PERFECT THEN.  1 Corinthians 15.35-49

Good Day!

There is an awful lot of preoccupation with physical fitness…have you noticed?  Then there’s plastic surgery and the cosmetic industry . . . vitamins, herbal supplements, and various elixirs to make us look and feel young.  One day, aging won’t be a factor.   One day, we will have perfected senses . . . our bodies will no longer ache . . .   One day, the crippled woman confined to a wheelchair because of debilitating multiple sclerosis will dance again . . . That will be the day the Lord calls for his own, and breathes new life into them!

Paul has made the case that since Jesus rose literally—physically and historically, so too believers will be resurrected, and given heavenly bodies at that time.  You will still be you, and I will still be me—our individuality will survive!  Yet our post-resurrection bodies will be characterized by strength, rather than by the weakness that pulls us down, sometimes by sickness, and always as we age. Our bodies will be spiritual, which does not mean nonphysical, but rather bodies "transformed by and adopted to the new world of God's Spirit".* They also will be recognizable, but, like Jesus' risen body, so utterly transformed that we shall be aware of the differences as well as the sameness. We will no longer have the limits of our physical bodies, which is what God had intended for us from the beginning . . . but then, sin.  With sin came disease and the aging of the body.  Yuck.

So, here’s our passage, with the key points underlined:

But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?”  What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first.  And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting.   Then God gives it the new body he wants it to have. A different plant grows from each kind of seed.  Similarly there are different kinds of flesh—one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.

 There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies.  The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory.

  It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever.   Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength.  They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

 The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit.  What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later.   Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven.  Earthly people are like the earthly man, and heavenly people are like the heavenly man.   Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.   1 Corinthians 15.35-49, NLT

The Corinthians largely did not believe in bodily resurrection; they could even believe that Jesus had risen from the dead, but not his body!  So, Paul’s establishment of Jesus’ visits to Peter, James, and the rest were critical pieces of evidence as to his bodily resurrection.  Yet when Jesus appeared to the men after his resurrection, there was something very different about his physical appearance, even though he walked, talked, and ate like a human being.  Jesus had been restored from the ravages of recent torture and death, yet he was recognizable—perhaps by voice, certainly by personality.

Your mother who died of cancer?  She will no longer bear the scars.

Your military husband who was hit by a roadside bomb?  Whole again.

Your friend from high school who died in a boating accident?  Restored.

You will be you . . .I will be me . . . but we will be perfect then.

Christine