In order to properly understand the meaning of a text, you must look at it in the language in which it was originally written.  If you had done this when investigating First Corinthians chapter fifteen, you would have avoided what I am sure was an unintentional alteration of the meaning of this scriptural pericope.  In the Greek text it is clear that St. Paul is explicitly arguing against a gnostic or docetic understanding of the resurrection of the body.  In your unpublished book, Reason Confronts Religion, you completely miss the point of St. Paul's argument, because you mistakenly concentrate on the words physical and spiritual in reference to the body, and then interpret them in a way that has no support in the original Greek text.

          The problem with your interpretation can be traced to the Revised Standard Version (R.S.V.) of the Bible which uses the word physical as a translation for the Greek word psychikon.  In Greek the word psyche is used to indicate the animating principle of natural physical life, and it is literally translated into English as the word soul, or sometimes as the word mind.  So when the R.S.V. Bible uses the word physical in this passage it does not indicate the body's material nature as you mistakenly allege; instead, it stands for the immaterial principle of natural physical life.  You also misinterpret the word spiritual which is a translation of the Greek word pneumatikon.  The word pneuma literally means breath, and St. Paul uses it throughout his writings to refer to the Divine Spirit which Christians receive in baptism, and which guarantees their future bodily resurrection.  This is why St. Paul tells the Corinthians that their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit [cf. 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Cor. 6:13b-20], and it also explains why he insists so strongly that they must not defile their bodies through immoral behavior.

          In regard to the body St. Paul writes that, "He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit which dwells in you" [Rom. 8:11].  St. Paul does not believe that the mortal body will be eradicated in the resurrection; instead, he believes that it will be transformed from a mortal body into an immortal body.  The change that occurs is not one of nature, but of the condition of life.  As the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament points out, "Paul insists that the future life is a bodily one" [TDNT, 7:1060], so his concept of ". . . the redemption of the body in Romans 8:23 is not redemption from the body or from a bodily existence generally but redemption of the body" [TDNT, 7:1061].  Thus, in St. Paul's terminology, ". . . the spiritual body (soma pneumatikon) of either Redeemer or believer is to be understood, not as one which consists of spirit (pneuma), but as one which is controlled by the Spirit (Pneuma)" [vol. vi., page 420-421].

          Fernand Prat, in his book The Theology of Saint Paul, explains the difference between the psychical body and the spiritual body.  In St. Paul's thought ". . . the psychical body is that which serves as an organ to the sensitive soul and is adapted to it"; while ". . . the spiritual body will be that which serves as an instrument to a principle of activities of a superior order – called by St. Paul 'spirit' – and which shares in its perfections" [Prat, 2:174].  The life force of the psychical body is limited, possessing only a mortal existence; while the spiritual body received in the resurrection has "become [a partaker] of the divine nature" [2 Pet. 1:4] and is thus immortal.  So the change that occurs in the resurrection concerns the principle of life which animates the body, but does not concern its corporeal nature which it will retain even after it has been resurrected.

          Concerning St. Paul's statement that, ". . . flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" [1 Cor. 15:50], it is necessary first, at least if one desires to properly interpret this verse, to place it within the context of the entire biblical pericope dealing with the resurrection of the body.  The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament states that, ". . . in verse 47, the first clause earth [the word dust is used in the R.S.V.] denotes the stuff from which the first man is made, while the second clause heavenly characterizes the second man, not by the substance of which he consists but by his origin" [TDNT, 6:421].  It is important to note that St. Paul does not say that flesh and blood cannot be resurrected.  What he is saying is that flesh and blood if it remains in the image of the first man, not having received the vivifying Divine Spirit, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God.  Only when it has received the image of the second man through the regenerative power of the Holy Spirit can it be redeemed, "For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.  For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality" [1 Cor. 15:52b-53].  The change St. Paul is writing about concerns the condition of human existence; it does not concern man's corporeal nature.  Thus, the text does not support the idea that the body will be destroyed or transformed into some ethereal spiritual substance as the gnostic and docetic heretics believed; in fact, this is precisely the view St. Paul is arguing against.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Reference Books:

Fernand Prat.  The Theology of Saint Paul.  (London:  Burns Oates and Washbourne, Ltd., 1938).  2 Volumes.

G. Kittel (Editor).  The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament.  (Grand Rapids, MI:  William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1983).  10 Volumes.

Joseph Nystrom.  Reason Confronts Religion. (Unpublished Manuscript).

Biblical Translation:

The Bible:  Revised Standard Version.  (New York:  American Bible Society, 1971).  

St. Paul and the Resurrection of the Body

by Steven Todd Kaster

Diablo Valley College

Philosophy 141:  Introduction to Philosophy of Religion

Professor Joseph Nystrom

3 May 1995

Copyright © 1995-2024 Steven Todd Kaster