Tuesday 3rd December
Read 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. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendour of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendour of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendour, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendour.” (NIVUK)
Peter wisely cautioned early believers that it was easy to misunderstand Paul as he often uses quite complex arguments! What point do you think Paul is trying to make here?
On the surface it seems straightforward. Paul has argued that it is foolish to not believe in the resurrection of the dead just because bodies clearly decay and breakdown and what is buried is gone. If it is burned on a pyre it is vaporised! Logically, according to the Corinthians (and many folk today), we must all become shades, ephemeral, with ‘bodies’ fit for heavenly (non-solid) places.
But Paul will have none of that. To narrow one’s thinking down to the ‘same’ physical body we have now needing to be continuous with the body we will have then is naïve. Simply look at the vast array of ‘body options’ God has already demonstrated He is perfectly capable of supplying. He is not limited to the cells that once made up our body. Science has shown that even those turn over many times in our lives. Paul argues there can be both continuity and discontinuity with respect to resurrection. Not all flesh need be the same.
And if one thinks that only ‘spectral’ bodies are fit for the heavenly dimension, then one only has to look into the heavens themselves to see that as much variety exists there as here on earth. The heavenly bodies themselves are weighty (‘splendid’), and not insubstantial shades. Paul is using simple logic able to be gleaned from creation itself to establish the nature and sheer wonderful potential of what the new creation may become. Hope exploded and expanding to the heavens!
