Monday 2nd December
Read 1 Corinthians 15:35-38
“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.” (NIVUK)
There are so many misconceptions about what happens after we die. There were misconceptions even in the early life of the church. Paul sought to correct those early missteps. The Gentile church did not have any long history of belief in bodily resurrection, so doubts had crept in about the message Paul delivered. There is much we will learn as we explore the last section of this amazing chapter this week but the first is remarkably simple.
Paul wants first of all to establish that the resurrection is not to an ephemeral, ghostly state playing harps on clouds for eternity. (Not that there is anything wrong with harps). Resurrection is to another body. It is bodily resurrection. It may not be of quite the same nature as our current body, and we have a brief glimpse of it in the resurrection narratives at the end of the gospels, but it is a physical body nonetheless.
We also get a clue as to where that body will dwell in the metaphor Paul uses here. It is not coincidental that ‘seeds’ are sown in the earth. Our fate is not to an eternal heavenly realm, but to heaven establishing itself on earth. A truth we will explore next week.
Whilst these new bodies will not necessarily be identical to our perfect 25(?)-year old form, they will bear the stamp of our lives here on earth now. NT Wright uses the phrase ‘transphysical’ to describe the resurrection body, a phrase which captures the message told by the apostles when they saw the risen Jesus. He ate and spoke as normal but could also enter rooms at will. He was both the same and different. Like a seed is to the fully grown plant.
As we enter the new season of hope associated with the first incarnation of God, his first descent from heaven to earth, we will find new hope considering His return and what it means for death and creation and life here and now.
