Re-Formed

1 Corinthians 15:35-49

³⁵ But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” ³⁶ You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. ³⁷ And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. ³⁸ But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. ³⁹ For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. ⁴⁰ There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. ⁴¹ There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. ⁴² So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³ It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴ It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

Any discussion of our formation must include some thoughts about what will happen when Jesus returns at The End. Those thoughts are solidified for us in Paul’s writing to the Corinthians. As Paul elaborates on our eventual resurrection, he employs a brilliantly simple analogy that helps us understand this amazing miracle. Granted, this is one of those things that our finite minds are not going to fully grasp until it happens on Resurrection Day. So this one is taken completely by faith. But Paul does help us wrap our heads around what this may look like when it happens.

All of us have held a seed in our hands. Generally, they are very small (although there are some that are quite large) and dried out. We learn as children how to put them in the ground and then wait the required weeks for them to sprout and grow. What we learn in that experience is that the plant that grows doesn’t resemble the seed very much. As a child I used to ride in the back of the combine where the harvested wheat fell into the bin. (I know – crazy dangerous, but we did some crazy stuff back then.) My brother and I would eat that freshly falling grain until we almost burst. It was warmed by the sun and wonderfully chewy and delicious. But those harvested seeds looked nothing like the tall, waving, golden plants from which they were harvested. But they were the same! Without the seed, there was no plant. This is the picture that Paul draws for us. Our human bodies are those seeds. Nondescript and perishable. But when planted in the earth and allowed to grow, they are transformed into the glorious plant. On the last day, those of us who have died will be resurrected, gloriously different but bearing the mark of our past as a seed.

I have often wondered what Paul would write to the modern Church. But that pondering is brought up short by the realization that we have everything we need to know in the words already written. But – I still wonder. In the passage for today we find Paul continuing to address the wrong-thinking that was happening in the Corinthian church. Paul may have been addressing a tendency in Jewish or early-Gnostic philosophy to give priority to “spiritual” and intellectual wisdom and knowledge that the physical was despised. Thus, he launches into a discussion of what we find in Genesis about the creation of man (Adam).

Genesis 2:7

“…then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

This verse has three steps:

1. God formed – from dust
2. God breathed life
3. Man became a living creature

In the Hebrew, that “breathed life” is where God imparts the spiritual. “Breath” is most often associated with the Spirit. When Jesus arrives on the scene in His Nativity, He becomes fully human, with the same kind of body as Adam and us. He already possessed the Spirit. Since He came to save us from an eternity in hell because of our sin, He is now the Last Adam. The power of sin no longer has control over us, because He came and paid the price for Adam’s (and our) sin. And because the price has been paid, we will not experience the “second death” (an eternity in hell – separated from God).

Clearly, the physical is not something to be despised, as the early Gnostics taught, for if it were to be hated, why would God bother to resurrect us in The End? Clearly, God has chosen to make us physical and spiritual and both are important. To believe otherwise flies in the face of these words. If you gain nothing else from 1 Corinthians 15, let it be that image. The forgiving blood of Jesus promises the resurrection of those glorious bodies, just as He walked in a glorified body after His resurrection. It is a beautiful vision of our future!