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.