But some one will say, How are the dead raised? and with what body do they come?
The doubters at Corinth did not attack the resurrection directly; they raised a difficulty about it, asking how it could work and what the risen body would be like. Paul calls the questioner a fool — and then answers the question anyway, from a seed.
Commentators are careful here. The same question can come from honest wonder or from settled unbelief.
Let us not think it is necessarily a fool's question, to be silenced, when it rises to our lips without our meaning it: "With what kind of body do they come?" The apostle blames it only as the question of a sceptic, and we know that some of these Corinthians were sceptics. But he uses the chance to give an answer that meets other thoughts than these. It cannot be folly to pay attention to his answer.
The people asking it in Corinth thought a bodily resurrection was too crude. They dressed up their doubt as progress.
Some among the professed disciples at Corinth had intellectual doubts and difficulties about the resurrection of the body. It seems they considered it too crude and materialistic an idea, and they posed as pioneers of a more spiritual view of the subject. They were, in reality, fools.
The rebuke targets a method, not curiosity: rejecting what God has revealed because no one can explain how it works. William Kelly first asks the objector what he knows about the life inside a seed.
If he knows nothing about this even in the seed, is he in a position to object about the body? You can reason soundly from what you know, but not from what you do not know. If one rejects whatever is not understood, where is such unreasonable doubt to end? Not only is all spiritual being swept away, but one must begin by denying the existence of oneself and every other being.
Paul answers the first half of the question with a buried seed. Death does not block resurrection; it comes first.
Death, therefore, was no barrier to the resurrection — of course not its cause, but the thing that comes before it. There may be change, as shown afterwards, but no resurrection unless death comes first. There is dissolution in death, but not annihilation. There is disorganisation in death before another mode of being. But the seed dies as a seed so that it can pass into a plant.
For a sincere heart, the difficulty ends the moment God comes into it. The seed also carries a second lesson: what comes up is still itself.
Still, Paul goes on to point to what God does in nature with seed buried in the earth. That is enough to teach an ordinary mind. In its rising, after death, He gives it a body as it pleases Him; but note, "to each of the seeds its own body" (v. 38) — not a body of a completely different kind. Identity is retained. "God" is the sufficient answer for a simple and sincere soul, though this may not be enough for a "fool."
Later in the chapter Paul answers the second half of the question with four short contrasts. Every one of them keeps the same subject: the same body.
The body that is sown in the grave carries the marks of corruption, dishonour, weakness, and soulishness — the word "natural" is more literally "soulish", fitted for the animal soul rather than the spirit. It is raised in incorruption, glory, power, and a spiritual body rather than a soulish one. The identity is preserved, as witnessed by the words, repeated four times, "It is sown … it is raised." But the condition it is found in is completely different in kind. This answers the question, "With what kind of body do they come?"
The word "spiritual" can sound like it means thin, vague, or without substance.
A spiritual body, or a body of glory, is a body, and a body is substance, and spirit is not substance. It means that we shall have bodies suited to the Glory, in contrast to our present bodies which are suited to the earth, or natural life... The contrast is not between what is material and what is unsubstantial, but between what is natural and what is spiritual.
This body is not a repair of the old one. It goes beyond anything the first man had.
The "spiritual body" is therefore not merely in contrast with the body stamped with mortality and corruption. It is a body in contrast also with Adam's, when he came fresh with vigour and beauty from under the creating hand of God. Even then, Adam was "from the earth, a man of dust"; in resurrection we put on "the image of the man of heaven"... It is no restoration of the old creation that has passed away: it is a new creation.
- Motive — The same words can come from honest wonder or from unbelief. Paul rebukes the sceptic, but he still answers for everyone else.
- Method — Objecting to what you cannot explain is not reason but folly. The doubter cannot explain a seed either.
- Seed — Death is not the barrier to resurrection. It is the step before it: the body breaks down, but it is not destroyed.
- Identity — God gives each seed its own body. What is sown is what rises, but in a completely different condition.
- Body — "Spiritual" does not mean immaterial. It means a real body suited to glory, beyond even Adam's before the fall — a new creation, not a repair.
Fool; what *thou* sowest is not quickened unless it die.
Someone at Corinth has just asked Paul how the dead are raised, and what sort of body they will have. His first answer is not an argument. It is a rebuke, followed by something every farmer knows: a seed only lives by dying first.
The apostle does not treat the question as honest curiosity.
The one who raises such questions proves that he is a fool. He measures the all-powerful and all-wise God by human limitations, and he rejects everything that he cannot explain.
These people prided themselves on being clever, which made the rebuke sting.
"You foolish person!" he says. "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies." So the strongest possible censure falls on these Corinthians. And it falls in the very matter they prided themselves on. Human reasoning is poor indeed outside its own sphere.
The verse sets an order that cannot be reversed.
"You foolish person! What you" (not God merely, but the feeble objector) "sow does not come to life unless it dies." Death, therefore, was no barrier to the resurrection — of course not its cause, but the thing that comes before it. There may be change, as shown afterwards, but no resurrection unless death comes first. There is dissolution in death, but not annihilation. There is disorganisation in death before another mode of being.
Here the word "dies" describes something that does not stop existing. That is the whole force of the picture.
You put seed into the ground, and in the language of Scripture, it does not come to life unless it dies. Does the living germ become extinct to produce the harvest? Where would the harvest be if it did? Yet Scripture speaks of this twice over as "death." Think about it a little, and the likeness to the death of man is nearer than it seems. Part of the seed falls away as waste and decays. The germ inside leaves its tent behind. Far from dying out in the process, it springs up into the plant.
This also answers the second question: what body will the dead have? What comes up is not a copy of what went down.
Here the same comparison appears, but with a different application. Someone sows a seed in the earth. It keeps its identity, yet it comes up with a very different body. The acorn is buried, but the oak springs up. Every seed has what we may call its own special resurrection body in which it comes forth. The bearing of this on the point before us is plain. The dead body of the believer goes into the grave. At the resurrection it will come up very different, yet it keeps its identity.
The apostle points the objector to his own actions. He sows; he does not give the life.
They sowed nothing but bare grain, whether wheat or something else. But they knew quite well that the grain would not stay grain. It would soon be clothed with a body very different from the one it had when sown in the earth. God gave it the body He had willed for it, and to every seed its own kind of body. So what was sown kept its individuality all through, despite its breaking down. God has stamped things everywhere with His own stamp of resurrection. Things are in His hand. You may call the process natural because you are so familiar with it. It takes place under your eyes all the time. All the same, God is working in it and through it.
The illustration was not new. Jesus had already used the buried grain of Himself.
Nature itself gives us a striking comparison here, one our Lord Himself had already used. He said, "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." By that He was pointing to His own death and resurrection.
- Sown in folly. Unbelief asks "how?" and gets a rebuke back. It measures an all-powerful God by human limits, and it throws out whatever it cannot explain.
- Sown in death. Death does not block resurrection; it comes just before it. Dying breaks the body down, but it never ends it, and it never causes the life that follows.
- Sown, not extinguished. The buried seed shows what death means: the outer husk decays, the life within moves on and springs up.
- Sown as itself. Identity survives the grave. The acorn goes into the ground and the oak rises, and God gives every seed its own body.
- Sown by Christ first. The grain falls into the earth, dies, and bears much fruit. That was the Lord's picture of His own death and resurrection, and the same picture explains ours.
And what thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain it may be of wheat, or some one of the rest
A scoffer at Corinth asked how the dead could rise, and what sort of body they would have. Paul answers with a handful of seed — the one thing every farmer knows and every sceptic overlooks.
The word "sow" carries the whole picture: the seed goes into the ground and dies before anything grows. One commentator sees here a rebuke to those who doubt God's clear word because they cannot explain how it works.
Man's searching mind is sharply rebuked, and never more than here. God's revelation is clear, yet people doubt or deny it because they do not understand the process — the how of resurrection, or the nature of the risen body... Death, then, was no barrier to resurrection; it was not the cause of it, but what comes before it. There may be change, as shown later, but there is no resurrection unless death comes first. Death breaks the body down, but it does not wipe it out of existence.
What goes into the ground looks nothing like what comes up. Yet the two are not separate things.
A seed is sown in the earth, yet, though its identity is kept, it comes up with a vastly different body. The acorn is buried, but the oak springs up. Every seed has what we may call its own special resurrection body in which it comes forth... A believer's dead body is laid in the grave: in the resurrection it will come up vastly different, yet with its identity kept.
Paul calls what the farmer handles "a bare kernel" — older translations say "a bare grain." It is plain, and it carries nothing of what the harvest will wear. Yet the process is not as ordinary as familiarity makes it seem.
They sowed only bare grain, whether wheat or any other, but they knew quite well that the grain was not going to stay grain. It would soon be clothed with a body very different from the one it had when it was sown in the earth. God gave it the body He had willed for it, and to every seed its own kind of body. So the individuality of what was sown was kept all the way through, despite the breaking down... You may call the process natural because you are so familiar with it. It happens in front of your eyes all the time. All the same, God is working in it and through it.
The verse divides the work between two parties, and the larger share is not ours. That division silences the objector, who measured God by what a man can do.
The one who raises such questions proves himself a fool. He measures the all-powerful and all-wise God by human limits, and rejects everything he cannot explain... You do the sowing, says the Apostle, "But God gives it a body as it has pleased Him." Man can put the seed in the ground, but man cannot make it grow — still less can man give it a body according to his own pleasure.
Some have used this verse to argue that the buried body is not the body that rises. One writer answers that a picture drawn from nature is not meant to be pressed at every point.
Like every other figure taken from nature to set out divine truths, it is not to be taken as presenting the truth in every detail. It is a very striking figure of death and resurrection. So are day and night, summer and winter, or better, spring and autumn... when the Spirit of God comes to the reality itself, we find that the thing which is sown is the thing which is raised, only in another character.
A farmer sows in hope. The believer stands on something firmer than hope.
The farmer may sow in hope; but although the earth is in covenant with its Creator, both seed and harvest may be struck by His hand in judgment. But the believer's hope is open to no doubt. It rests on the sure word of promise, and it is already proved true in Him who is its firstfruits. God's saints will rise in the bodies He has prepared for them. That is far more certain than the return of the tender ear in spring.
- Sown, not lost. Paul calls burial sowing. Death is not the end of the seed, but what must happen before anything grows.
- Sown bare. What goes down is plain grain, carrying none of the glory it will wear when it comes up.
- Sown by man. Our part stops at putting it in the ground; giving it a body belongs to God, according to His pleasure.
- Sown as itself. Each seed keeps its identity through the change. Wheat comes up wheat, and the person raised is the person who died.
- Sown in certainty. The harvest rests on God's promise and on Christ already risen, making it surer than the return of spring.
and God gives to it a body as he has pleased, and to each of the seeds its own body.
An objector has just asked how dead bodies can rise, and what kind of body they will have. Paul answers with a handful of seed and one short sentence about God — and that sentence carries the whole hope.
The objector wants the method explained before he will believe. The verse answers with God Himself.
"God gives it a body as He has chosen" (1 Cor. 15:38) is enough for faith when resurrection is in question.
Paul answers sharply. The doubt behind the question refuses what God has said, because the "how" is beyond it.
This is how sharply the apostle rebukes man's curious mind. He does it above all here, where people doubt or deny God's clear revelation because they cannot grasp the process — the how — of the resurrection, or the character of the risen body. Yet God does not hold back the weightiest information. The apostle's reproof here would cut deep into those who prided themselves on their wisdom, and were still foolish enough to overlook the pictures of nature right before their eyes.
A seed goes into the ground before anything grows. That order matters.
"Fool, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies." The sower here is not God only, but the feeble objector himself. So death was no barrier to the resurrection. Death is not its cause, of course, but the step that comes before it. There may be change, as he shows later, but no resurrection unless death comes first. Death breaks the body down, but it does not wipe it out. It takes the body apart before another way of being begins.
The second half of the verse rules out a swap. What God gives back is unlike what was sown, yet it is the same creature.
You sow a seed in the earth. It keeps its identity, yet it comes up with a very different body. Bury an acorn, and an oak springs up. Every seed has what we may call its own special resurrection body in which it comes forth. The bearing of this on our question is plain. A believer's dead body goes into the grave. In the resurrection it will come up very different, yet with its identity kept.
God set this order at creation.
God has an order in creation, that every seed produces out of its death its own kind… The form that God gave it in creation is preserved (ver. 38) — "to each kind of seed its own body." Death does not destroy the seed's identity.
"As He has chosen" puts the shape of the risen body wholly in God's hands.
In resurrection, then, God decides the character of the body. He can clothe it with a glory greater than any we have yet imagined. Philippians 3:21 tells us our body shall be fashioned like that of the Lord Jesus in resurrection. In that body, material barriers were no obstacle to Him. In that body He went up to heaven. Time and space were no obstacle at all. Each body will also have its own distinct glory, just as every person on earth today is different. Such is the marvel of the ways of our God!
The last words of the verse touch something very personal about the coming day.
The last clause of verse 38 matters. It bears on the question of personal identity, and so on the children of the resurrection recognising one another in the coming day. Each grain of God's true wheat will have its own body, but not in the same measure of increase.
Some press the seed picture further. They imagine that some germ of the old body survives death and comes back glorified. One writer answers that idea with this verse.
1 Corinthians 15:38 answers it: "God gives it a body as He has chosen." What is sown in corruption is raised in incorruption, and what is sown in dishonour is raised in glory. If we pretend to go further, we go beyond what is written… Scripture draws no such detailed comparison as this notion looks for… As has been said of old, we are to bring ideas from Scripture, not to it.
- Sown — nothing you plant lives unless it first dies. Death is not the barrier to resurrection but the step before it. It breaks the body down without wiping it out.
- Given — the body is a gift, not an achievement. God gives it as He has chosen. For faith, that is a fuller answer than any account of the "how".
- Own — "to each kind of seed its own body" keeps you you. Bury an acorn and an oak rises: a far different body, the same life.
- Glory — God is at no loss for splendour. Each risen body will have its own glory, shaped like the body of the Lord Jesus.
- Enough — the verse tells us that God does it, not how. Press past what is written and you leave faith behind for guesswork.
Every flesh [is] not the same flesh, but one [is] of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another [flesh] of birds, and another of fishes.
Some Corinthians doubted the resurrection and asked how the dead are raised, and with what body they come. Paul answers by pointing at the world they could already see, starting with the variety of flesh God has made.
Paul's readers assumed that if the dead rise, they must rise in a body like the one they have now. Creation itself says otherwise.
The apostle shows how empty it is to assume that the risen body must be in a condition like its present state. He proves it from the variety of flesh in the animal world we see now. There is no monotony in God's creation. The flesh is plainly different in men, in cattle, in birds, in fishes. How unreasonable then, if that is the ground taken, to assume the body must be at all like what it is now! Resurrection is a condition so distinct from this one. It makes far more sense to expect the most striking difference.
The word "flesh" has several meanings in the New Testament. Mixing them up causes trouble. Here it has the plainest one — physical tissue.
We meet with flesh in its ordinary sense, as the flesh of men and of animals (1 Cor. 15:39). We read of "flesh and blood," describing man in his present state of bodily existence... Then the human race is called "all flesh"... Besides all this we meet with the term flesh in a moral sense, describing the evil nature within us (Gal. 5:17)... Failing to pay attention to the different uses of this term flesh may lead to great confusion.
The real issue behind the question was never biology. It was whether God can do it, and whether He may choose the form.
Paul answers them in a way that convicts them of not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God. The Lord answered the Sadducees in the same way. It is altogether a question of the power of God. Is God able to reorganise the body? Even if it has dissolved and actually returned to dust, can He re-form it? And if He is able to reorganise the body, can He not, in reorganising it, make it such a body as pleases Him?
But freedom in the form does not mean a different creature. The seed shows why.
When the seed rises after death, He gives it a body as it pleases Him. But notice, "to each of the seeds its own body" (v. 38) — not a body of an entirely different kind. Identity is kept. "GOD" is the answer that is enough for a simple and sincere soul, though it may not satisfy a "fool."
The verse says something about origins as well as endings. The four kinds Paul lists are not stages on one ladder.
Paul supports Genesis 1 here. There is no transition from the lower order to the higher. That is no more possible than a move from non-living matter to living matter.
These fixed kinds also settle a modern question about where man came from.
In the same way, men, beasts, birds and fishes are wholly distinct in their type of flesh. This shows that God can give whatever flesh He pleases. The verse also refutes any theory of animals developing into humans.
Paul is driving toward one answer: a body that is the same body, yet belongs to another order.
Corruption, dishonour, weakness and soulishness mark the body that is sown in the grave. Let us be allowed to coin that word "soulish," for that is the more literal sense of "natural" — something fitted for the animal soul rather than the spirit. It is raised in incorruption, glory, power, and as a spiritual body rather than a soulish one. The words repeated four times show that the identity stays the same: "It is sown… it is raised." Still, the condition it is found in is of an entirely different order. This answers the question, "With what body do they come?"
- Variety. God already makes flesh of four kinds. A risen body unlike this one is just what His creation leads you to expect.
- Vocabulary. Here "flesh" means physical tissue, the stuff of men and animals. Elsewhere the word means the evil nature within us.
- Power. The question is not about biology but about God. Can He re-form a body that has returned to dust? And may He shape it as He pleases?
- Identity. A new form does not mean a new person. Each seed gets its own body, and the risen body is the body that was sown.
- Order. Sown soulish, raised spiritual: the same body in a wholly new condition. That is the answer to "with what body do they come?"
And [there are] heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies but different is the glory of the heavenly, different that of the earthly
This verse sits inside Paul's answer to a doubter's question about the resurrection body. He points to the world God has already made — first to flesh, then to the sky, where two classes of bodies each carry their own glory.
One assumption sits under the objection: a raised body must be much like the body we have now. The variety of flesh in creation breaks it.
The apostle shows how empty it is to assume that the body in resurrection must be like the present one. Even flesh in the animal world as it now stands is so varied. There is no monotony in God's creation. The flesh is plainly different in men, cattle, birds, and fishes. How unreasonable, then, to assume on that ground that the body must be like what it is now, when resurrection is so different a condition!
The heavenly bodies here are the ones anyone can see with their own eyes.
If anyone denies that heaven is any place for bodies, he only has to look up. He will see the huge number of heavenly bodies — sun, moon, stars, planets — that shine there. Earthly bodies are those connected with earth, and of course there is a difference. And among the heavenly bodies, the sun, the moon and the stars each has a glory that no other shares.
Some have read "heavenly bodies" as angels, others as the saints in heaven. Kelly rejects both.
There is no need to suppose angels are meant... and to bring in saints here, as Chrysostom and his followers do, is to confuse the things being compared... Those who make the glory only heavenly or only earthly are quite wrong. Both will be found in the kingdom of God.
Scripture uses "glory" for what marks a person or a thing out as distinct.
Glory is often used to express the proper distinction of a person, or of a company: as the glory of the Father, Rom. 6:4; of the Word, John 1:14; of the children of God, Rom. 8:21; and even of inanimate bodies, heavenly and earthly, 1 Cor. 15:40-41. Each has its own glory, and that glory cannot pass to another. If it were transferred or shared, it would lose the very thing that makes it distinct.
Many read the sun, moon and stars as degrees of glory among the saved. Darby reads the comparison another way.
Different also were the glories of heavenly and earthly bodies: star differed from star in glory. I do not think this passage refers to degrees of glory in heaven. It shows instead that God distributes glory as He pleases. Heavenly glory and earthly glory are, however, plainly put in contrast, for there will be an earthly glory.
The line between heavenly and earthly is not just a picture borrowed from the sky. A day is coming when both glories will stand together.
Heaven and earth will no longer stand divided and opposed through sin. It will no longer be only grace in Christ shining out from heaven so that people may believe... Instead, heaven and earth will together form one harmonious stage, each with the glory that suits it.
There is a right way and a wrong way to ask about all this.
He makes us realise how many different spheres God works in, and how completely He is Master of the creature everywhere... It is good to ask about all this with reverence, and to see what God allows us to see of His ways and workings. But how foolish to dictate to Him how He shall work! How foolish to question His power to do what is beyond us even to understand!
- Look up. The objector asks what kind of body the dead could have; the answer is a sky already full of bodies God made and lit.
- Look around. Men, beasts, birds and fish show there is no monotony in God's creation. So the risen body need not look like the present one.
- Look closer. Each body carries its own glory. That glory cannot pass to another without losing what makes it distinct.
- Look higher. Darby takes the sun, moon and stars not as degrees of glory in heaven, but as proof that God gives glory as He pleases.
- Look ahead. Both glories are real and both are coming. God's kingdom will hold heaven and earth together, each keeping its own glory.
one [the] sun's glory, and another [the] moon's glory, and another [the] stars' glory; for star differs from star in glory.
The Corinthians had asked how God raises the dead, and with what body they come. Paul answers by pointing at the sky: sun, moon and stars all shine, yet no two shine alike.
Paul does not explain how resurrection works. He points instead at a creation already full of God's variety.
The apostle shows how empty it is to assume that the body in resurrection will be in a condition like its present one. He argues from the variety of flesh even in the animal world as it is now. There is no monotony in God's creation.
The heavens carry the argument further. If God works this freely in what we can see, it is strange to lay down rules for what we cannot.
He makes us realize how many different spheres God works in, and how fully He is Master of the creature everywhere. The glory of the heavenly bodies is a very different thing from the glory of the earthly ones, and yet each has a distinct glory of its own... It is good to look into all this with reverence, and to see what God allows us to see of His ways and workings. But how foolish to tell Him how He should work, or to question His power to do what is beyond us even to understand!
In this verse "glory" names the distinct character that belongs to each thing God has made.
Glory is often used to express the proper distinction of a person, or of a group... and even of lifeless bodies in heaven and on earth, 1 Cor. 15:40-41. Each has its own glory, and that glory clearly cannot be passed on. If it could be handed over or shared, it would lose the very force that makes it distinct.
Read together, the comparisons answer the objector on four fronts at once.
The four points shown by these pictures from nature are: 1, the same person; 2, a changed form; 3, difference from one another; and 4, perfection of kind, or glory. Taken together, they are the apostle's general reply to the questions put in the objector's mouth in verse 35.
Commentators differ here. Several hold that the verse is not ranking the redeemed at all. It shows God's freedom.
The glories of heavenly and earthly bodies also differed: star differed from star in glory. I do not think this passage refers to degrees of glory in heaven. It refers to God giving out glory as He pleases.
A second writer agrees, and adds that the glory belongs to both spheres.
The aim is not to prove different degrees of glory in heaven, as many writers old and new have thought. It is to contrast the risen state with the natural one... Those are quite wrong who make the glory only heavenly or only earthly. Both will be found in the kingdom of God.
Others read the differing stars as a picture of the places saints will hold in the coming kingdom.
The stars are distant lights. They shine in other spheres, and have little to do with this system, except that we can see them twinkle. "Star differs from star in glory." So it will be in the coming kingdom of the Son. He will shine out in living and everlasting brightness... while each saint will shine in the sphere a righteous Judge allots to him, as a reward for service during the dark night of His absence. This thought should stir us to a keener and stronger pursuit of likeness to our absent Lord.
One writer warns against a common misuse of the verse.
A mistake is often made about the application here. He is not speaking of the difference in degrees of glory among those who are to be raised from the dead. He is speaking of the difference between the body sown and the body raised, as is plain from what follows. It is quite true that there will be different degrees of glory, but that is not his topic here.
Wherever differences exist, they never mean that anyone is short of joy.
The vessels that hold the blessing may not all be the same size. But the little cup will be as full as the big one, and filled with the same joy and blessing.
- Question — The objector asks what body the dead will have. Paul answers with creation, where flesh differs from flesh and light from light.
- Variety — The differing glories show God at work in many spheres, Master of the creature everywhere. It is foolish to tell Him how He should work.
- Distinction — "Glory" here is the distinction proper to each thing. It cannot be passed on; if it could, it would lose the force that makes it distinct.
- Dispute — Commentators differ. Some read the stars as proof that God gives glory as He pleases, contrasting the risen state with the natural. Others read them as the spheres allotted to saints in the coming kingdom.
- Fullness — Whatever the differences, the small cup is as full as the large one, filled with the same joy. So the picture calls for pursuit of Christ, not comparison with each other.
Thus also [is] the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruptibility.
The chapter has been answering a question about what sort of body the dead will have, and the answer is a picture from the field: something real goes into the ground, and what comes out belongs to another order. Where the ESV says "perishable" and "imperishable," older translations — the ones the writers below use — say "corruption" and "incorruption."
The argument rests on farming. What goes into the soil and what comes up out of it are clearly linked, yet no one would confuse them.
Here we have the same picture again, used in a different way. A seed is sown in the earth. It keeps its identity, yet it comes up with a very different body. The acorn is buried, but the oak springs up. The point is plain. The dead body of the believer is laid in the grave. At the resurrection it will come up very different, yet it will still be the same body.
Notice the small word the verse repeats. It is not one body swapped for another, but one body carried through a change.
Scripture is careful to show that resurrection is real. It stresses that the very thing sown is the thing raised, though it is raised in new conditions. So we read, "It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption." The identity stays, because the it that is sown is the it that is raised. Corruption is where man in the flesh ends up, and the body is in that state when it goes into the grave.
This also rules out a common misunderstanding of the glorified body as something manufactured elsewhere and handed to us.
We must not conceive of our future glorified bodies as though they were a new and improved suit of clothes, already existing somewhere in heaven, and coming to us straight out of heaven. So thinking, we should find ourselves in collision with 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, where a certain identity is preserved between the body of humiliation which is put down into the ground and the body of glory that is raised up.
The apostle does not call this throwing a body away. He calls it planting — and a farmer plants because he expects a return.
The body of the believer is sown in corruption, but raised in incorruption. Sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. "Sown" is a word of triumph. It reminds us of the farmer, who sows to get a fitting harvest. The summoning shout of our Lord is still to come, and it will show His mighty triumph. Then what was sown in corruption, dishonour and weakness will rise in incorruption, glory and power. "Sown" is indeed a word of triumph when we lay our loved ones in the cold grave.
Decay is not a neutral fact of biology. It is the verdict of God on sin, running its course in the body — and yet that same ground becomes the place of harvest.
"It is sown in corruption." That is where the activity of natural life ends. Being mortal is only death put off. Ever since the first sin, the body of man has been doomed to return to dust. But the Lawgiver can make alive as well as kill... Judgment has sown what mercy is to reap... It is a sinful body, and decay is its badge of shame. But the Lord has bought it in righteousness, and He now entrusts it for a while to the safe keeping of the earth, which once was His own grave.
The word describes a condition, not a place. Writers also point out that older translations sometimes print it as "immortality."
This is the state that the bodies of the dead in Christ will have at the resurrection. Their bodies are decaying in their graves now. When the resurrection happens, and what is mortal has put on immortality, death will be swallowed up in victory! In Romans 2:7 and 2 Timothy 1:10 the same Greek word is used, and it should be translated 'incorruption' instead of 'immortality.'
That state is solid, not shadowy. Writers insist this is a real body you could touch, shaped like the risen Christ.
It is raised in incorruption, glory, and power. It is not a thin, airy body, as Chrysostom and Origen each said. It is a body filled with spirit life, as it once had animal life from the soul. It is not a spirit, but a spiritual body. It is not held in by earthly limits. It can pass through a closed door, or be touched. It can take food, though it needs none. We judge this from Him who rose as the great Head, pattern and power, and who said that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as they saw He had.
The phrase "the resurrection of the dead" here does not cover everyone alike. The words of the verse settle the question.
Look for a moment at 1 Corinthians 15. To show how clearly it is God's people and no one else who are raised here, we read, "It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory." How can you apply that to a general resurrection? "Raised in glory" — can you say that of the wicked? You cannot read one sentence about the resurrection here without seeing that it speaks of the resurrection of God's people. That is not to say others will never be raised. But these are in view, because they are redeemed and have life in Christ.
- Sown — burial is not throwing away but planting; the farmer's word turns a grave into a place of hope.
- Corruption — decay is God's sentence on sin running its course, and the body returns to dust. That is the honest state of what goes in.
- Identity — the it that is sown is the it that is raised; the acorn and the oak are one life, so no one is replaced.
- Incorruption — what comes up is a real body, not a ghost: touchable, free of earthly limits, patterned on the risen Christ.
- Harvest — judgment sowed the body, mercy will reap it, and this harvest belongs to those who are Christ's; no one is "raised in glory" without redemption.
It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
Paul answers a blunt question here: what kind of body comes out of the grave? Verse 43 gives two of his four contrasts, and each one starts with the dead body and ends with God's work.
Paul does not call it a burial. He picks a word from the farm, and that word carries the hope.
The word "sown" is a triumphant word. It reminds us of the farmer, who sows to get a suitable harvest. We still wait for the summoning shout of our Lord to show His mighty triumph. Then what was sown in corruption, dishonour and weakness will rise to a condition of incorruption, glory and power. The word "sown" is indeed a triumphant word when we commit our loved ones to the cold grave.
The first half of the verse does not flatter us. One writer shows how much human pride goes into the grave with the body.
The body of the Christian is sown in dishonour, for all man's glory is brought down into dishonour in the dust of death. What has a man to boast of when his body lies in corruption in the grave? This is the end of all man's pride and distinctions among men.
Corruption describes a physical process. Dishonour goes deeper. Even the grand tombs of the rich prove the point.
If corruption expresses the effect of a mortal condition, dishonour is a confession of its moral degradation. Our bodies are bodies of humiliation, and the grave is their hiding-place of shame. Human pride may refuse to admit this. Princes who had gold try in vain to keep up a shadow of their rank in the grand tombs they build for themselves. But the worm is still their brother.
The verse does not stop at dishonour. One writer ties glory to righteousness, and a believer's death to what he confessed all his life.
But if sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. The death of a believer is the seal of his lifelong confession as a sinner and a worm. His resurrection will be the completion of his hope as a partaker, in Christ, of the righteousness of God. Glory is the natural ornament of righteousness, as dishonour is the inseparable consequence of sin.
One writer describes both changes in the body, and traces them back to Christ, who went this road first.
The way the body shows itself is completely changed — from dishonour, decline and humiliation, to "glory," a dignity and beauty impossible in our present bodily state. And the weakness of the vessel, which often sinks into utter helplessness in old age, will give place to a "power" we have not yet imagined. Christ was "crucified in weakness." He had taken a place lower than angels, who are mighty in strength. But God raised Him by His power, and gave Him in Manhood a place above angels. His bodily condition is now no barrier to the use of this marvellous power. So the capacity of our bodies will also be wonderfully changed.
Paul's repeated "it" holds the two halves of each clause together. What goes into the ground is what comes out.
The identity stays the same. The words show it, repeated four times: "It is sown … it is raised." Still, the condition it is in is of an entirely different order. This answers the question, "With what kind of body do they come?"
The raised body is not a ghost. One writer is careful to say what a "spiritual body" is not.
The body of the believer is sown in dishonour, corruption, and weakness: so all can see. What do we believe? It is raised in incorruption, glory, and power. It is not a merely airy body, but a body alive with spirit life, as it once was with animal life from the soul. It is not a spirit, but a spiritual body, not limited by earthly conditions.
This hope also settles a present question about our sins.
If we are believers, we are raised in glory. What is more, Christ Himself will come to bring us to Himself: "who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body." If Christ comes to fetch us and puts us in glory, what room is left to raise any question about our sins?
- Sown. Paul uses a farmer's word. Seed goes down expecting a harvest, so a Christian grave is a planting, not a disposal.
- Dishonour. The seed goes down in shame. The grave ends every human distinction and boast.
- Glory. The harvest comes up in glory, the fitting ornament of righteousness, as dishonour was the companion of sin.
- Power. Weakness gives way to power. Christ went first: crucified in weakness, raised by the power of God.
- The same "it." Four times Paul says "it is sown… it is raised." The body that goes down comes up: same identity, new condition.
It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual [one].
Paul has been answering a skeptic's question about the kind of body the dead will have. Here he sets two conditions of the believer's body side by side: the one laid in the grave, and the one God raises.
Paul says "sown… raised" four times. The body that goes down is the body that comes up — but not in the same condition.
The body sown in the grave bears the marks of corruption, dishonour, weakness and soulishness. We coin that last word because "natural" here is more literally "soulish" — something fitted for the animal soul rather than the spirit. It is raised in incorruption, glory, power, and a spiritual body rather than a soulish one. The body keeps its identity, as the words repeated four times show: "It is sown… it is raised." Yet its condition is of a different order altogether. This answers the question, "With what body do they come?"
The word behind "natural" comes from the Greek word for soul. It describes a person's moral state as well as the body.
The adjective translated "natural" — more exactly, "animal" — may present some difficulty when applied in this way, whether to a man's moral condition or to his body. So we think it well to note what the word points to. It points to that which, like the first Adam, lives because it has a soul, and not by the mighty energy of the Holy Spirit.
The other word in the verse, "spiritual," works the same way.
The soul-life now is, no doubt, a needed discipline for the spirit… The spiritual body changes this relation between spirit and soul. It puts the spirit fully in the governing place, and makes all conditions work in perfect subjection to it. That is the meaning of a spiritual body — not a body made of spirit, but a body marked by the spirit that dwells in it.
Some early writers pictured the raised body as thin air. The risen Christ rules that out. He could be touched, and He ate.
The body of the believer is sown in dishonour, corruption, and weakness: everyone sees that. What do we believe? It is raised in incorruption, glory, and power. It is not a thin or airy body, as Chrysostom and Origen each said. It is a body alive with spirit life, as it once was with animal life from the soul. It is not a spirit, but a spiritual body. It is not limited by earthly conditions. It can pass through a closed door, or be touched. It can take food, though it needs none. So at least we may judge from Him who rose as the great Head and pattern and power. He declared that a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as they saw He had.
Settling what the phrase means also settles what the raised body will do for us.
Once we know what "a spiritual body" means, many wrong guesses about it fall away. It is not the opposite of a material body. It is still material, for it comes — by divine power — from what is "sown" in the dust. But it is a body fitted, as never before, to be the servant of the spirit. It no longer ties the spirit to slow gains of knowledge through the senses. It no longer burdens the spirit with a frame that wears itself out and needs rest and repair. It can go with the spirit through the endless activities of a scene where there is no night, and no need of one.
The closing clause sets two statements together, and they do not stand on the same footing for us.
What is sown will never reappear in its original name and condition. Yet it keeps its identity. It is still the body of the man who occupied it when alive… The first of these two statements is a truism, and makes no real call on our faith. The second is a revelation which only faith can receive. It contradicts all natural experience and is as yet among the things not seen.
Paul's chosen verb is a farmer's word, and it changes how a burial feels.
The word "sown" is a triumphant word. It reminds us of the farmer, who sows to get a suitable harvest. One thing remains: the summoning shout of our Lord will display His mighty triumph. Then what is sown in corruption, dishonour and weakness will rise to a condition of incorruption, glory and power. The word "sown" is indeed a triumphant word when we commit our loved ones to the cold grave.
- Sown. Burial is seed-language: the body laid down is the body raised, its identity kept.
- Soulish. "Natural" means a body run by soul-life, like the first Adam — fitted to the soul, not to the spirit.
- Spiritual. The raised body is not made of spirit; it is governed by spirit, fully in subjection to it.
- Substantial. Christ risen is the pattern — touchable, able to eat, yet free of earthly limits.
- Seen by faith. Anyone knows a natural body exists. That a spiritual body exists is revelation, and only faith receives it.