The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the basis for our resurrection. The resurrection must be true for the gospel to be true. Paul has already argued for the importance of the fact of the resurrection of Jesus to the Christian faith. Now he answers another question. What is this resurrection body like? He gives four descriptions of what this resurrection body is like.

1. The illustration of the resurrection – seed (vs. 35-36)

It is like a harvest. A seed is sown into the ground and it then dies before it lives again. The seed decomposes and lives again in a different form. There is an amazing transformation that takes place. We will die and then rise again to new life. Paul makes it clear that it is by the power of God. The whole process is in God’s hand. He can give whatever body He wants to give. The transformation is exceptional. The new body looks nothing like the first body but it is from the original material. Every seed has its own body and you can’t tell what it is going to be like until the harvest.

2 – The actual form of the resurrection – body (vs. 37-41)

There are terrestrial bodies and celestial bodies. There are many forms of flesh on the earth. These have little comparison to the glory of the celestial bodies. How can you compare the glory of a flower to that of the sun? What you see on Earth does not have to be what you see up in the vast universe. The celestial body can be infinitely greater than anything we can conceive. There are no two bodies which are unlike. Resurrection bodies have a glory all of their own.

3 – The contrasts of the resurrection (vs. 42-46)

The resurrection body is complete contrast to our lives on this earth.

• The whole of human life manifests corruption. From the time we are born we start the process of corruption. Birth is the beginning of decay. We come from dust and return to it. What is going to happen in the future isn’t going to be corrupt. It’s going to be incorrupt. We go into the grave corrupt, we come out incorruptible. The fantastic thing to realise. That body will never decay, it’ll never get old. It’ll have absolutely no time limitation. It will have no capacity to deteriorate. We will be permanently incorruptible. No decay.
• Mankind was made in the image of God. Mankind dishonoured the image of God but some day it will be honoured in the resurrection. In the full manifestation of the sons of God the way He made us to be. No more dishonour, no more corruption.
• Sown in weakness and raised in power – We struggle against the environment against us. We can’t raise ourselves from the grave. A body is raised in power in the resurrection. There will be no limitations. We will be like the angels. As the angels are suited for that level of existence so shall we be.

4 – The prototype of the resurrection – Jesus (vs. 47-49)

There is a natural body and a spiritual body. Adam is the prototype of the natural the things pertaining to this life. Christ is the prototype for the spiritual body and the things pertaining to the afterlife. First you receive the natural body in this life and then the supernatural in the next life. First comes the natural and then the spiritual. First that which is suited to this life because this is where we have to live and then that which is suited to the life to come. In Adam’s case you have something tied to the earth, but in Christ you have something tied to heaven.

We want to know what Jesus was like in His resurrection as that’s what we’ll be like. In His resurrection, He could appear and disappear. He could go through walls. He could transport Himself from one place to the other just by a thought. He could eat fish and honeycomb. He could sit down with the disciples and show them the scars in His hands. He could speak and be understood. He was who He was and yet He was glorified in a way that if He didn’t reveal Himself they would never even know who He was. There was something so different and yet there was something so the same. He was incorruptible.

See Acts 1:11 “… this same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven”. When He comes back even though 2,000 years or 3,000 or whatever pass by, He’ll be exactly the same as when He went because number one the glorified body is not corruptible. It’ll never change. That’s the hope of the church. It is the sure hope of the resurrection body that awaits the believer.

Categories: 1 Corinthians