May 8, 2005

WITH WHAT BODY?

1 Corinthians 15:35-58

 

   Paul objected, “how say some among you that there is no resur-rection of the dead?” Also “some one will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?” (1 Cor. 15:12, 35). These are not the inquiries of faith but “evil communications that corrupt good manners.” Paul answered with a rebuke, “You fool! Don't you know that whatever you sow does not live unless it first dies?” (15:36). His reply is intelligent faith to blind unbelief!

   Paul's question to King Agrippa indicated some regard for the scriptures, “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you that God should raise the dead?” (Acts 26:8). Let all the fields of human endeavor and scientific research combine to tell us that resurrection of the dead is not just difficult, it is absolutely impossible!

   Yet there are but two questions that need to be addressed. How did life originate? And how can death be eliminated? To both, science has not a single clue, yet the Bible is the only source with solid answers to both! “What you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain – perhaps wheat or some other grain . But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body” (15:38). God, our Creator, has expressed Himself and revealed wisdom beyond our ability to comprehend. Behold the staggering varieties of life, both plant, animal, and angelic! Shall we imagine that this God, Who is Life, has met His match in death?

   Paul continued to show God's glorious variety of living bodies. “All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fish, and another of birds.” So much for earthly, terrestrial creatures in this creation.

   What of the heavenly realm? Even there the glory of each differs, whether of sun, moon, or stars. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in glory...it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (15:42-44). “we...eagerly wait...the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able...to subdue all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:21).

 

Ivan L. Burgener