Saturday 6th May
Read 1 Corinthians 15:42-49
“So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: ‘The first man Adam became a living being’; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 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. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.” (NIVUK)
The key to understanding Paul in this passage is to realise that what he means by ‘spiritual’ is not what we may think he means. (Oh, and we can’t forget that everything Paul writes is in the context of the new creation using the imagery of the first creation (Genesis 1-2)). Many people, because of unfortunate translations, believe that the contrast Paul makes between a ‘natural’ and ‘spiritual’ body is one between flesh and spirit. They conclude that our resurrection hope is to cast off this decaying mortal flesh and rise to heaven with an ethereal spirit body. But the contrast Paul is drawing is not between flesh and spirit in that sense, but between a body that is ‘of the earth’ and a body that is ‘of the spirit’.
It is similar language to that which Jesus uses when speaking with Nicodemus. Jesus insists that one must be ‘born from above’ or ‘born from heaven’ (John 3:6-8). Being conformed to the image of Christ, a refrain we read many, many times in Paul’s letters to the early churches, consists in taking on this new body, ‘bearing the image of the heavenly man’ (v49). When, after rising from death, Jesus met the disciples and ‘he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’ (John 20:22) (NIVUK) we are likely witnessing what Paul speaks of when he says that the new creation has begun in Jesus and is granted to us through rebirth by the Spirit. Jesus delegates and then gifts them life from above, spiritual life – eternal life. Paul is explaining to the Corinthian church his understanding of the type of resurrection body he believes Jesus possesses and has bestowed upon us – a body animated by the Spirit of God. A ‘life giving spirit’ (v45b).
Praise God that we are ‘born from above’ and filled with God’s Spirit and can look forward to life with him.
