Our Daily Droplets will have spent a month in 1 Corinthians 15 when we’re finished. That simply illustrates how important the resurrection is to our daily existence as Christians. Today, we’re focusing on verses 31-45.
I remind you that the theme of the first part of the chapter, and to some degree the whole chapter, is in verse 12. Some Corinthians were saying there is no resurrection of the dead. In our text, we note the use of the word-family “dead, death, to die” is used 5 times. The key word-family “raised / resurrection” is used 7 times. Note “body / bodies” is used 10 times while “flesh” (as a synonym) is used another 5 times. The word “glory” is used 6 times and the word-family “sown, seed” is used 8 times.
At verse 29, Paul had begun making some ad hominem attacks against the Corinthians’ position on the resurrection (verse 12). That is, he was using their arguments or beliefs against them, even while he was not agreeing with their beliefs (like “baptism for the dead”). Paul probably uses the reference to fighting with beasts as a metaphor for the persecution he was enduring for the sake of preaching the gospel. He quotes Isaiah 22:13 to the effect that if there is no resurrection, then why should we be worried about how we live our lives?
On the contrary, our companionships can affect how we live our lives and how we view death. So, Paul commands the Christians to think clearly and stop sinning!
The key words “body / bodies” gets picked up in the next paragraph as Paul talks about the “resurrected body.” The key idea in this section is found in verse 35. Apparently the Corinthians (some of them) were arguing: “We deny the resurrection because we can’t explain what happens to the body.”
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So, Paul argues that bodies are designed by God for their specific purposes. Humans have their bodies; animals have theirs. Birds have theirs and fish have theirs. There are earthly-oriented bodies and there are celestial-oriented bodies.
By the same reasoning, we have a physical body which is oriented to this earth but we also have a spiritual body which is oriented toward heaven. Keeping the “seed” metaphor he introduced earlier in the paragraph, Paul says the physical body is “sown” into the earth: perishable, in dishonor, weak, and natural. But, in Christ, it will be raised: imperishable, in glory, power, and spiritual.
Finally, in our selected paragraph, Paul contrasts the physical body we “inherited” from Adam with the spiritual body we will have in Jesus Christ. Paul had already made the contrast between Adam and Christ in verses 21-22. Here, he quotes Genesis 2:7 relative to the physical body which came through Adam. But we will have a spiritual body available through Christ.
So, how do we live cross-culturally in light of these teachings? We guard our companionships so that we do not get distracted from living for the resurrection!
Paul Holland
