1 CORINTHIANS CHAPTER 15
Of the Resurrection of the Dead. 1 Corinthians 15, 1–58
The nature of the resurrection: V. 35. But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come? V. 36. Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die. V. 37. And that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or of some other grain. V. 38. But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body.
Not to know, not to believe in, the resurrection of the body, that is a shame and disgrace for a Christian; but the manner of the resurrection is a secret which at best may be illustrated by analogous processes in nature. In this way Paul meets the question: How are the dead raised? With what kind of body, moreover, do they come?
The lurking ideas of the impossibility and inconceivability of the resurrection of the body are both taken up; for the apostle realizes that someone might argue: The resurrection as proclaimed by the apostles is absurd; how can anyone conceive of a new body that is to rise out of a corpse that has been eaten by worms or has fallen into dust?
As far as the first argument is concerned, Paul does not hesitate for a moment to charge its defender with mental stupidity, since all nature teaches that death is only a transition to further life: What thou sowest is not made alive unless it die. The mystery of the resurrection is contained in every sprouting seed. The hull which serves as a covering, as a carrier for the seed-germ, will rot away and die, while the contents of the kernel, by a chemical process which only the Creator can explain, under the proper condition for germination, will rise up into new life.
To the argument that it is impossible to conceive of such a process, Paul answers with the analogy of the same picture: And what thou sowest, not the body that shall be sowest thou, but the naked grain, there being no difference whether it is of wheat or of one of the other grains. What we see before our eyes year after year may be impossible for us to comprehend, but it can no longer be said to be unreasonable. In placing the seed into the ground, the farmer or gardener knows that he is not planting a new body, which would but have to grow. He puts the naked, unclothed grain of any seed into the ground and does not permit himself to be deterred by the objection of some stupid person that has never seen things sprout, that his seed will merely rot in the soil. Experience has told the farmer that the grain of wheat, though in itself lifeless as a grain of sand, will yet, under the proper conditions, produce a new body.
It is God that gives the sprouting seed the power and the plant its body, in accordance with His decree in creation, by which the continuance of life by this form of reproduction was determined. And He gives to each seed a body of its own. It is His miraculous working throughout, but that same power is able to return our bodies at the resurrection.