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Putting On Immortality is the name of our Resurrection Series. In it, we will explore Paul’s description of the resurrection body. Our Memory and Meditation Verses for Celebrating the Resurrection are 1 Corinthians 15:35-49. The series aims to improve and guide our Christian meditation together. Today we will look at 1 Corinthians 15:35-37.

Mocking the Resurrection: Paul’s Common Opponent

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or some other grain.

Everyone deals with a disrespectful debater from time to time. The kind of person that, instead of dealing with the content of your argument, casts aspersions on you. They attempt to assassinate the messenger. Another ploy is to state a key question in a mocking or smug tone. Something like, “You believe in a resurrection? Well, my granny died 27 years ago and then we had her cremated.We scattered her ashes into the Pacific Ocean. So how is God gonna resurrect her body? She’s nothing but carbon molecules now. Fish food.”

Paul’s Experience with Mockers on Mars Hill

Paul dealt with this sort of thing in his work as an apologist all the time. Remember when he shared the Gospel on Mars Hill? How did they treat him? “Some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers also conversed with him. And some said, “What does this babbler wish to say?” Others said, “He seems to be a preacher of foreign divinities”—because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection (Acts 17:18).” Then, immediately after concluding his speech in the Areopagus, Luke records, “Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked (Acts17:32).” We should expect mockers. We are fools for Christ. Paul was routinely mocked.

An Earthly Minded Objection

Paul regularly fields false questions from mocking opponents. So, after spending thirty-four verses preaching the resurrection of Jesus, he stops and asks the question that always comes after he proclaims it. “But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come (1 Corinthians 15:35)?” In other words, “How is God going to put all the Humpty Dumpties back together again? How is he going to resurrect the long dead masses?” It sounds like a plausible objection, but only to someone who thinks in an earthly-minded way. It sounds smart to people who only believe in the material world. And, because the average person today essentially believes in nothing, it never dawns on them to consider that the body “that is to be” is more than the body that is.

From Seed to Fruitful Vine

Cucumber seeds are a great example for us to use here. Why? Well, for one it is a large seed. If you plant cucumber seeds you can watch the seed’s husk come up on the little plant. The young vine wears it like a hood for a few days. Then, along comes a stiff wind and the husk falls away. You can look as much as you want, but you will only find the husk. The seed leaves no remnant behind; yet it remains, changed into something greater than before. It transforms from “a bare kernel (1 Corinthians 15:37)” into a fruit-producing superstructure. If it sets only one fruit it has multiplied itself 100 times, and a healthy cucumber plant over its short life will set scores (a score is twenty). You do the math. “Thirty, sixty, a hundredfold (Matthew 13:8)” is a light reckoning.

Death as Transformation: Natural Law and Theology

“How are the dead raised?” With what kind of body do they come (1 Corinthians 15:35)?” is not really a very smart question. A little bit of contemplation of the natural world yields the answer. “You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies (1 Corinthians 15:36).” Paul is drawing from the natural world. Theologians call this Natural Law or Natural Theology. Jesus and the Apostles are constantly using it as teaching tools within the Bible, which we call,”Special Revelation.” They teach us through their example how to draw truth from the created order around us.

Death as Transformation: Jesus as the Pattern

Everywhere we look in creation we see seeds planted, and in very few cases does what we plant resemble what grows. Death transforms the seed into something more. We must die to become more. Jesus teaches us this in John 12:24: “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” 

Jesus’ death led to our justification, it brought many sons to glory, and His resurrection is the signal that God accepted it. And, as the Apostle says in another place, “For if we have been unitedwith him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his… Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him (Romans 6:5, 8).” According to Paul, the resurrection is the foundation for our sanctification too. He concludes the section with, “So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11).” 

The “Already” and the “Not Yet” of Resurrection

We can put on immortality now. Usually, when we talk about the resurrection, we only talk about it in terms of doctrine. It is the foundation for our sanctification. That is the “Already” aspect of the Gospel. You can act believingly (making up words again) on the Truth today and receive it for yourself. However, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul is mostly dealing with the”Not Yet” aspect of the resurrection. “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Those are not questions about the metaphoric (yet very real) implications of the resurrection for today but about the glorious body of the future. The early church, because they were not infected by “Scientism” had questions for Paul about “their” resurrected body. They asked the kind of questions we fail to ask today.

Recovering Our Curiosity for the Resurrection

Why are we so incurious about our future bodies? One possible answer is that resurrections are biologically impossible. Cells decay and convert back to carbon. Science. And these days Science always means settled science. Maybe we don’t want to be thought fools, so we don’t ask. Maybe we should ask in a non-mocking way, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Praise be to Christ we are told by Paul in Philippians that Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself (Philippians 3:21).” One day we that trusted in Christ will experience our own resurrection. Then all the Saints in Light will put on immortality. Even so come Lord Jesus, even so come.

Jump on over and read Putting On Immortality Part 2

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Putting on Immortality Part 3

Finally, thanks for reading Putting on Immortality. Read Putting on Immortality Part 2

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