Having claimed the resurrected Christ and his kingdom, in perfect unity with God, Paul moves on to describe the resurrected body itself:
“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ 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 kernel, 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” (1 Cor 15:35-38).
Have you ever thought about that before – is every living thing a resurrected seed planted by God after its death?
“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” (1 Co 15:39-41).
And what God “plants” is diverse beyond our wildest imagination! But now he adds the all-important spiritual aspect to the conversation:
“So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is 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” (1 Cor 15:42-44).
Do you see that sparrow on the feeder in the back yard? Not a single sparrow falls to the ground, that is, dies, without God knowing about it (Matthew 10:29); could it be that even the physical sparrow is somehow raised a spiritual sparrow? How much more so for his children who love him?
“Thus it is written, ‘The first man Adam became a human being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit” (1 Cor 15:45; Gen 2:7; John 6:39).
The last Adam, if there is any doubt, is the resurrected, fully alive Jesus who will come on the last day to rule until he hands his kingdom over to his Father in perfect unity forever and ever.
“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” (1 Cor 15:46-48).
So, back to the foolish question about what the resurrected body is like:
“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:49).
The foolish questioner might then ask, “How can this be? How can we be both?”
Ah, hurry back for Part 4 of this amazing, intricate chapter! It is a divine mystery.