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.
Thus also it is written, The first man Adam became a living soul; the last Adam a quickening spirit.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
But that which is spiritual [was] not first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual
Paul has just set two men side by side: Adam, made a living soul, and Christ, the life-giving Spirit. Now he gives the order in which God works. That order is not an accident. It explains why the natural comes first and why God's best comes last.
One writer shows why the first man is called "natural" and the last is called spiritual:
To understand it we must consider the contrast between the two Adams, the first and the last. The first was made a living soul, as Genesis 2 tells us. The last is of another order entirely. Though as truly Adam (that is, Man) as the first, He is a life-giving Spirit. The one, then, is "natural" or "soulish"; the Other, spiritual. We might have expected that the spiritual would take precedence of the soulish as to time. But it is not so, as verse 46 points out. The first Adam had a "natural" or "soulish" body (verse 44), which was "earthy." All who come from him are earthy too, since they belong to his order.
If God's purpose was always the spiritual, why did He not begin there? One writer answers by looking at what a sinful man passes on to his children:
Man has become sinful; he fell at once after his beginning. God has purposes of grace toward him. Yet it is still a settled fact that as a sinner he first begets sons in his own image. They have no connection with the divine counsels. They are the seed of a fallen and corrupted nature. If God in His mercy does not step in, man can only beget evil. So we find the line of the flesh first, and the line of the Spirit second. God does not beget until sinful man has first shown what his nature could produce.
Once the rule is stated, it can be traced backwards through story after story where the first son is passed over:
Cain, the first man born into the world, was set aside in favour of the second, Abel... Ishmael, the seed after the flesh, set aside in favour of Isaac, the seed according to promise. Esau, the profane despiser of the birthright, set aside in favour of Jacob... Saul, head and shoulders above the people, and their choice, judged and set aside for David the young man, but the "man after God's own heart."
In each case what came first looked stronger and lasted longer — and that appearance is part of the trial:
It is well to notice that what is after the flesh always succeeds at first, to put the faithful to the test. Cain and his doings come first, before we hear of the true seed. Ishmael, the apparent heir, came long before the birth of Isaac. Esau remained in the promised land, while Jacob was a fugitive. Saul was king before David, and for a long time Saul seemed to hold the title to God's power, while David did not resist him.
This order tells us something about God's purpose, not only about history:
Here a great principle stands revealed, and it marks all God's ways. Once we see it, we can see that it has marked them from the beginning. From the very start of man's history as a sinner, God shaped His dealings with men after this pattern. This shows that His raising up of Christ, His sending of Him as a sacrifice for sin, and so His bringing in of spiritual and heavenly blessings, was no afterthought. It was a settled purpose, formed before man's sad history began.
The same order repeats in each person. It puts everyone into one of two families:
Notice first how God, when teaching us about His Spirit, divides mankind into two vast families. We cannot be in both — we are all in one or the other. There is no place in between, since birth decides entrance into each of them. First comes the natural family. We all entered it when we were born into the world. Afterwards comes the spiritual family. Grace brought us into that one, when we were born again.
The order stops at two, and one writer explains why:
Again and again God makes it clear that His thought was first the natural, and then the spiritual, and that the second is what God had before Him. And so the Lord Jesus Christ is the last Adam, the great Head of a new race, humanity truly, but new and altogether according to God. So perfect is He that never to all eternity will there need to be a third; the second is the last.
The order ends in a likeness. One writer says when that likeness will be complete:
We were, and are, naturally the family of the first man, and bore his image (compare Gen. 5:3); we, as now in Christ, shall also bear the image of Christ in the day that is coming... it is the full and final likeness. That cannot come until Christ completes salvation and transforms our humble body into the likeness of His body of glory.
- First — tested. The natural comes first so that man's own nature shows itself fully, before God brings in anything of His own.
- First — displaced. Cain, Ishmael, Esau, Saul: the one with the natural claim is set aside again and again, so the pattern was visible long before Paul named it.
- First — deceptive. What is after the flesh succeeds early and looks like the winner. That delay tests faith.
- Second — planned. Christ was no afterthought; the order itself proves a settled purpose formed before man's history began.
- Second — final. The second Man is the last Adam, and there will never be a third; the order closes when we bear His image.
the first man out of [the] earth, made of dust; the second man, out of heaven.
Paul has been contrasting the resurrection body with the body we carry now. Here he traces the difference back to two men and two origins.
One writer separates where the first man came from and what he is made of:
Here we see a contrast: the material beginning and make-up of the first man, and the heavenly origin of the second... The first man is earthly in where he came from, and earthy in what he is made of. He is both of and for earth. The blessings of Paradise were suited to the nature his Maker had given him. He was not made for heaven.
"From heaven" is not a statement about where Christ happens to be now. It describes what He is, and it does so by naming where He is from:
"Of the earth, earthy" — the first phrase gives the cause that makes him what he is; the second gives the character itself. But the cause came from origin; and so with "out of heaven." It is characteristic, but because of the place of origin. He has not ceased to be that now. The words do not describe what He is now because He has gone to heaven. They describe His character, which comes from His origin. It belongs to His Person. He is so now because He cannot be otherwise: because His origin was such, He was so on earth. Not that He came from, but that He was from, and of, and ever is.
The wording varies between translations, and commentators note it without treating it as a difficulty:
Verse 47 names the two as the first and second man, and gives their further character as "out of the earth made of dust" and the "Lord out of heaven," (or perhaps "out of heaven" only).
One writer sets the verse in its run of three, then marks a limit:
There is origin, verse 47; character, verse 48; and destiny, verse 49; all in contrast between those under Adam and under Christ. The word "out of" for the Greek here may be a little too strong in English. It is even more so if it is taken to mean that the Lord brought His body out of heaven. That would go far to affect the reality of the incarnation, as Luke 2 shows. It is characterization by source.
Cain was born before Christ, and so were countless others. Yet Scripture calls Christ the second man:
Let us keep it clear in our minds that He is not only "last Adam," but also "the second Man." This second title shows that God counts no man between Adam and Christ. Cain was not the second man. He was only Adam reproduced, and so were all men in their various generations. But when Christ was born, He was not Adam reproduced. In the virgin birth, by the work of the Holy Spirit, that inherited line was broken. A new and original Man appeared, worthy of being called "the second Man."
The very name "second man" carries a verdict on the first:
The very fact of there being "a second man" proves that the first man had been set aside: for if the first man had proved faultless, then no place would have been sought for the second. The first man is a total wreck — an irreparable ruin.
But the setting aside is not the end of the story. God's way is not repair:
And why the Second Man? Because evil has come in and spoiled the glory of the first. And here too is a difference beyond words. If manhood is to be raised up again, it cannot be in the old condition only. There is no good in bringing back what was so soon lost, and which might therefore be so soon lost again! God never simply restores: He replaces the first with what is different from it and far better. Yet it is not the mere setting aside of man in judgment, but help, salvation for him, and "the Second Man is the Lord from heaven."
The two origins produce two races. One writer traces that into the believer's present life and future body:
We began our existence as part of the race of the man "made of dust." Now, through grace, we are joined to the Man "out of heaven." In the first condition we could only show the features of the first man. Now, by the power of the Spirit of God, we are able to show the features of the "second Man." We still bear the image of the first man in our bodies. But we shall yet bear the image of the "second Man" — the heavenly One. Our destiny is to be with Him and like Him forever at His coming again.
- Origin. The first man came from the earth and is earthy in make-up. The second is marked by where He is from — heaven.
- Character. "From heaven" says what Christ is, not just where He came from. His origin gives His Person its character, and it did so while He walked on earth.
- Limit. Do not stretch the phrase to mean His body came down out of heaven. That would undercut the reality of His birth as a man.
- Displacement. God counts no man between Adam and Christ, so Christ is the second. A second was needed because the first was set aside, not repaired. God replaces with something better, and does it to save.
- Destiny. Everyone belongs to one man or the other. We have borne the image of the man of dust. By the Spirit we show the second Man's features now, and we will bear His image at His coming.
Such as he made of dust, such also those made of dust; and such as the heavenly [one], such also the heavenly [ones].
The apostle has just set the first man and the second Man side by side — one of dust, one from heaven. Verse 48 draws out what follows. Each head has a family that shares his character, and every reader belongs to one race or the other.
The verse describes two lines of descent. Each takes its stamp from the head it comes from.
Here we have, first of all, the two heads contrasted: the earthy and the Heavenly. Next we have the two races. The earthy race comes from the earthy head, and the heavenly race comes from the heavenly Head. It is the old creation and the new; the old in Adam, and the new in Christ.
The verse turns on origin. Adam's origin explains the sentence God passed on him after the fall. The second Man's origin is the exact opposite.
As to origin, the first man, Adam, was of the earth, "made of dust," as one translation correctly puts it. So God said to Adam after the fall, "you are dust, and to dust you shall return." In contrast, the "second Man" is "out of heaven." So the "first man" had his origin in dust — earthy. The "second Man" came "out of heaven."
A race carries the character of its head. One writer names the traits that mark each family.
Adam was, and still is, continued in his descendants. In the same way Christ is continued in the family that comes from Him. "As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust" — fallen, sinful, ruined, lost, death-doomed, haters of God. And "as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven" — lovers of God, obedient children, holy, righteous, overcomers of the world, the antichrists, and the devil.
Much of chapter 15 looks ahead to resurrection, so it would be easy to read this verse as a promise. The tense of the sentence rules that out.
Let us not overlook this. We must wait for this perfection to be realized. But we do not have to wait to come under the headship of the last Adam, to be linked with the second Man. The end of verse 48 does not say that they shall be of heaven — it says they "are of heaven." We ARE heavenly. Is not that wonderful! Does it seem too wonderful? Are we inclined to shrink from it?
The first people told they were heavenly were far from model believers. One writer points to the real ground of their standing.
The union of the Christian with Christ is founded on the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. By the power of the Spirit he is even now united to Christ at the right hand of God. Is it not very striking that the apostle wrote this to the disorderly Corinthians? Every beginner takes a swipe at the Corinthians. They were indeed very faulty. Yet there are few believers now who are not far below the Corinthians. Yet these were the persons to whom the Holy Spirit addressed these words. If this had been said of the choicest saints on earth, one might have said — "Oh, yes, these are heavenly men." It does not, however, rest on personal merit. It is not a question of superior intelligence or of higher spiritual gifts. Of course, there ought to be intelligence, and there ought to be practical spirituality.
Verse 49 adds the image we shall bear. One writer separates what waits for that day from what God asks of us now.
We still bear the physical features of the "first man." Verse 49 assures us that we shall bear the physical features of the "second Man." We understand this to be the meaning of the word "image." We use the word physical on purpose. Ephesians 4 shows that we are to bear His moral features now. His characteristics are to be shown in us at the present time, while we wait to be conformed to His image.
This present standing shapes daily life.
So let us beware of trimming the truth down to suit our low walk. Behaviour that is low, fleshly, earthly and worldly does not suit those who are heavenly.
- Head. Two men stand at the head of two races — one made of dust, one out of heaven — and everyone descends from one or the other.
- Likeness. A race takes its character from its head. The earthy family is fallen and lost. The heavenly family loves God and obeys Him.
- Now. The verse says those of heaven "are" heavenly now, not "shall be" — the standing is present, not postponed to resurrection.
- Ground. The apostle wrote this to the disorderly Corinthians. It rests on union with Christ, not on merit, intelligence or attainment.
- Walk. What we already are decides how we live. Heavenly people are to show Christ's moral features now, and will bear His image in body later.
And as we have borne the image of the [one] made of dust, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly [one].
Paul has just set Adam and Christ side by side, and this verse draws the line from each head down to the family that comes from him. One commentator traces the logic word by word, and links our natural likeness to Adam back to Genesis:
Such as was the dusty one (Adam), such also the dusty ones (the race). Such as the heavenly One, such also the heavenly ones (Christians). Just as we bore the image of the dusty one, we shall bear also the image of the heavenly One. By nature we were, and still are, the family of the first man, and we bore his image (compare Genesis 5:3). Now that we are in Christ, we shall also bear the image of Christ in the day that is coming.
That verse is about Adam's son: "When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth" (Genesis 5:3, ESV). What Adam had become, he passed on.
The change described here is not only inward. It touches the part of us that still ages and dies:
Brought to Christ, we became the subjects of God's own workmanship, and we find ourselves moved out of the earthy and into the heavenly. That move, however, has not yet touched our bodies. We still bear the image of the earthy, so our bodies decay and remain under death and the grave. In resurrection we are to bear "the image of the heavenly." God will conform us to the image of His Son, not only in our characters, but in our very bodies.
Some old copies read "let us bear" instead of "we shall bear." That would turn a promise into a command. One writer backed the translators who kept the future reading:
In 1 Corinthians 15:49 the revisers have translated "we have borne," and they are right… Here too — and I have no doubt they are right — they have not simply followed the manuscript evidence to read "let us bear" for "we shall bear."
Read as a promise, the verse treats the coming likeness as settled. It even speaks of our present mortality as something already on its way out:
Looking at God's saints in Christ, Paul treats their mortal image as a thing already gone… Mortality is our condition here, but it is no longer our nature. We carry it as a burden that does not belong to us. Glory, not humiliation, is the proper home of the Christ who lives in us. As men, we were born into this world to die out of it again… But Christ has died, and is risen again, the Firstfruits of those who are asleep. And His death and life are ours also, by the grace of God. The harvest, then, will surely follow in its time.
There is one place in the Gospels where this image was put on display in advance — when Jesus was transfigured before three of His disciples:
In Christ we see the image of the heavenly that we shall wear in the coming glory… As He prayed, the disciples saw in the Person of Christ the earthly changed into the heavenly. Peter says, in effect: "We saw Him as a lowly Man. In an instant the garments of humiliation gave way to garments of glory. His face, that was more marred than any man's, became shining as the sun. We saw in Him the mighty power that, in 'the twinkling of an eye,' will change these bodies of humiliation into bodies of glory like His own."
The verse points forward, but it leaves something for today. One writer separates what waits for His coming from what should already show now:
While we still bear the physical features of the "first man," verse 49 assures us that we shall bear the physical features of the "second Man." We understand this to be the meaning of the word "image." … Ephesians 4 shows that we are to bear His moral features now. His characteristics are to show in us at the present time, while we wait to be conformed to His image.
Hope like that shapes what the heart wants:
Our hope is to be conformed to the image of God's Son in glory… Such is the desire, the object of hope in the soul. Now we are bearing the image of the earthy, but we hope to be made like Christ on high. "We know that when He appears we shall be like Him." A moral change is indeed worked in us now, but its effect is to produce the desire to be conformed to the image of God's Son in glory.
- Image inherited. We came into the world carrying Adam's likeness, just as Seth did. Nobody chose that family resemblance.
- Image transferred. Brought to Christ, we move out of the earthy family into the heavenly one. Our bodies are not changed yet.
- Image promised. "We shall bear," not "let us bear" — the verse states a future fact, not a duty we must achieve.
- Image previewed. While Jesus prayed, His disciples saw in Him the very glory we are to wear.
- Image expected. The likeness is coming, so His moral features should mark us now. The hope itself creates the desire.
But this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit God's kingdom, nor does corruption inherit incorruptibility.
Paul now says why the body must be changed: as we are, we cannot enter God's kingdom. That raises two questions — what is shut out, and which kingdom he means.
The verse names two states, the living and the dead, and shuts out both. One writer explains the words, and why a change of heart is not enough:
To have a title to God's kingdom, we must ourselves be born of God. To inherit it, in fact, we must be changed in form as well as in nature. "Flesh and blood" is a scriptural name for humanity while living; "corruption" is its name when dead. And God's saints are men, subject to the common lot of men, though Christ is in them and they are the Lord's… The point of this verse, and of the whole teaching of the chapter, is that man cannot be broken apart. In the Lord's own picture, a crippled or maimed body may enter into life. But a human spirit without a body has no place in God's kingdom, and no record in the Lamb's book of life. God's saints, then, whether dead or living, must undergo a further change than the conversion of their hearts to Him.
This is not a verdict on the body God made. It turns on what blood is for, and on the risen Christ's own words:
Paul does not seem to mean that flesh cannot inherit and blood cannot inherit, each on its own. He is speaking of the two together. The blood belongs to the present life. It carries change. It shows the need of constant food and renewal. A body that needs no renewal cannot need blood to renew it. So the Lord, risen from the dead, speaks of Himself as having flesh and bones, not flesh and blood. "A spirit does not have flesh and bones," He says, "as you see that I have"… He is not, of course, in the least implying that there is any evil in flesh and blood. That was the original creation, of which God pronounced that it was all very good; but it was good for its own sphere, not good for a higher one.
Many assume sin is the only obstacle, so that forgiveness settles everything. The barrier is wider, and it reaches the believer too:
Flesh and blood, not merely sin, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Corruption — and that is what we are — cannot inherit what is incorruptible… Death need not come to everyone, and still less need everyone actually decay. But flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of glory… This has to do with the body. It is in his body that man is mortal, even when he has eternal life and will live by Christ and with Christ. The power of God will form the saints, whether living or dead, for the inheritance of glory.
"The kingdom of God" does not always mean the same thing in Scripture. So which kingdom is closed to flesh and blood?
It simply means that man as he is here below cannot inherit God's kingdom. It does not mean the kingdom God will one day set up on earth, where converted Israel and converted nations will be the subjects. It means the kingdom of God on the other side of death. The kingdom on earth for a thousand years will be an earthly thing. The kingdom in this verse is the kingdom of God in glory.
Miss that distinction, and the verse would clash with the promise of an earthly reign:
Clearly the reference is to the heavenly side of the kingdom. We know from the prophetic Scriptures that men in flesh and blood will pass into the kingdom on its earthly side. So we need to be changed. Even Job in his day said, "I would wait, till my renewal should come" (Job 14:14; older translations read "till my change come").
The present body has its own use. One writer names that use and its limit:
Our bodies of flesh and blood are mortal and corruptible. They suit our present place of testimony, but not our eternal home with God in heaven. Verse 54 of this same chapter shows what the new bodies are like, the bodies that suit our being with Christ: they are incorruptible and not subject to death.
- Barred — "Flesh and blood" names us alive, "corruption" names us dead; both states are shut out of the kingdom of glory.
- Not evil — The problem is unfitness, not sin. Blood belongs to a life that needs constant renewal; the risen Christ has flesh and bones.
- Not enough — A converted heart is not the whole answer. The body is still mortal, so God must change it too.
- Which kingdom — This is the kingdom beyond death. It is not the coming earthly reign, which people in flesh and blood will enter.
- Changed — We cannot inherit as we are, so God's power will fit us for it: the dead raised, the living transformed.
Behold, I tell you a mystery We shall not all fall asleep, but we shall all be changed,
Paul has spent the whole chapter proving that the dead in Christ will rise. That leaves one question open: what happens to believers who are still alive when the Lord comes? He answers with a secret, and the claim is startling. Not every Christian will die, but not one will enter glory unchanged.
The word "mystery" here does not mean a puzzle. It points to something new that God has now made known.
The resurrection of just and unjust was a well-known Old Testament truth... People knew about the raising of the dead saints, and even about the raising of the wicked dead. But the change of the living saints was a truth God had never revealed. Up to this point He had not made it known. It was a New Testament truth, and this is exactly what a "mystery" means. It was one of those truths God kept secret in the Old Testament and has now revealed. It is not so much a thing that is hard to understand once stated, as a thing that was never made known before.
The previous verse says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. That is the pressure behind this one. Dying is not what disqualifies us; our present bodily condition is.
Flesh and blood, not merely sin, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Corruption (for such we are) cannot inherit that which is incorruptible... Death is conquered. Death does not have to come to everyone, and still less does everyone have to pass through decay. But flesh and blood cannot possibly inherit the kingdom of glory... and we shall be changed (a change equivalent to resurrection)... We see that this relates to the body; it is in his body that man is mortal, even when he has eternal life.
So the change is no lesser substitute for resurrection.
In Scripture, "sleep" is said of the body, not of the soul.
Scripture connects the thought of "sleep" with the body... Death has now lost its terrors for the Christian, so that Scripture can call it "sleep."
That some believers will never sleep at all says something about the death of Christ.
The Old Testament saints, like Job, did know of the resurrection of the dead. But they knew nothing of this great secret: that God will change the natural bodies of the living saints into spiritual bodies, without those saints going through death. What a proof of the mighty power of the death of Christ! It has so fully met the penalty of death for the believer that he can be changed into the image of the heavenly without going through death.
The verse divides believers into two groups over dying, then puts them back into one over changing. Writers press the word "all" against any idea that some believers go first and others later.
We shall not all "sleep" (i.e. die) but we shall all be changed, whether alive or dead at the moment when the Lord comes for His saints... We shall "all be changed," you notice, "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" — not in many, or at least several, different moments. That is what would happen if the church entered its glory by a partial rapture, or by a series of partial raptures.
This verse is not the whole picture.
If we only had this Scripture we should not know into what likeness we are changed, nor what would happen to us when we are changed. This then is the first step in the great event that leads to our being with Christ.
Paul writes "we," placing himself and his readers among those who might never sleep.
Grant that "we" is a representative word. It does not mean only the people he wrote to, but everyone standing in the same privileges. Still, will anyone say that the apostle or the Corinthian saints knew the moment would be put off until they had fallen asleep? Was it not meant, beyond all doubt, to keep them in simple, constant expectancy of the Lord?
- Secret. "Mystery" means a truth God kept hidden and has now revealed. Resurrection was already known. The change of living believers was not.
- Sleep. In Scripture "sleep" is said of the believer's body, and this secret says some will never sleep at all.
- Change. No one escapes the change, because flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom. What resurrection does for the dead, the change does for the living.
- All. One moment, one company: dead and living reach the same point together, not in stages.
- Soon. Paul says "we." That word keeps every generation of readers watching for the Lord, instead of counting on death.
in an instant, in [the] twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and *we* shall be changed.
Paul has been writing about the resurrection of the body. Verse 52 tells how fast the change happens, what signal starts it, and what the raised body will be like.
The word behind "moment" is not a vague word for "soon." One writer traces it back to its parts and sets it against the slow farming picture Paul used earlier in the chapter.
The Greek word for moment is the word from which we get the English word atom. The first letter, a, means "not", and temnō means "cut", so it's a division of time that cannot be further divided. It is a tiny piece of time, and that is how long this change will take. It might be helpful to put it alongside verses 35 to 38 where we get the sowing of the body. What is sown is bare grain, but what comes up is different. That is a process, and it takes quite a while between sowing and harvesting. Here we get the other side of the picture: the whole process fits into the shortest time possible.
The size of the work makes the speed more startling, not less. The wording also draws a line between the dead and the living.
The saints will be glorified sooner than the mind can count or the eye can see. The work is immense in itself, and it reaches every spot on the globe. It happens when the final call goes out to the heavenly host to leave the place where it has camped... Notice: the verse does not say that we shall rise then, nor that they alone are in view — "we" too shall be changed.
Paul writes to people living inside the Roman empire, where trumpet calls were an everyday sound. Several commentators read the phrase as a picture borrowed from army life.
The "last trump" is but a military allusion, neither more nor less. There were three trumpets for breaking up the camp among the Romans. At the first, they folded the baggage; at the second, they fell into rank; at the third, they started all together.
If that is the picture, the "last" trumpet is the one that says march. It marks a departure, not an ending.
The last trump was that which in its military sense stood for departure. It was the signal to march, and that is the thought here. God is taking us into another place, and at the last trump, which sounds for this, we shall be changed into a condition corresponding with that which is implied in it.
Because "last" sounds final, readers often tie this trumpet to the seventh trumpet of Revelation. One writer keeps three trumpets apart and gives the rule for doing it.
The trumpets in Revelation are a symbolic series that belongs to that book alone. They are judgments — the last three are even called "woes" — and the last of all brings in the closing scene of God's judgment... In 1 Corinthians 15 the reference is only to the saints raised or changed. The picture comes from army life: the final signal when the legion marches out of its old camp. It would be a mistake to mix either of these up with the blowing of the great trumpet in Isaiah 27, which gathers the chosen people of Israel into the land that is their inheritance. Each one must be read in its own context.
Commentators differ over what the trumpet covers. Darby held that this one is "simply that of the resurrection of the dead, not that of the change of the living." Others tie the one blast to both events.
The change takes one moment. That detail weighs against the idea that some believers go up ahead of others.
Notice that we shall "all be changed," "in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" — not in many different moments, or even in several. That is what it would be if the church were to enter its glory by a partial rapture, or by a series of partial raptures.
"Incorruptible" describes a body that can no longer decay — and the same person who was buried is the person who rises.
Scripture is careful to show that resurrection is a real thing. It stresses that what is sown is what is raised, though it is raised in new conditions... Decay is the end of man in his natural state, and that is the condition of the body when it goes into the grave. How different the Christian's body will be when it is raised, for then it will be incorruptible. People who are alive now have bodies that can decay. But when the dead are raised and the living are changed, their bodies will no longer be able to decay. They are of another order.
If the trumpet calls a camp to march, then the Christian's posture now is that of someone already packed.
The Christian is to be standing ready for the final trumpet call. He has already heard the call of the gospel. If he has truly answered it, he has separated himself from the world, packed his baggage, and is looking for the Saviour.
- Signal. The last trumpet is the blast that sends an army out of camp — a call to march, and not one of the judgment trumpets of Revelation.
- Speed. "Moment" means a slice of time that cannot be cut smaller; the slow sowing of verses 35–38 is compressed into an instant.
- Scope. From every spot on the globe, believers rise or are changed together — not in stages, not in groups.
- Substance. What is sown is what is raised: the same person, in a body of another order, no longer subject to decay.
- Stance. Baggage packed, separated from the world, listening for a call that could sound before you finish reading this sentence.
For this corruptible must needs put on incorruptibility, and this mortal put on immortality.
The verse states a necessity: the body we have now cannot enter glory as it is. Everything hangs on the little word "this" — the body that decays and dies is the very body that puts on what death cannot touch.
One writer defines the term, then shows how it lands on the dead and on the living:
The word immortality means not being liable to death, and in 1 Corinthians 15:53 it refers to the body. At the coming of the Lord the dead in Christ will be raised incorruptible, while the living Christians will put on immortality. It is the body that in death goes to corruption, and in resurrection puts on incorruptibility.
The word appears only three times in Scripture. Two of those are in this chapter. The third speaks of God Himself:
First, as to God Himself. He only has immortality, in the sense that it is inherent in Him, not bestowed, not acquired, but His, as in His own nature and being (1 Timothy 6:16). The other two cases (1 Corinthians 15:53-54) have to do with the saints alive on this earth when the Lord comes. They have mortal bodies, able to die and liable to death. Yet if the Lord comes, they will bypass death altogether, and mortality will put on immortality.
The need goes back to the previous verse. The problem is not just sin in us, but our whole present condition:
Flesh and blood, not merely sin, cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Corruption (for that is what we are) cannot inherit what is incorruptible. So the apostle now reveals plainly what will happen: all the saints will enjoy incorruptibility. Death is conquered. Death does not have to come upon all. Still less does everyone have to decay. But flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of glory.
A change of heart is not the same as a change of body:
To have a right to God's kingdom, we must ourselves be born of God. To inherit it, we must in fact change in form as well as in nature… So God's saints, whether dead or living, need more than the conversion of their hearts to Him. They must undergo a further change.
Paul does not say we drop the perishable body. He says it puts on something more. One writer draws out that contrast, using the older wording "corruptible" and "incorruption" where the ESV reads "perishable" and "the imperishable":
"For this corruptible must" — not just put off corruption, but "put on incorruption, and this mortal" must not just slip out of this mortal life, as people say, but "put on immortality."
This is why the desire of the believer is not simply to die. Death removes the body; the hope here adds to it:
He did not merely want to be unclothed and so escape present trials, blessed as that will be. He longed for the full blessing of having the new body. He was looking for the rapture. Then the bodies of living believers will become bodies of glory, without passing through death.
Commentators differ on whether the verse's two halves point to two groups. One writer takes them that way:
Verse 53 insists that it is "this corruptible" that must "put on incorruption"! That is, our present body is the one that must take on an altered condition. This no doubt refers primarily to those who have died, while "this mortal" refers to those still living, though subject to death. Putting on immortality means being clothed with what death cannot touch.
Others hold that both phrases describe the one unfit body from two angles:
I do not believe that 1 Corinthians 15:53 speaks of two classes. "This mortal" speaks of the body as joined in life to the soul. "Corruptible" is its nature when it is not kept alive. Neither state is fit for glory, where only an undying and incorruptible body belongs.
The change is not something a believer receives at death. It waits for one event:
Death is not swallowed up in victory when a Christian dies and goes to be with Christ; but when He comes, and the dead are raised, and the living changed. What was done individually in the case of Enoch and Elijah, will be done on a grand scale at His coming. All the living saints then will be changed, and will go to be with the Lord, without passing through death.
- Must — the need is not only moral but physical. Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, so conversion of heart is not enough.
- This — the same body is in view. Our present body takes on a new condition; it is not swapped for another.
- Put on — the language is of clothing, not discarding. Believers long not to be unclothed by death but to be clothed with a body death cannot touch.
- Body — immortality here means not being liable to death, and it applies to the body. God alone has it in Himself; to us He gives it.
- When — at the coming of the Lord, the dead raised and the living changed. Commentators differ. Do the verse's two halves name those two groups, or describe one unfit body twice?
But when this corruptible shall have put on incorruptibility, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall come to pass the word written Death has been swallowed up in victory.
This verse names a moment. It is the point where an old prophecy finally comes true. Two questions follow. When is death swallowed up? And who is covered by the words "the perishable" and "the mortal"?
The word "then" fixes an event. Commentators say it is not the moment a Christian dies. It is the moment of resurrection and change at Christ's coming. They also stress that the verse says put on, not merely put off.
"For this perishable body must" — not merely put off corruption, but — "put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must" not merely shed this mortal life, as people say, but "put on immortality." So "when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality" — clearly the glorified state — "then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'" Death is not swallowed up in victory when a Christian dies and goes to be with Christ. It happens when He comes, when the dead are raised, and when the living are changed.
One writer separates what is better for us from what is victory for Him.
To depart and be with Him, with the soul apart from the body, is "far better" than the present life. Yet that is not His victory. For the body it is the last experience of what sin brought in. His victory comes "when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality" — then, and not before, "shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'"
The two phrases are not repetition. Commentators read them as covering believers who have died and believers still alive when Christ comes.
Verse 53 insists that it is "this perishable body" that must "put on the imperishable"! That is, our present body is the one that must be brought into a changed condition. This no doubt refers first of all to those who have died, while "this mortal body" refers to those still living, though still subject to death. To put on immortality is to be clothed with what death cannot touch.
Why two words? Because a body can be in two states.
A living body is mortal, subject to death. A dead body is subject to corruption.
The saying Paul quotes comes from one place only. (Older translations of Isaiah 25:8 read "in victory"; the ESV has "He will swallow up death forever.")
Where is this saying written? In only one other place in Scripture. In Isaiah 25:8 you will find the passage that the apostle quotes: "He will swallow up death in victory."
In Isaiah the words stand beside Israel's deliverance. That setting fixes the timing.
The resurrection coincides with the deliverance of Israel, which itself will be "life from the dead" for the world (Rom. 11:15). So the first open stroke at death will be at this very time... It is when His reign over the earth is to begin, not when it ends.
Does death itself then stop existing? One writer answers with a picture.
The swallowing up of death in victory is not necessarily the destruction of death. Think of an enemy who has long been winning. He has laid his grim grip on the rightful subjects of some mighty prince. The prince's armies may swallow that enemy up in victory and set all his captives free — and yet the tyrant's life may be spared. He may even be spared to act as jailer to the prince's enemies. It is exactly so here. Death has held the bodies of God's beloved people in his grasp. At the coming of the Lord, the Prince of life, he will be forced to release every captive. Still death is not destroyed. For a thousand years longer it acts, so to speak, as the jailer of those unhappy ones who have lived and died in sin. They too will be raised in the resurrection of judgment, and then death itself will be destroyed.
The event is future, but the thanksgiving is not postponed.
Death itself, of course, is not yet swallowed up... But when "the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'" Then Christ's place, beyond everything that could hinder us, will be ours, even as to our bodies. Yet before these things happen, we can already say: "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
- Written — the words come from Isaiah 25:8, the only other place they appear. There they stand beside Israel's deliverance, at the start of Christ's reign.
- Then — the fulfilment waits for one moment. Not a believer's death, not the comfort of being with Christ, but resurrection and change at His coming.
- Put on — the body does not merely shed corruption. It puts on the imperishable, and death can never touch it again.
- Both — "this perishable body" covers those already in the grave, "this mortal body" those still living. Two conditions, one shared outcome.
- Not yet destroyed — Christ releases every captive, yet death survives as jailer until the end. Even now the thanks are ours through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Where, O death, [is] thy sting? where, O death, thy victory?
Paul has just described the moment when God raises or changes the bodies of believers. He then turns on death with two mocking questions borrowed from a prophet, and they raise two of our own: when is this shout raised, and what made death fearful in the first place?
The challenge is a quotation. Paul reaches back to a promise God made through Hosea and puts it in the mouth of the raised and changed saints.
Looking on to this great event, the believer can say, "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" These are words used by the prophet Hosea, when he records the promise of the LORD: "I will ransom them from the power of Sheol. I will redeem them from death: Where, O death, are your plagues? where, O Sheol, is your destruction?" (Hosea 13:14).
That promise has a hard edge, and it concerns our bodies.
Scripture presents the redemption of our bodies as a freedom gained by avenging: "I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be your plagues" (Hosea 13:14). In 1 Corinthians 15:55 Paul alludes to that promise and applies it to the resurrection of the body. In that glad day God will deliver the bodies of all His saints from the grip of death, the last enemy.
Some translations read "grave" or "hades" here instead of "death." One writer explains why the wording can vary without changing the sense.
Whether the word is "death" or "hades," the question is the same. Death is the state of the body when it is separate from spirit and soul. Hades is the state of the spirit and soul when they are separate from the body. But sin is "the sting of death," the very poison that brought death. The death of Christ has fully atoned for sin, and that is the effective basis of complete victory over death.
Verse 56 answers the challenge by naming the poison. Sin is what made dying terrible. The law, though righteous, could not rescue the guilty; it only showed how strong sin is.
Sin gives death not only its occasion but its sting. The law, however righteous, could not deliver the guilty. In fact it proves the strength of sin, because it stirs up sin's rebellious will all the more against the commands of God. His grace, not the law, is the strength of holiness, as we learn from Romans 6:14. So the apostle breaks out in thanksgiving here, as he sees God giving us the victory completely and for ever, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sting was not simply removed. Someone absorbed it.
But God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who bore the sting when He was made sin on the cross. He "redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13).
Commentators differ over how far this cry belongs to us now. Some point past our own death to Christ's triumph, which is what believers long for.
It is true that the Christian can say that everything is his, life or death. Still, death is not, and should not be, what he sets his heart on... It is happiness, no doubt, to be rid of this weight and burden, this body of sin and death. It is a far deeper happiness to be sure that we depart to be with Christ. But, led by the Spirit, we long for His triumph and His joy.
Others stress what faith can already say, because what made death deadly is gone.
In India there are many poisonous snakes. Snake charmers there can take out the stings. Then they let the ugly creatures crawl all over them, with no fear, because the poisonous sting is gone. The sting of death is sin, and the Saviour took it away — faith knows He has done it. So what fear can there be for a believer in Jesus?
Death still comes to believers, but it no longer reigns over them.
The final victory is over death, the last enemy. We used to call it the King of Terrors, but that name no longer fits for the children of God. Death has met its Master. It is a defeated king, without throne or crown. The keys of its stronghold are wrenched from its hands, its greatest power is annulled, and those who through fear of it lived all their lives in bondage are set free.
- Cause. Sin is the sting of death. The law gave sin its strength, condemning the guilty but never delivering them.
- Gift. Christ bore the sting Himself. He was made sin on the cross and made a curse, to redeem us from the curse of the law.
- Reach. The words come from Hosea's promise of ransom from death and Sheol. Paul applies them to the raising of the body — a freedom won back from an enemy.
- Result. Death is a dethroned king. Its keys are wrenched away, its power is annulled, and those once held by lifelong fear go free.
- Timing. The full shout belongs to the day of resurrection and change. Commentators differ on how far faith can raise it now, but all agree the sting is already gone.
Now the sting of death [is] sin, and the power of sin the law;
Paul has just announced the moment when victory swallows up death. Now he stops to explain what made death so terrible. Two things answer it: sin, and the law. Both need an answer before the challenge "O death, where is your sting?" can be more than empty words.
Death and sin stand in a two-way relationship. Death is what sin earns; sin is what makes death sharp.
If death is sin's wages, sin is also death's sting. Without sin, death would be nothing more than a healthy sleep — if we could connect it at all in our thoughts with God's blameless image. But in fact death has no name and no existence except as the effect of sin. It is called a sting because of the lasting poison in it. That poison works death in this life. It also prepares the unrepentant sinner for the judgment that comes after death.
Most people meet this sting as fear, not as theology. One writer asks where that fear comes from.
Unconverted people and even unsettled Christians are afraid to die. Now, why is this? One verse from the New Testament supplies the answer. "The sting of death is sin" (1 Cor. 15:56). Conscience accuses. People fear to die because they know they are sinners, and that God must punish sin. Their conscience tells them this, however dimly. The Bible says it clearly when they read it — which is why they seldom read it.
The ESV says "the power of sin is the law." Older translations say "the strength of sin is the law." Either way the claim surprises: how can God's holy command make sin stronger? One writer gives two reasons.
The law gave sin its strength in two ways. First, because there is in it no power of deliverance, only power of condemnation. So sin, according to the law, reigned and had to reign in death. But again, law gave sin its strength by the very fact that in prohibiting it, it stirred up the whole evil nature of man to resist. The man who does his own will refused the restraint that held him back. Under that treatment the evil became not only more obvious but more intensely evil — open rebellion against God his Maker. Law for us is past, and the reign of sin with it. At the time described here, sin will have passed away entirely.
An everyday illustration shows how a rule provokes, and names what only Christ gives.
To put someone under law is to bring in sin, because you cannot keep it, and so it is "the strength of sin"... Suppose I had a drawer in this table with something in it, and I said, "Nobody is to know what is there." Plenty of heads in this room would want to know what it was straight away. The law is "the strength of sin" because it binds the soul down to guilt. This is not a fault in the law. It is because of what my nature is: law does provoke. Law gives no life, no power, no object; it provokes the desire, is the occasion of sin, and fastens my guilt on me. Christ gives me an object, and life, and power, and delivers me from all that was against me.
The Corinthian church was not Jewish. So why bring the law into the argument at all?
The Corinthian believers were Gentiles, not Jews. They had therefore never personally been under law. But they needed, just as much as anyone else, to know the true nature of the law and its effects... to keep them from the trap Satan is always trying to set for people who are off guard, by undermining grace through a pretended zeal for holiness.
Because the law is holy, many assume it must also be the engine of a holy life. One writer points somewhere else for that power.
His grace, not the law, is the strength of holiness, as we learn from Romans 6:14. So the apostle here bursts into thanksgiving. He sees God giving us the victory fully and for ever, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 56 names two problems, and the very next verse names one Person who met both.
God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the One who bore the sting when He was made sin on the Cross. He also "redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us" (2 Cor. 5:21; Galatians 3:13). The blessedness of this truth filled the Apostle's soul, and he breaks out into praise to God.
- Sting. Death is sin's wage. Sin is death's sting — a lasting poison that reaches past the grave to the judgment beyond.
- Strength. The law adds strength to sin two ways: it can only condemn, never rescue, and its prohibition stirs the will to rebel.
- Conscience. That is why people fear dying. Conscience accuses, and law fastens the guilt down instead of lifting it.
- Substitute. Christ bore the sting when He was made sin. He took the curse of the law in our place. One cross answered both halves of the verse.
- Strength restored. Grace, not law, is the strength of holiness, so the taunt over death ends not in fear but in thanks.
but thanks to God, who gives us the victory by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul has just described the moment when God raises and changes the bodies of believers, and death is swallowed up. His answer to that scene is not analysis but thanksgiving — and one word carries it: God gives this victory.
Verse 56 explains why death is dreadful, and why the law offered no escape. One writer follows both, then names what does produce holiness:
It is sin which gives death not only its occasion but its sting; and the law, however righteous, could work no deliverance for the guilty. In effect the law proves to be the strength of sin, because it stirs up rebellious will even more against God's commands. His grace, not the law, is the strength of holiness, as we learn from Romans 6:14. That is why the apostle breaks out into thanksgiving here. He sees God giving us the victory fully and for ever, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse 56 names two things: sin and the law. Christ Himself dealt with both, which is why the thanks runs "through our Lord Jesus Christ":
The apostle reminds us that "the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law." But God gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. He bore the sting when He was made sin on the cross, and He "redeemed us from the curse of the law, becoming a curse for us" (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). With the blessedness of this truth filling his soul, the apostle breaks out into praise to God.
God took no shortcut. He won this victory in the same arena where the human race lost:
The victory has been achieved by Man in the person of Jesus, just as the ruin came in by man in the person of Adam. God did not shift the contest onto entirely fresh ground, and He did not settle everything by one stroke of pure Deity. Instead — if one may put it that way — He met the foe on the old battleground the enemy first chose in the garden of Eden, and there reversed everything. Man comes out of the contest in resurrection, covered with glory and not the shame of defeat.
The victory is God's own, yet the verse calls it ours. The same writer notes the handover:
One thing more. Though the victory is God's victory, He gives it to us who believe, as it is written: "Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
Christ rose first, and that changes how we should now describe death:
The great king of terrors has had to yield to One greater than himself. Death has met its Master. It is now a crownless king, without a sceptre and without a throne. Now Christ is risen, and death is defeated. The power of the devil is annulled, the grave has been robbed of its victory, and Christ has become the Firstborn from the dead. His being the Firstborn means that others are to follow and share in His triumph.
The full public proof of this victory is still future, yet the verb in verse 57 is present tense. One writer holds both together:
Resurrection is the public declaration of victory over death and the grave. When the saints stand in their risen condition, the saying "Death is swallowed up in victory" will be fulfilled in triumph. For this we wait; but while we wait we are already rejoicing in it, for God "gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (v. 57).
Another writer describes what that early rejoicing sounds like — praise that honours Christ before the day when His triumph is seen to be theirs as well:
Such is the present and eternal strain that they are taught to raise who sing with the spirit and with the understanding also. Knowing the truth as it is revealed to them in Jesus, they already celebrate the great triumph He has personally won, and whose honours He now wears in heaven, while waiting for the moment when His victory will openly become their own. They declare their own glory by praising Him.
Verse 57 does not end the chapter; verse 58 turns it into daily work:
What a deliverance! "Thanks be" indeed "to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!" Meanwhile, the result of thinking on this is to turn with energy to the work of the Lord that lies in our hands. Every shadow has been removed from our path. Only the sure reward for everything done for Him remains for us.
- Cause. Death stings because of sin. The law was righteous, but it rescued no one; it stirred up rebellion and made sin stronger.
- Cost. Christ bore the sting when He was made sin. He took the curse of the law. He answered both powers behind death.
- Gift. The victory is God's. A Man won it on the ground where man fell, and God hands it to those who believe.
- Now. The verb is present tense. The full display waits for resurrection, but believers rejoice now, and death is already a crownless king without a throne.
- Result. Thanks does not stop at feeling. The chapter sends the thankful back to the Lord's work, with every shadow gone from the path.
So then, my beloved brethren, be firm, immovable, abounding always in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in [the] Lord.
Paul has just been unfolding the truth of resurrection, and he closes the chapter with a command about daily work. It joins two things that rarely sit together — standing firm and working hard — and rests both on one word: therefore.
The call to stand firm is not a call to defend personal opinions. One writer traces the word "therefore" back to what the chapter has just proved:
"Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable." The "therefore" throws the soul back on the solid foundation laid earlier in the chapter. There Paul unfolds the greatest and most precious truth that can fill a Christian's heart. That truth lifts the soul above the dark, cold fog of the old creation and plants it on the solid rock of resurrection. On this rock He tells us to be steadfast and immovable. This is not stubborn attachment to our own ideas, or to a pet theory, or to one school of teaching. It is a firm grasp and faithful confession of the whole truth of God, and a risen Christ is its everlasting Centre.
This verse commands both standing still and moving forward. Each one guards against the failure of the other.
There are some who are so afraid of doing harm that they do nothing, and others who would rather do wrong than do nothing at all. The verse corrects both. It teaches us to stand like flint where truth is at stake. It also sends us out with a large heart, throwing all our energy into the work of the Lord.
Being unmovable in conviction does not make a person rigid in service. It produces the opposite:
The Christian who is most unmovable in faith and character will be the most mobile in service for the Lord's interests. He will not wander in the zig-zag way of a butterfly. He will move with the steady, purposeful line of a bee.
Paul writes this to people he had been correcting hard, and the name he calls them is striking.
He urges the believers at Corinth to "abound in the work of the Lord," because such labour can never be in vain in Him — never! He appeals to them as his beloved brothers... the very ones who had caused him such deep sorrow, and whom he had to rebuke and correct so unsparingly. He calls them his beloved brothers, hoping they will recover. Despite their past failures and sins, he urges them to give themselves to the only work of lasting value: "the work of the Lord."
One phrase both widens and limits what we take on.
The field of service is wide. Only one phrase limits it: "the work of the Lord." The Christian worker must not take on anything that will not fit under that holy and all-important heading. Before he starts any service he must ask one great practical question: "Is this really the work of the Lord?"
Paul's guarantee is not that our labour will look successful. One writer weighs man's verdict against God's:
For every believer who truly abounds in the work of the Lord, we often find half a dozen who abound in talk. They know how things ought to be done, but they do not do them. Yet we have the strongest reason for hard work in the Lord's interests. We know that "in the Lord your labor is not in vain." It may look useless to man and his little world. But in the Lord, and in the new order that resurrection has set up, it is not in vain.
The same certainty covers the smallest and most ordinary acts of service:
You visit a sick man. Before you go, get in touch with your Lord, then visit him, and simply be in His hand; say what He gives you to say and commit it to Him. Do you think the Lord will ever forget that visit?... Perhaps it all seemed to be in vain. But so far as your visit was in the Lord, you will see that visit again in glory... Not one word spoken in the Lord, not one thing done in the Lord, at home or abroad, will go without God's answer in resurrection.
The verse points forward to the moment when hidden labour is finally displayed.
No toil, no testing, no suffering gone through in faith for the Lord will be lost. God stores it all up. At the resurrection, when our Lord Jesus Christ is revealed, it will come out as praise and glory and honour.
- Ground. The "therefore" rests the whole command on a risen Christ — not on our opinions or a favourite school of thought.
- Balance. The same verse cures two opposite failures: doing nothing for fear of doing wrong, and doing wrong rather than nothing.
- Scope. The field is wide but bounded by one test question — can this honestly be called the work of the Lord?
- Certainty. Work that looks wasted by man's measure is never wasted in the Lord's — and Paul says this to the very people who had failed.
- Harvest. Nothing done in the Lord is forgotten; it is stored up and shown at His revelation, to praise and glory and honour.