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.