Insights on 1 & 2 Corinthians by Charles R. Swindoll

Author:Charles R. Swindoll
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: RELIGION / Biblical Commentary / New Testament
ISBN: 9781496409676
Publisher: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
Published: 2017-03-07T00:00:00+00:00

— 15:35-41 —

Some in the church at Corinth had accepted the gospel of Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, but when it came to their own resurrection, their confidence teetered. After all, Jesus is the unique God-man; we are mere humans. Maybe the Corinthians thought He fit into a completely different category from us. Or maybe they viewed even Christ’s resurrection not as an actual redemption and perfection of His physical body, but as a “rising” of His spirit from the earth to heaven. Or perhaps they redefined the nature of Christ’s resurrection body to make it far more spiritual than physical. Whatever logic they followed that led them to denying and downplaying the reality of the resurrection of believers, it had gained enough of a following for Paul to address their confusion by answering two of their nagging questions: “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?” (15:35).

Paul dismisses the first question with one sharp rebuke: “You fool!” (15:36). When it comes to the miracle of the resurrection of the dead, asking how God is able to do something reveals either a lack of understanding of or a complete absence of faith in God’s omnipotence. God can do whatever He pleases! Jesus clearly taught, “With God all things are possible” (Matt. 19:26).

The second question is more reasonable, as it deals with an understandable curiosity about the nature of our resurrected bodies. Using analogies and contrasts, Paul invites his readers to look ahead with faith and hope at their own resurrection bodies. He doesn’t give a comprehensive explanation of the resurrection, but he does provide sufficient detail to put the Corinthians’ questions to rest.

Paul first sketches three word pictures that illustrate what our future bodies will be like. The analogies he uses are seeds, flesh, and celestial bodies.

Seeds (1 Cor. 15:36-38). The first analogy illustrates both the personal continuity as well as the qualitative discontinuity between the corpse that had been buried and the body that will be raised. Paul doesn’t deny a relationship between the two, but the relationship is not simply a reconstitution of the dead parts of the decomposed body. The resurrection isn’t simply mortal life resuscitated, nor is it a weird scene from the latest zombie movie. God forbid! The continuity between the mortal body and the resurrection body, however, is real, just as the relationship between a seed and the plant that sprouts from the ground is real. Yet the seed itself vanishes, absorbed into the new reality of the plant which looks completely different from the seed.

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