“But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.”
Paul describes the physical body as basically a husk or seed. This body is our “meat suit” but there is more to a human than just the biochemicals and the flesh. We have a soul and spirit that cannot be perceived by our earthly senses. Yet if we see a dead body, we know this reality. That person isn’t really there anymore. The husk is, but their spirit/soul are somewhere else. God has placed the “real” us inside of a physical body and that is how we interact with the physical world. And as a few verses later says, the body we are in right now is perishing. It is dying because of sin.
2 Corinthians 4:16 “That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.”
1 Corinthians 15:39-41
“Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
God has placed into our broken perishable bodies, a spirit that is imperishable. If you have been truly born again, God has given you a revived spirit. Our spirit was once dead and disconnected from God because of sin, but by our faith in Jesus, we have received his Holy Spirit that is joined to our spirit. And this spirit is what will live in heaven forever. This spirit we have received is full of splendor. It is beautiful. It’s splendor is similar to what Peter, James and John saw at the Mount of Transfiguration. They saw Jesus glorified resurrected heavenly body/spirit.
1 Peter 1:17-25:
“Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall but the word of the Lord endures forever.” And this is the word that was preached to you.
The spirit that is inside of us thrives on the word of God. When we believe and trust in God’s word it allows us to grow spiritually. We can start the process of being purified or sanctifying our broken sinful bodies here on earth, by believing and obeying God’s word. Some people are more sanctified than others because they believe and obey the Bible more. The spirit inside of us wants to shine out of us whenever it can. However, often our perishable, broken and imperfect flesh gets into the way of the spirit. That is why Christians can still get angry, or drunk, or commit adultery. Because we often still live by the flesh and not by the spirit. The promise for the Christian is the next passage of 1 Corinthians.
1 Corinthians 15:42-46
“So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, 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.”
Our spiritual bodies are perfect. Our physical bodies that are dishonored, broken, weak, and sinful will one day be resurrected perfectly. Remember a while back when we were in chapter 13 and we discussed what the perfect was? I made the case from that passage alone that Paul is talking about a future body he sees when he is perfected in Jesus. Who would have thought that he talks about it a page later in chapter 15. It is like God knew that people would take “when the perfect comes” out of context. He explains what the perfect is more fully in this chapter. People create strongholds in their mind about topics like this and cannot see the truth.
1 Corinthians 15:45-49
“So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven.And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
We talked a few weeks ago that Adam is a picture of Christ. All humans are like Adam. We were born into a physical body which is made up of the same elements that are in dirt. If you wanted more reason to believe the Bible. And just, like Adam, we have all chosen to sin. If you remember in that story, God tells Adam and Eve that they would surely die on the day they ate the fruit he commanded them not to eat. And yet they didn’t die that day did they? Because what died was the spiritual being that lived inside of them. When they decided to sin, they died spiritually and were no longer connected to their creator. That happens to us all. We die spiritually when we are disconnected from the God who created us. Through Jesus, who is considered the “second Adam” came to reunite us to God, by being a “life giving spirit” He comes to give us life and life more abundantly, because he put inside of us a spirit that is once again connected to God and can hear His voice.
1 Corinthians 15:50-53
“I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.”
Our bodies made of dust cannot live in heaven. Paul says here that there is going to be one day, when Jesus returns those who have placed their trust in him, it is possible we might not ever experience death, but instead their bodies will fall off of them and their true spiritual self will emerge. And even if we do experience dying, we know that our spirit is going to be with the Lord. Because He has promised us this.
2 Corinthians 5:1-4
“For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. “Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit. So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord.For we live by believing and not by seeing. Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body.”
1 Corinthians 15:54-57
“When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
As Christians we are not called to celebrate death, because death is the curse. We are dying because of our sin. Our death is a clear picture to all humans that God is deathly serious about sin. We will all die, because we have all sinned. And Yet, God made a plan. That the Christian does not have to mourn those who die who know Jesus. Our flesh will still be sad we are not with them anymore, but we know when someone dies they aren’t really gone. They have just moved into a better reality. That Jesus promised us that just like He died and resurrected that we too will die, but we will also be resurrected. And that resurrected bodies are way better than the ones we live in now.