Day 241: What will our body be like? - 1 Corinthians 15 vs 35 – 49

35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36-38 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.  And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.  But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. 

39-41 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 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. 42-44 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 

45-49 Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.  The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.  As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. 1 Corinthians 15:35-49 English Standard Version

If someone drowned at sea and their body was eaten by sharks, and the shark was caught and served up in a Chinese restaurant as soup – how is it possible for that body to be raised again? Vs 35 suggests that some Christians in Corinth expressed that sort of scepticism about the gospel's teaching that there will be a physical resurrection of our body. So what is the point that Paul makes from the analogy of seeds that we sow in the ground? (vs 36-38)

I'd suggest it's that the new 'body' that emerges from the ground is startlingly different to the seed we buried, but that this new body emerged from the seed that had been buried. So there is a 'sameness' as well as an amazing difference. In verses 39-41 he points out that this variation in bodily existence is true of everything in creation and that there are different degrees of glory. And this is true of our resurrection body as well. Our resurrected body will be even more wonderful than the body we currently have, which is already a marvellous work of creation. Take a moment to read again four big ways our resurrected bodies will differ from our present one. (vs 42-44)

Our resurrected bodies will have a glorious spiritual dimension that is not subject to weakness and decay. And for those who might still ask how this can take place - remember that God created everything that currently exists through Christ and upholds the whole universe by the word of his power. (Hebrews 1:3) The activity of protons and neutrons in the atom are only the secondary cause of life as we now know it. They are the building blocks God designed for this world's existence. And by that same mighty power He can raise our bodies again, no matter how much disintegration has taken place.

Vs 45-49 highlight the glorious truth of the gospel. In the same way that all people are like Adam who was made from dust and destined to return to dust, so those who have repented of sin and believed on Christ for salvation are destined to be like him. He rose bodily from the grave and appeared to his disciples. Our bodies will also be raised and transformed to be like his. We have an Adam-like body now, but will have a Christ-like body then! Whether we die peacefully at home, or are blown to smithereens in a nuclear blast – if we belong to Christ, our body will be raised to be with him forever. He will come from heaven with a commanding shout and the trumpet call of God and believers who've died will rise from their graves. And believers who are still alive at that time will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17.