form of life can be raised up. (2) The new life from the dead seed is different in form, much more grand, and actually the fulfillment of the purpose of the dormant seed itself. Put a bean seed into the ground and what comes up is a green plant. The plant is from the seed, and inseparably linked to it, but much better and alive, producing. It is significant that Jesus, in the parable of the growing seed (Mark 4:26-29), said that when a farmer plants a seed it produces a plant of itself (Gr. automate, automatically). The seed is planted in the earth and those two elements together automate the new life. If we had never seen the seed-to-earth-to-death-to-different-life process before, and someone said it happens, we would have our doubts. But since God has made it possible for us to see it over, and over, and over again, for us to say we do not believe a resurrection after death is manageable is foolish. We might as well say now, we do not believe a bean plant will grow from a bean seed because it is dead when it is put into the earth. Which of us fully understands the process of bean seedto bean plant? If God has resurrected plants for centuries, Why should it be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead? (Acts 26:8)

Third, God is not locked into managing only one kind of body. God has created, as nature well attests, many different kinds of bodies. Scientists know there is such a difference they are able to tell whether a single cell comes from a human, an animal, a bird, or a fish! How did Paul know this before modern science discovered it? Paul knew it directly from the Creator, by revelation. Furthermore, God is not limited to just four or four-million kinds of bodies. He gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. There is a correspondence between what the body looks like and what the entity inside is like. If we trust God, we will be satisfied with what we look like!

Fourth, there are two major divisions of bodies; there are celestial (heavenly) bodies, and terrestrial (earthly) bodies. Celestial bodies have a different glory, a different purpose, than terrestrial ones. God managed to create and managed to sustain bodies as different in time, space, size and function as the human mind is able to imagine. Since Paul has already listed the terrestrial bodies (1 Corinthians 15:39), he now delineates the celestial as sun, moon and stars. And each of the celestial bodies are different! And how many stars are there? And God manages each of them! Assuredly, then, God can manage the resurrection of human bodies and even give each human a different body if he wishes!

It is breathtaking to contemplate. God makes bodies to fit the multitudinous differences in the entities inhabiting them! No two snowflakes are alikeno two entities are the same. So is the resurrection of the body. The differences that exist in human personalities here will exist forever in glory. Human personality is not wiped out by disaster and the grave. Human personality goes on in all its uniqueness, even if the earthly body goes back to dust. And, wonder of wonders, God has promised to give that unique human personality a new, different, body to fit it, different from all other bodies, but eternal. We will know one another in heaven!

We have seen this demonstrated in the Lord Jesus Christ himself, the firstfruit of the resurrection from the dead. He was in a different body after his resurrection; yet it was similar to the old body that had died and been buried. It retained some of its old essence while also having new attributes. In its new form it was not subject to the old limitations of time and spacenot touched by exhaustion and pain. But he was the same pure, true, loving Jesus. And they recognized him. But bodily he could go through walls of a building, materialize and dematerialize.

1 Corinthians 15:42-50 It is Mandatory: The destiny of humankind is immortality. The transformation (or, recreation) of a body fitted for eternality is, therefore, mandatory. Once again, even the natural order of things tells us the body of this life is perishable (Gr. phthora, corruptible, decomposable). As the physical body ages, it slows down, weakens, deteriorates. Eventually, and inevitably, it must die and disintegrate. Just like the bean seed, it must rot and decay, but one day it will become a new plant, gloriously designed for its eternal existence, imperishable. It is planted in the earth in dishonor (Gr. atimia, valueless, worth nothing) because we have sinned and perverted its created glory. Whatever is good or to be desired in the body of this existence inevitably decays and becomes valueless. God has subjected it to futility and the bondage of decay (Romans 8:19-23), he brings the whole creation to dishonor, for a purpose. He wants it to groan for redemption, (see Genesis 3:17-19; Genesis 5:29; Ecclesiastes 1:2 ff.). The physical body is planted in weakness (Gr. astheneia, without strength) and will be raised in power (Gr. dunamei, dynamically, dynamite). Men like to boast of the strength of their bodies, yet a tiny, almost invisible, microbe can devastate it and even kill it. The physical limitations of our present bodies are frustrating. But the body God raises after this one is planted will never be ravaged by disease, sickness, pain, time, space, or decomposition. It will suffer no weaknesses!

The human body of this existence is physical (Gr. psuchikon, natural, soulish, or psychical). Ray C. Stedman calls it his earth suit, or time suit.

But this earth suit is designed only for this life. It is not designed for anything else. It works fairly well in this life, but something could happen to this earth suit while I am talking or walking around. I could fall over and somebody would come along and say, He's dead! But it would not be so. I would not be dead. The earth suit would have died, but I would be as much alive as I have ever been, and already enjoying the new body, the heaven suit, the eternity suit. Paul's argument is, there is a body designed for the heavens, as well as one for the earth. What the apostle is saying throughout this whole chapter is that there is a definite link between the two.

(Expository Studies in I Corinthians, by Ray C. Stedman, pub. Word, p. 315)

Man has his earth suit from the first Adam (the word Adam, in Hebrew, means, man). Man may have his heaven suit from the last Adam, Jesus Christ, if man believes him and obeys him. There are only two Adams; the first Adam and the last Adam, Jesus. The only other person beside Adam to become the father of a race is Jesus, Human beings are all sons of the first Adam by physical soulish procreation; human beings may be sons of the last Adam by spiritual regeneration. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust (Gr. chiokos, from cheo, lit. to pour, hence, loose earth or dust). The first Adam became a living soul (Gr. psuchen, psyche), the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (Gr. pneuma zoopoioun). What is the difference between soul-life and spirit-life? There must be a difference as Paul is thinking of it here. Soul-life is the animating life. Animals are said to have souls (see Genesis 1:20 where the Hebrew word nephesh, soul is used for animal life; and Genesis 2:7 where man became a live-soul, nephesh). Evidently, the difference between soul and spirit is that the soul is not an entity which exists apart from the body.

Stedman explains that when God breathed into Adam's body of clay the divine Spirit, the joining together of spirit and body produced another phenomenon called the -soul,-' the personality. The soul animates the body and allows that body to function. When man sins, and all men sin, God's Spirit is quenched and he withdraws and that soul and body is condemned to eternal death. That is the destiny of all who have sinned like the first Adam (and all men have). But, all praise to God, the last Adam, Jesus Christ, became, by living a perfect, sinless life in the flesh (Romans 8:1-8; Hebrews 2:14-18, etc.) a life-giving spirit. Any human being who wants, may now be reborn a spiritual being, by faith and obedience to Jesus Christ. That is what Peter means in 1 Peter 1:3-9; what Paul means in 2 Corinthians 5:1-21. Without Christ's vicarious atonement, without his conquest of sin and death, in the flesh, without his resurrection as first fruit from the dead, there would be no resurrection for any man for there would be no spiritual rebirth possible. This passage casts great light upon all that is taught in the scriptures about the necessity of the new birth and indwelling presence of the Spirit of Christ (the Holy Spirit). Do not fail to notice that Paul calls Jesus the last (Gr. eschatos) Adam. There is no redeemer of mankind yet to come. Those who do not join the race fathered by Jesus Christ, by being born again, will not see eternal life. They will be resurrected to eternal death as offspring only of the first Adam.

In man's experience it is the physical, natural order (Gr. psuchikon soulish body) first, and the spiritual (Gr. pneumatikon, spiritual body) afterward (Gr. epeita). The destiny of soul will also be the destiny of body (1 Thessalonians 5:23-24). If the soul of man has been sanctified by the recreation of God's Spirit within him, then the spirit and soul and body will be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ!

The soul-spirit is separated from the body for a little while at the time of physical death. The soul-spirit returns to God who gave it and the body returns to the dust of the earth (Ecclesiastes 12:7). But the nature of your soul-spirit determines what the nature of your resurrected body will be. The corruptible body is put aside in the grave, but it will be raised incorruptible if it has, in the course of this life, been the temporary residence of a Spirit that is incorruptiblethe Spirit of Christ. If, therefore, you would like one day to bear the image (Gr. eikona, icon) of the heavenly body, you must possess the heavenly life now. What must be happening is the will of God being lived out in your life now, on earth, as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10).

All of the foregoing Paul has said to substantiate the divine fiat, ... Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven! Beyond the grave, only that which is spiritual (heavenly) can enter heaven. What is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God (Luke 16:15). All the trappings of this life, fame, money, physical beauty, self-righteousness, can never survive the grave. They rot along with the physical body. God does not want themwill not have them! He has something far better for those who trust him. Nothing in this world has any value, in itself, in the sight of God. Only as it enables the spiritual in man is it to last beyond our funerals. Flesh and blood cannot do anything of value in the kingdom of God. This is what shocked Nicodemus when Jesus told him, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born anew, (or from above), he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3-5). All those descended from the first Adam, who have sinned as he did (and all have), must start all over again. They must be born again. They must be born of water (baptism, an expression of our penitent, receiving, faith) and the Spirit (the grace of God shed abroad in our hearts), (John 3:5).

1 Corinthians 15:51-57 It is The Mark (Goal): The mystery (actually, the gospel is very often called the mystery Ephesians 1:7-10; Colossians 1:24-27) is not that we shall not all sleep, but that we shall all be changed. He goes ahead and explains, the mystery is the dead being raised imperishable. The Greek word used here for changed is not metamorphou (or, metamorphosis, transformation), but allagesometha from allasso, meaning, made to be other than it is. The change will be complete. The word is also used of the final change of the material creation (Hebrews 1:12). This is the goal of God for all who believe in his Son, Jesus Christ.

This change, upon the bodily form of all humanity occurs at Christ's second comingat the last trumpet. Some will not be asleep (dead) at that timesome will still be living in this existence. It is to occur in a moment (Gr. en atomo, English, atomic, minute); in the twinkling of an eye (Gr. en hripe, in a glance) refers to the twinkle of light that occurs when you blink. It is one of the fastest speeds known to human observation. It will be instantaneousit will be a miracle. God will be in a hurry to give his saints what Christ has earned for them and that for which they have kept the faith.

The Greek word dei, beginning the sentence in 1 Corinthians 15:53, emphasizes that this change must occur. This mortal nature must put on immortality because Death is swallowed up in victory! Those who have believed that Christ has defeated death must not be imprisoned again in a state of corruption, held bondage by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14-15). They must not have their abiding place any more in a body that is dying, afraid of death, and testifies of death. Death and Hades are to be thrown into the lake of fire and brimstone, forever banished from the believer's presence (Revelation 20:14). There is a sting to death. The very nature of our physical life (its nature that is doomed to destruction) makes death sting. Even in full view of Christ's victory over death, we still wince at it. We shudder at its appearance because it is an unknowable quotient. It is something over which we have no controlit is inexorable, inevitable. We fear it because of our sin in the light of God's absolute law. But the glad tidings, coming from the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ, are, the power of sin is broken. It no longer has dominion over us (Romans 6:14; Romans 8:2; Romans 7:6; Romans 5:17; Romans 5:19). Thanks be to God who is giving (Gr. didonti, present tense verb, continuing to give) us the victory over our corruptible man through our Lord Jesus Christ. There is nothing more precious in the whole scheme of redemption than this promise that every day the Christian can lay hold afresh of the grace of Jesus Christ. Every day, though reminded of the weakness and mortality of the flesh by his faults and failures, the Christian can grasp by faith, again, the renewing and refreshing power of his immortality imputed to him by Christ. The victorious life is God's goal or mark for all men. Sin is the life of defeat. Sin is missing God's mark because the life of sin bears the image of the man of dust, doomed to corruption and eternal death.