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Commentaries and Other Bible Study Helps - Prayer Tents - Prayer Tents
15:35-58 The Nature of the Resurrection Body. Apparently the Corinthians did not understand how material bodies, subject as they were to sickness, death, and eventual decay, could live eternally. In this section, Paul explains that God will change the bodies of believers to make them immortal.
15:35-43 How are the dead raised? Using illustrations from various realms of the natural world, Paul explains that God will change the bodies of the deceased to make them appropriate for their new, imperishable existence. Verses 42-43 emphasize the discontinuity between present corruptible bodies and future immortal bodies.
15:42 imperishable. No longer subject to physical decay or aging.
15:43 dishonor . . . glory. These terms have to do with outward physical appearance: the Christian's resurrection body will be physically attractive beyond anything imaginable.
15:44-47 natural. The Greek term is psychikos, the adjectival form of the noun psychē, which is translated being in v. 45 and can also be rendered "life" or "animated existence." Paul's contrast between "natural" and "spiritual" is a contrast between that which is temporally alive and that which has an eternal existence with God (cf. 2:14-3:3). Starting from Gen. 2:7, Paul explains that God created Adam from the dust and animated him with breath. Christ, however, is the last Adam, and his resurrection gave him a spiritual and therefore imperishable body (cf. Phil. 3:21). By spiritual body Paul does not mean an immaterial body but a body animated and empowered by the Holy Spirit.
15:50 Corruptible bodies (flesh and blood) cannot inherit the kingdom. Hence, the need for resurrection.
15:51-53 mystery. See note on 4:1. Christians who are alive at the time of the resurrection will be transformed so that their bodies become spiritual and immortal like the bodies of those who are resurrected from the dead. (See 1 Thess. 4:13-18.)
15:56 power of sin is the law. See Rom. 5:20-21; 7:5-25; 8:1-3.
15:58 Therefore implies a practical application for the doctrine of the resurrection: the work (such as evangelism) that Christians do for the kingdom of God will bring results that last forever. On fruitfulness in the Lord, see John 15:1-5 and Phil. 2:12-13.
