01.05. The Nature Of The Resurrection Body
Chapter 5 - The Nature Of The Resurrection Body "But some man will say, How are the dead raised up, and with what body do they come?
"Thou fool, that which thou so west is not quickened, except it die;
"And that which thou so west, thou so west not that body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain; but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body.
"So also is the resurrection of the dead.
"It is sown in corruption ; it is raised in incorruption;
"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. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body " (1 Corinthians 15:35-44). The question put into the mouth of the objector at the beginning of this section does not refer to the possibility of the resurrection but the character of the resurrection body. The skepticism here is expressed in the thought that "this poor, suffering and corrupt flesh of ours could not harmonize with the employments and splendours of the eternal life." It could not be competent for the functions and demands of an exalted spiritual state.
"A wide-spread doctrine of the ancient philosophers was that the body is the prison of the soul, a foul enclosure, a drag, an enemy," and the thought that it should share the experiences of heaven seemed a scandal. They erred, not knowing the nature of the resurrection body.
Paul seeks to remove this ignorance by a threefold analogy from nature:
(a) "That which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." The death of the seed is absolutely necessary to the production of the plant, and indeed that death is part of the process of its own quickening.
It is the same in the death of the human body. There is a process of quickening in that death, a process of change and of growth. To use the language of another, "death is not the mere inertness of a state of dissolution, but there is in it what is analogous to the germ principle of the seed." Whatever that is, it only "waits for the favourable environment of God’s appointed time to burst forth into developed life." And in doing so it lays hold of new particles and weaves them into a new tissue and a new fabric.
(b) "That which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but a bare grain; . . . but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him." In other words the resurrection body is a different one from that which died. The bare grain, the naked corn you deposit in the earth is a tiny thing, dry and uninteresting in appearance. But it comes forth a blade, an ear, a full corn in the ear, charmingly beautiful, and satisfying you with its fruit. So with the human body. The body that dies is not the body that shall be. Its pains and aches will not be experienced then. "The lusts which rage here shall not kindle their baleful fires there. The weariness of the flesh which so dogs our mental efforts, nothing of this shall characterize the risen body." As Paul says, what is sown in corruption shall be raised in incorruption; what is sown in dishonour shall be raised in honour; what is sown in weakness shall be raised in power; what is sown a natural body shall be raised a spiritual body. "Spiritual," as Bishop W. E. Nicholson reminds us, "not as regards its substance, for it will be matter still, but spiritual as regards its use. This present body could by no means accompany and sustain our spirits under the energy of the eternal life; but that future body will be the easy companion of the Christian soul in his farthest and highest explorations, a companion to the soul as wings are to the bird, as light is to the heat, as fragrance is to the breeze." God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him
(c) "And to every seed its own body," or as the Revised Version expresses it, "to each seed a body of its own." In other words, while the resurrection body is not the same as to its particles it is still the same as to continuity and identity. The matter of our present bodies is always changing, and in that sense we have not the same body of seven years ago, and yet we have the same body nevertheless, and we are conscious of it beyond a doubt. To refer to the analogy, the seed imbedded in the ground and the plant produced by it are not the same and yet they are the same. Without that particular seed, that particular plant would not have been, and if the seed could be imagined as possessing self-consciousness, it would declare in the plant, "This is I myself." And so, quoting Bishop Nicholson again, "Our consciousness in the resurrection will tell us that the body we then inhabit is the one in which the deeds of our former life were done. That hand, then so powerful and so graceful in the beauty of heaven, will be the same that gave the cup of cold water here to a Christian brother. That tongue, then the very rival of Gabriel’s, will be the same which here sang of Jesus, and spake a word in season to him that was weary. Your own identity, from infancy through your earthly decease, onward into the splendours of the eternal life will lie before you as an unbroken scene. You will say, ’It is I myself.’"
Thus "as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly." In the present life we are like the first Adam; in the next we shall be like the second Adam. "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren" (Romans 8:29). "For our citizenship is in heaven; from whence also we wait for a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation that it may be conformed to the body of His glory" (Php 3:21). "Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be; but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is" (1 John 3:2).