Greetings to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
If you are like most people I know, there are some unanswered questions or unexplained topics which really fascinate us and leave us wondering. Here are three questions I hear from time to time:
1. Is there life on other planets or stars out there in the universe? If so, how similar or different are they from us human beings? What relationship does God have with those beings?
2. What other things did Jesus say and do that are not recorded for us in the Bible? (John 21:25) If we knew them, how would that inform our opinion of Jesus?
3. When we receive our resurrected bodies, how similar or different will those bodies be from what we have now?
While I have nothing to offer you from my study in God’s Word on the first two questions, I’m happy to tell you our friend the apostle Paul wrote about that third question to his friends in Corinth in the mid first century, so let’s dig into that today as we continue our journey with Paul through his letter we know as 1st Corinthians.
Paul writes this: “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?’ How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed… but God gives it a body as He has determined, and to each kind of seed God gives its own body…” (1 Cor. 15:35-38) For most people in the first century this made clear sense. Even city dwellers had an understanding of farming and agriculture, so they understood the process of planting a seed in the ground, then after some time, rain and sunshine, watching a plant emerge from that spot, and before long a harvest. They understood wheat, barley, corn, grapevines, olive and date trees and so much more.
Do you and I? Are you as amazed by that planting, nurturing and harvesting process as I am? Are you amazed at the uniqueness of each plant and the comparison of a single seed put in the ground and a full-grown plant ready for harvest? Does it begin to help us understand the miracle of resurrection which Jesus experienced, and which is awaiting each of us?
Paul continued: “Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and each star differs from all other stars in their splendor.” (1 Cor. 15:39-41)
So, let me ask you my friends, are you amazed at the creative genius of God seen in the distinction of all species one from another? As you look closely at all animal life and how God has designed them for thriving in the part of the world where they live, does that amaze you?
And what about the sky, especially at night? I wonder if Paul was thinking of Isaiah 40:26 when the Spirit led him to write these verses to the Corinthians? “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host and calls forth each of them by name. Because of God’s great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” (Is. 40:26) And of course in Isaiah’s day, 650 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, the understanding of the solar system and universe was minute, as compared to what we know and can see through sophisticated telescopes today! Yet they were just as amazed when they looked up into the sky as you and I will be tonight if it’s a cloudless sky!
So, Paul is ready now to make his point to the Corinthian Christians about their anticipated resurrection: “So it will be with the resurrection of dead people. The body that is sown is perishable, but it is raised 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) Now we see why Paul used agriculture, planting, and new growth and harvesting as his example.
Normally, from the beginning of time, we have thought of burial of a dead person’s body simply as disposing of the body. Ancient Egyptians and other cultures have gone to great length to prepare the body, embalm the body, for preservation, but in the end all dead bodies decay, don’t they? But here Paul is calling us to consider that EVERY dead human body will one day be raised to life, resurrected, and therefore whatever we do with the dead body is only a temporary disposition of that body.
Perhaps that raises the question of cremation in your mind, my friends. Perhaps these questions will help you when you consider cremation. I know they helped me:
1. What is the difference between modern cremation and a person dying in a house fire or war bombing and their body being incinerated?
2. What is the difference between what is left of the body of a person who died 4000 years ago, and the body of a person who died last week but was cremated?
When God resurrects the human bodies of EVERY human being who has ever lived, just as God needed nothing with which to create our first body, so God needs nothing to resurrect and recreate our eternal body!
Do you grasp Paul’s point here my friends? Increasingly over the years, the centuries, more and more sophisticated procedures and potions have been developed for people who try to preserve their earthly bodies from the effects of aging. But regardless of our efforts, these earthly bodies are temporary residences for our soul and spirit which God made immortal and in His image. Our human bodies are truly ‘fearfully and wonderfully made’ by God, as David wrote in Psalm 139, yet they are frail and begin the process of aging and decay almost from infancy.
That’s why Paul gives us such graphic descriptions of the contrast between our earthly bodies and our resurrected, eternal, glorified bodies. “The (deceased) body that is sown is perishable, but it is raised 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.”
By the word “sown” Paul means any form of disposing of a dead body. You see the contrasts, don’t you, my friends?
Perishable ~ Imperishable;
Dishonor ~ Glory;
Weakness ~ Power;
A Natural body ~ a Spiritual body.
So, I wonder what picture begins to develop in your mind my friends regarding what YOUR resurrected body will be like, when you consider these descriptive, comparison words of Paul? We only have one example to consider. Think of Jesus. What were the similarities and differences between the body of Jesus when His badly torn, dead body was placed in the tomb, and His resurrected body which many people, over a period of 40 days, experienced as they met with the resurrected Jesus?
So much to consider. Death is certain for each and all of us humans, and resurrection is equally certain for all of us. So, what do you think you’ll look like, what will your body be like AFTER God resurrects you from death, no matter how long you’ve been dead or how you died or what happened to your body after death?
So, I think we need to pause and ponder right here. And let’s come back tomorrow, and we’ll continue considering what more Paul tells about our resurrection. Ok?
Today’s Scripture is 1 Corinthians 15:35-44.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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