Sunday Sermons

Our Resurrected Body

Mark Dunagan
03/31/02 - Sunday Morning

Our Resurrected Body

1Corinthians 15:35 “But some one will say, How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?”

Apparently some in Corinth could only see man having one type of body; that is, a physical body. Some thought the doctrine of the resurrection was ridiculous because they imagined that such a doctrine taught that decayed corpses would come forth from the grave, a Christian version of the "night of the living dead". “The body falls apart, it decomposes. Can you see that coming out of the tomb? Someone sniggers” (McGuiggan p. 200),. We still face such questions, even among Christians today. “How is God going to resurrect someone that has been eaten by wild animals, cremated, or buried at sea?” “They wondered how God could restore a body which returned to the dust, passed thence into vegetation, and hence into the bodies of animals and other men” (McGarvey p. 155).

1Corinthians 15:36 “ You fool!” “Skeptics (agnostics) pose as unusually intellectual but pose does not make one intelligent”(Robertson p. 195). “Not only was the spirit bad, the reasoning was terrible” (McGuiggan p. 200). “Does this man try to make a joke of the resurrection and to turn the laugh upon simple believers by stating that the dead body will be patched together again from the dust, once more to begin its round of life in eating and drinking. What a fool to think of the resurrection in so pitiful a way!” (Lenski p. 703). “The implication is not simply that such questions suggest one to have taken leave of his senses, but that one stands as the ‘fool’ in the Old Testament sense, as the person who has failed to take God into account” (Fee p. 780).

1 Corinthians 15:36 “That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies”: “You hold the answer in your own hands”(Fee p. 780). “In your own experience you know that a seed does not germinate without itself dying” (Phi). Some of the Corinthians were apparently under the impression that the resurrected body just had to be made of the same stuff as the body that was buried.

1 Corinthians 15:37 “And that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else”: “Paul calls the man who thus puzzles himself a foolish one, because he denies that the all-powerful God can do with a human body that which he himself practically does annually with the bodies (grains) of wheat, and so on, by merely availing himself of the common course of nature” (McGarvey p. 155). Some of the very ones who were denying the resurrection, were farmers, who saw a resurrection every spring. Just because they planted a seed into the ground, did not demand that the plant that sprang up had to look exactly like the seed planted. They did not believe that decomposed seeds sprang up from buried seeds. Every year they witnessed that beautiful plants had sprung up from decomposed and buried seeds. I believe there is a tremendous point here. Our human body, albeit beautiful, graceful, strong, and agile when young, does decay (2 Corinthians 4:16). Yet aging should not bother the Christian, for the resurrected body will be far more glorious. Compared to our resurrected body, this physical body that will buried is like a ugly-looking and unimpressive old seed. Anyone who has gardened has been impressed with the glorious looking flowers that come from some of the most humble-looking seeds, bulbs, or tubers.

1 Corinthians 15:38 “But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own”: Therefore it is foolish to think that the resurrected body must be the old decomposed body "patched" up. Even though there is no "vestige of its afterlife visible in the seed itself" (Fee p. 781); it still has one (the plant that springs from it). Likewise, the human body appears to be weak and mortal, and yet it does have a glorious future. “Just as He wished”: “That is why the interlocutor is called a fool in verse 36; such a question has left God out of account. God does as He pleases; and what pleases Him is to ‘transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like Christ's glorious body’ (Philippians 3:21)” (Fee p. 782). “Paul knows of no blind chance development of nature similar to ideas advanced in the godless theory of evolution. Rather, the very body which comes from the various seeds is fixed and determined by God (Genesis 1:12)” (Willis p. 573). “But even supposing the body comes up out of the grave in a healthy (and not a decomposed) condition, it's bound to die again. And are there to be numerous resurrections since every time the body comes back up it is destined to die again? But there is no body here except in the limitations of the critic's mind. There's more than one kind of body...God isn't lacking in the ability to create different kinds of bodies depending on differing sets of circumstances and different purposes” (McGuiggan p. 200).

1 Corinthians 15:39 “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish”

The same ingenuity that God has manifested in the plant realm (15:38) is also demonstrated in the animal kingdom. God has designed "bodies" to live in water, to fly, to survive in environments with little water, with extreme heat, and with extreme cold. He is not limited to just one kind of "flesh", even in the physical realm. Therefore, how then can we limit Him in the spiritual realm?

1 Corinthians 15:40 “There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another”

The "celestial bodies" apparently are those mentioned in the next verse, that is the sun, moon, and the stars. The "terrestrial" bodies are any bodies found upon the earth, including man and the animals, those bodies mentioned in the previous verses.

1 Corinthians 15:41 “There 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”

“Stars differ in magnitude and brilliancy. The telescope has added more force to Paul's argument” (Robertson p. 196). Paul's point is that in the creation we see God’s ability to produce many differing bodies, which also differ in splendor, therefore God can give more glory to the body that we now inhabit. “Just as differing glory can be seen in the heavens so God can produce differing degrees of glory in man's body” (McGuiggan p. 201). “Experience cannot teach that there is a type of life for which no suitable body can be found” (Willis pp. 575-576). “In this part of the argument Paul is correcting a cardinal error in Greek thought. They stumbled at the doctrine of a resurrection, because they regarded the body as a clog to the soul; and so the body might indeed be, if God could form but one kind of body. But He can form celestial as well as terrestrial bodies, and spiritual bodies adapted to the needs of the spirit, which will not hinder it as does this earthly tabernacle which it now inhabits--bodies which will not only prove no disadvantage, but of infinite assistance” (McGarvey p. 156). You cannot argue against God or biblical truth by using the creation. Since God created this universe, correct facts about this physical creation will always side with God. The Christian has nothing to fear from true science.

1 Corinthians 15:42 “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body”

“We who see all of this variety in the creatures which God called into being and placed before our eyes ought to have no difficultly as to the form and the character of the bodies which God will bring forth from the graves at the resurrection” (Lenski pp. 710-11). The word sown is a fitting word to refer to the burial of the body, just like the seed mentioned in 15:36. The body that is placed in the grave decays, just like the seed that is placed in the earth. Such a body is then raised free from decay, not raised corrupt and then made incorrupt, but raised incorruptible.

1 Corinthians 15:43 “It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory”: “Buried because it is repulsive and will become offensive:John 11:39” (McGarvey p. 157). “We, indeed, try to honor the dead whom we bury by clothing them in their best, giving them a fine casket, flowers, and our attending presence, yet the body itself is enveloped ‘in dishonor’--we soon hurry it from sight”(Lenski p. 712). “Sown in weakness”: “Lack of strength as shown in the victory of death” (Robertson p. 196). “The dead body is altogether without power. It cannot even resist being buried, much less the process of decay” (Willis p. 577). It is raised in power, that is it is raised by the power of God and it is a body fashioned by the power of God.

1 Corinthians 15:44 “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”: “A natural body tells you where it is made for. It is suited for life here. Neither of these two adjectives (‘natural’, ‘spiritual’) tell us of the substantial nature of the body. They do not tell us what the ‘stuff’ of the body consists of” (McGuiggan p. 202). “Spiritual body”: That is, a body adapted and geared for a spiritual existence. “There is also a spiritual body”: “As surely as there is” (TCNT). Our resurrected body is just as certain as the bodies that we now inhabit.

Applications

Growing older and facing our own mortality should not bother us. In light of Jesus’ resurrection, we know that our own body will be gloriously raised in the future (Philippians 3:21). We have been liberated from fretting about our physical appearance. It should not bother us if we are not the ideal height, weight, and so on. This physical body that we have is only the “rough draft”(1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

There is no reason for the Christian to have a fear of dying. Death will separate us from our body—but only for a while. Death also does us the favor of being separated from a body that is perishable, weak, and purely natural. Jesus said, “But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection of the dead…neither can they die anymore, for they are like angels, and are sons of God” (Luke 20:35-36). Does this sound like something to be dreaded, avoided at all cost, feared, or eagerly anticipated? Jesus removed the fear and terror out of anticipating death for the godly (Hebrews 2:15). He threw a huge spotlight on what awaits the faithful (2 Timothy 1:10).

For the Christian death means: being escorted by the angels to a place of comfort and peace (Luke 16:22,25), being in close proximity with Christ, in a place that is far better than even the best that this world can provide (Philippians 1:21,23), a place in which you would not even want to come back to this life, even if you had left many loved ones, a place in which all the aches and pains associated with being in the body are gone, and all the mental, spiritual and emotional aches and pains which come from living in a sin cursed world are also gone (Revelation 21:4), and maybe most importantly, the final liberation from our battle against our own selfishness (Romans 8:23; 2 Corinthians 5:2; 1 Peter 1:4; Revelation 22:3).

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