1 Corinthians 15:41

“The glory of the sun is one, and the glory of the moon another, and the glory of the stars another: for star differeth from star in glory.”

Even in the case of beings having so great a resemblance in nature (substance and form), if we observe them with some care we discover differences between one and another which attest the infinite riches of God's work and the illimitable range of His power. What a difference between the animating splendour of the sun on a fine day and the quiet moonlight; between the calm beauty of the latter and the penetrating and pure scintillations of the stars! There are differences too between the stars themselves. The brilliance of Venus does not resemble that of Mars, nor the latter that of Jupiter; and what a difference between the planets and the fixed stars! Open your eyes, then, the apostle means to say, and as you see so many different glories shining in the heavens, you will cease to ask, as if God's power were limited: “With what body shall they come?” You will understand how infinite are the resources of Divine power!

It has often been thought, that by stopping to describe so particularly this wide diversity of splendour, the apostle meant to allude to the difference of glory which will exist among the risen, according to the different degrees of moral perfection to which they have attained. The Fathers especially dwelt fondly on this view; see Ambrose, Chrysostom, Tertullian. This last makes the future body of God's servants correspond to the flesh of men; that of pagans, to the flesh of beasts; that of the martyrs, to the flesh of birds; that of the Christians who have had only baptism with water, to the flesh of fishes; then the glory of Christ corresponds to the brightness of the sun; that of the Church, to the brightness of the moon; that of the Jews, to the brightness of the stars (De Resurrectione, c. 52). All this is evidently only a play of imagination. The context requires no such application; for, as is proved by the sequel, Paul proposes, by bringing as it were before the very eye the infinite resources of Divine power, to show that God can hold in reserve for His elect a body absolutely different from their terrestrial body. But, while holding exegetically by this application, the only one justified by the context, we need not deny the possibility of a purely secondary allusion to the diversity which God may be pleased to make between the bodies of the risen. As Holsten well says: “The way in which Paul emphasizes the diversity of the heavenly bodies implies the supposition of an analogous difference of glory between the risen.”

The apostle now applies the facts which have just been cited to the question under discussion: 1 Corinthians 15:42-49. And that by expounding, first, the difference of nature between the present and the resurrection body.