1 Corinthians 15:35

But some will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die... There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:35–44)

The God who spoke the stars into being is not hindered from raising the dead—and that changes how the Christian faces the grave.

Everything Hinges on the Resurrection

1 Corinthians 15 reveals one of the most important doctrines of Scripture. As we have already considered, if the resurrection of Christ from the dead is not true, then everything we are doing is pointless. That is a powerful statement, but it really is true. The whole of the Christian faith hinges upon this fact. We have banked everything on the truth that Christ is raised from the dead, and because He is alive, we can be made spiritually alive and enter into eternity with Him. If He is not raised, then we are still dead in our sins and of all men most miserable—hopeless. But we believe He is raised, and there were over 500 witnesses to the fact that Jesus is alive.

A Mocking Question

There were people in Corinth and in the Hellenistic Greek culture who questioned the reality of the resurrection. Paul has already addressed those who claimed there is no resurrection. Now, in verse 35, he addresses those who, in a mocking sense, ask: if there is such a thing, how does it possibly happen? With what body does an individual rise?

The antagonism toward the resurrection in Corinth twenty centuries ago is just the same as it is in our culture today. People say, "How is it possible that something like that could happen? Tell us how it works, because we can't figure it out with our science." That exalts man to the position of supreme understander of all things—where anything we can't understand is therefore foolish. But science is still constantly finding things it didn't understand. It is always on the cusp of some new discovery, which should cause us to admit in humility that there is much we don't grasp.

A Mystery Known Only by Revelation

There are things about the resurrection that simply don't make sense to us, and they never would if it were not for God revealing them. Down in verse 51, Paul calls this a mystery. In the biblical sense, a mystery is something that cannot be known apart from revelation. We would never understand what we know about the resurrection if not for what God has told us.

God created man with an innate desire to live on. All human beings share this. Death stands as a great wall that all of us want to get over to find something on the other side. But we cannot fully see what is there until God reveals it. As Paul says, Jesus has brought to light life and immortality through the gospel. God does not want us to be ignorant. As he tells the Thessalonians, "I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep." So when people in our sphere call death "the great unknown," we can say, "I know something about it, because God who created all things has told us—and He proved it through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."

"Thou Fool": The Flaw in the Question

The people in Corinth questioned the practicality of the resurrection. They asked how an individual could be raised if the body had been embalmed, cremated, or destroyed in an accident. At first this seems a valid question, but Paul doesn't validate it. Look how he answers at the beginning of verse 36: "Thou fool."

Why does it seem valid? Because Jesus, the first to rise, left behind an empty tomb, while we leave behind a lifeless body. When the women came to His tomb that Sunday, the stone was rolled away, the grave clothes were there, but His body was gone. From that, one might assume the body is essential to resurrection. But Paul says the problem with the question "how are the dead raised?" is that it assumes we are purely physical—that all there is to us is what we can examine. The Bible reveals otherwise. There is more to us than meets the eye. If all I was is what you see standing here, then the destruction of this shell would mean the annihilation of my whole being. The honest atheist must say that is the case. But the Bible says something different, and God, who inspired the Scriptures, ought to know whether there is something more.

The Seed: More Than Meets the Eye

By way of illustration, Paul shows that we are not purely physical. "That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die." Take a seed of wheat or barley and place it in the ground, and the seed dies. Yet there is something inside that seed far greater than the seed itself—something that brings forth a body greater than the seed could ever have been on its own. We are like that seed. There is something planted within this shell that continues on after the shell dies.

Paul uses this illustration because he is speaking of something heavenly and otherworldly that our finite minds cannot fully grasp. So God speaks in language we can understand: "It's kind of like a seed. You put it in the ground, it dies, and something else comes forth." We may not grasp everything about it, but we get a general sense.

Jesus did the same thing. When He told Nicodemus, "You must be born again or you will not see the kingdom of God," He was speaking of regeneration—a dead spirit brought to spiritual new life. Theologians have written volumes on it, but Jesus reduced it to something Nicodemus could begin to grasp, and even that burst his bubble: "Must I enter a second time into my mother's womb?" Jesus answered, "If you can't believe earthly things, how will you grasp heavenly things? That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit."

Explaining the Amazing in Simple Terms

We do this with our children all the time. If my son Ethan brings me a DVD wanting to watch Toy Story, I could explain the laser, the optical eye, the central processing unit, the graphics processor, and the audio. The three-year-old just looks at me and says, "Can I watch Toy Story?" So I push play, and it comes on. It is equally amazing, but stated simply enough for a finite mind. The concept of regeneration—and of this body going into the ground while something not completely this seed comes forth—is equally amazing. We don't fully understand the process, but we explain it in a way we can grasp. It's a mystery.

Some think it incredible. I love how Paul addresses that with King Agrippa: "Why should it be thought a thing incredible unto you, that God should raise the dead?" You may not fully understand it, but that does not make it untrue. When my dad spent forty-five minutes explaining the clutch, flywheel, and transmission, I didn't comprehend a word—but I knew it worked when I did it right. We don't wholesale reject everything we don't understand. Yet modern science has wholesale rejected the resurrection simply because the mind can't grasp it. The foolishness is on the side that says, "This is all we are." The Bible says there is something greater than what we see.

A Two- or Three-Part Being

When you plant a seed, you don't put the plant into the ground but only the bare seed, and God gives it a body as He pleases. You can break a seed down to its DNA and study the code all day, but you won't know what it becomes until you put it in the ground. The same is true with us; you won't know what comes of it unless God reveals it.

This exposes the truth that man is either a dichotomy or a trichotomy—a two-part being (body and soul/spirit) or a three-part being (body, soul, and spirit). I personally believe man has a body, a soul, and a spirit. The soul is who we are—the seat of intellect, emotion, and will. In this physical realm, the soul is animated by the body; it tells the body it wants to eat and wills it to go get an In-N-Out double-double. In much the same way, the soul is able to interact in the spiritual realm through the spirit it animates. Scripture supports this: "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless" (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

Why is man unique this way? Because in Genesis 1:26 God said, "Let us make man in our image." In Genesis 2:7 God formed man of the dust of the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. Man is not merely the highest animal; he is created in the image of God, thinking, willing, doing, feeling.

The Glory and Diversity of God's Creation

Paul describes the difference of bodies in verse 39: human flesh, beasts, fish, and birds. Then he goes further—there are celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies, and their glories differ. The sun, moon, and stars each have a different glory, and one star differs from another star in glory. God's creation is glorious, displaying both His power and the diversity of His creativity. Not everything is the same seed; nothing is identical, yet it all comes together in wonderful unity—one universe, so many different parts, like one body with many members.

Through a telescope we see grand galaxies at the farthest reaches of an expanding universe that God spoke into existence. Through microscopes we see down to the molecular and subatomic level, and everywhere God is awesome—He exists, He is powerful, He is intelligent. Do you suppose, considering the greatness of our God, that He is hindered from raising the dead? Do you think it a hard thing for the One who spoke the stars into being to raise the dead? He breathed life into man; He can certainly breathe life back into man's spirit.

Sown in Corruption, Raised in Glory

"So also is the resurrection of the dead" (verse 42). The body is sown into the ground in corruption, but raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, raised in glory. It is sown in weakness—nothing is weaker than a dead body—and raised in power. It is sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. Science struggles with this, but we know it only by God's revelation. You can perceive the natural body with your senses, but God tells us there is a spiritual body.

Everything we see, however glorious, is under the dreadful curse of sin and therefore in a constant state of decay. Physics proves it with the second law of thermodynamics—entropy. Everything moves from order to disorder. Children clean their room and by day's end it is disordered again. When something orders itself on its own, we call it Fantasia—fantasy. Our bodies are corrupted, dishonored, weak, natural. The reality of our fallenness is evident every day. But the Bible speaks of a resurrection in which we will be incorruptible, glorious, powerful, and spiritual. That is good news, and the older we get, the better that news sounds.

A Culture Insulated From Death

When a society believes this is all there is, it tries to preserve and cling to this shell as long as possible, and it grows terrified of death. It used to be that people died in their own homes, with grandparents living among their grandchildren who saw death as a natural process. Now we have distanced ourselves, putting it in hospitals and care homes so we are not touched by it—until it reaches us through tragic news or a funeral.

But when the Christian reckons with death, there is joy. Paul could say, "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." If anyone said that today, we'd put them on Paxil. Yet the Christian says: if I stay, I live for God's glory; if I die, it is to His glory and I am with Him immediately. Imagine how nonbelievers would be affected if we actually lived—not just spoke—as people who hold this world loosely. The early church did not count their lives dear to themselves, and people saw it. To our shame, we do not live like that in 21st-century American Christianity, though we should.

The First Adam and the Last Adam

"The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit" (verse 45). The natural came first, then the spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthly—purely physical. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthly, such are those who are earthly; everyone born of Adam comes out earthly with this physical shell.

In the garden God warned Adam that the day he ate of the tree he would surely die. When Adam and Eve ate, their eyes were opened, and God came seeking, "Adam, where are you?" There was a disconnect—a spiritual death between God and man that ultimately brought physical death. Man's spirit became dead in relationship to God, disconnected from Him, though still active enough that people interact with unholy spirits.

So what did Jesus do? This life-giving Spirit from heaven came to bring life through His death and resurrection. As is the earthly, so are all who descend from Adam—us. As is the heavenly, so are all who are of heaven. If you are born only of Adam, you are purely fleshly and your soul and spirit go to a place separated from God. But if you are born a second time of Jesus, "if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation," and there is now the opportunity to be eternally with God because the spirit has been given life. "As we have borne the image of the earthly, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly" (verse 49)—if we are born spiritually.

Flesh and Blood Cannot Inherit the Kingdom

"That which is born of flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, Ye must be born again." Why is it the only way? Because, as verse 50 says, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption." How then can we enter in? Paul answers: "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed."

This passage parallels 1 Thessalonians 4 but approaches from a different angle. The Thessalonians worried about believers who had died before Jesus returned. The Corinthians wondered what would happen to those still alive when He comes. Paul's good news: not everyone will die. This puts a dent in the statistic that ten out of ten people die. At Christ's second coming, those who are His and still living will not experience physical death but will be caught up to be with the Lord—the event we call the rapture—and they shall be changed. The word pictures a metamorphosis, a complete transformation like a caterpillar into a butterfly.

In a Moment, in the Twinkling of an Eye

How will it happen? By the same power God used to speak the glorious bodies of heaven into existence. When will it happen? Verse 52: "at the last trump"—when the Lord comes for His church and we hear the trumpet and the archangel. How long will it take? "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye." Those who study such things say a twinkle is a ray of light reflecting inside the eye and back out, traveling at the speed of light. Paul wasn't thinking of the science; he was telling us it will happen faster than our minds can process.

Our minds can process amazingly fast. Years ago in Louisiana I hydroplaned on a freeway in a downpour. As the truck drifted across three lanes, the median, and into oncoming traffic, time seemed to move in slow motion—I could see the man in the Ford Thunderbird I was going to hit, and I had time to pray, "Lord, please don't let this hurt." Yet the resurrection will be so fast our brains can't even process it; before you recognize what happened, you'll be with Jesus, and He will say, "Welcome home."

Death as Sleep, and Its Sting Removed

For the Christian who dies, Paul uses the metaphor of sleep. As a child you may have tried to catch the exact moment you fell asleep and always missed it—there is a painless point where consciousness simply gives way. That is what death is like for the Christian. People who have drowned and been revived often describe a total peace just before losing consciousness. My dad was knocked off an eight-story building in 1971 and survived; he said the fall wasn't too bad—it was the sudden stop that hurt—but as he fell he said goodbye to everyone he loved with no fear and no anxiety. Those without fear of death have it because the other side is clear; the Christian need not fear, for we know there is something far better than this.

God told Moses, "Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live." God is so holy and we so corrupt that contact with His holiness would annihilate us. So this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality—because it cannot otherwise enter His presence. "Then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory" (verse 54). Tell the world death is swallowed up in victory and they say, "I still have to die." But for the Christian, the moment we fall asleep we step into eternity, and that saying is fulfilled. I believe one of our first thoughts in the Lord's presence will be, "That wasn't so bad," for the sufferings of this present world are not worthy to be compared with the glory revealed in us.

O Death, Where Is Your Sting?

So Jesus says, "Let not your heart be troubled... In my Father's house are many mansions... I go to prepare a place for you... I will come again, and receive you unto myself." Don't be tossed about by the dreadful fear of death. For the Christian, death is a good thing; for the non-Christian it is a bad thing that should stir them to put their faith in Christ.

So we say with confidence, "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?" The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law that exposes our sin. But Jesus dealt with our sin on the cross, so we need no longer experience the sting of death even as we taste it. With that confidence we praise God: "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." Apart from Him we remain dead and dying in Adam; in Christ we have abundant and everlasting life.

Steadfast, Immovable, Never in Vain

What is the application? It flows right from verse 58: "Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." For generations our culture has been told this is all there is—we all race toward the brick wall of death, so eat, drink, and be merry. Then God calls the world: "No, this is not all there is. Come to me. Submit to my lordship, and I will give you life more abundantly."

People on the outside will call it foolish—your time, money, and talents wasted on something with nothing after it. Paul says don't be shocked when they say that; be steadfast and immovable. Don't be moved when they mock your Sunday mornings, your missions trips to Africa, your giving of a tenth or more. It would all be in vain if Christ were not raised. But if it is true, as we believe—if Jesus is alive and makes us alive with Him—then whatever we do in His name is not empty.

This world is starving for purpose, because it has been told there is no destiny and no ultimate meaning. That breeds a depressed society desperate to make life count. This is why Rick Warren's The Purpose Driven Life sold tens of millions of copies, many to nonbelievers starving for purpose. We have purpose; we have the words of eternal life. God has a purpose for you, and He wants you to come into it. When we do, life changes—transformation. The old passes away, all things become new, and that is abundant life.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You for the revelation of Your word—things we would never know apart from You, the all-knowing One, revealing them to us. We thank You that in You we have the promise of incorruptible immortality. Lord, be glorified in our lives, whether by life or by death. Help us by Your Spirit to live in such a way that it is not just our lips that say this world is not all there is, but our lives declare that we hold it loosely and do not count our lives dear because of You. Work these things into our lives, that this world would see someone unafraid of death and ask why—and that You would draw them, even at first by a carnal jealousy for what You have given us in Christ. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.