The Body of the Resurrection: A Hope Beyond Foolishness

April 13, 2025|The Body of the Resurrection|1 Corinthians 15:35-49

Will Davis

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This morning as we continue through the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians Paul will be continuing his explanation of the resurrection to the believers in Corinth.  As we heard the last two weeks Paul is laying down clear doctrine concerning first the resurrection of Christ and its centrality to the Gospel and then that those who are in Christ will be raised with Him. 

This fact that Christ is raised from the dead is so important that Paul says in verse 13 & 14 that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.  Church don’t miss this, oftentimes we run to the cross when sharing the Gospel, and rightfully so, but we often minimize the resurrection of Christ.  Without the resurrection, without the empty tomb, then death and sin are not defeated and there is no payment or justification for our sin.  The resurrection is so central to the Gospel that Paul has now written to the Corinthians shame a 2nd time, this time for their doubt of the resurrection.  Remember back in Chapter 6 Paul wrote to their shame for their abuse of bringing lawsuits against one another to settle disputes and that there was not one amongst them wise enough to settle disputes.  And now here in 15 to their shame that they are not wise enough to understand just how important the resurrection of first Christ is and then resurrection of the believer.

In summary what Paul has been saying is if Jesus is raised from the dead then it makes sense that all who are in Him would also be raised from the dead.  If Christ has truly defeated death, then death will have no hold on those that are in Christ.  This is why Paul says that Christ is the first fruits of the many that will be raised from the dead, but if Christ is not raised from the dead then there is no means of escaping death and there is no eternal hope for us.  But because Christ was raised from the dead church, we must understand Jesus’ claim that He would be raised from the dead and all that are in Him will also be raised from the dead. 

The bible promises not just a redemption of the soul or of the inner man, but of the body as well.

Paul says this in Romans 8:23 And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Jesus in John 6:44 says No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him. And I will raise him up on the last day. 

Again, we see the promise of the resurrection of the body and again in John 5:28-29 Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.

The doctrine of bodily resurrection is a central claim of Christianity that at the resurrection we will not just become a glorified spirit but be made like Christ with a glorified body. 

So, what we are dealing with here this morning is Paul addressing the question found in vs 12 how can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead? 

Like Pastor JD talked about last week they had not thought completely through the implications of their thinking and Paul is going to help walk them and us through this question.  Paul is going to show them that there is a hope found in the resurrection of the body and the implications of questioning the resurrection’s reality.

This brings us to our first point this morning which is…

I. Questioning Resurrection's Reality

1 Corinthians 15:35-4135 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.

In verse 35 Paul like he does in many of his letters addresses possible objections or the challenges the skeptics have against his teachings.  It is also very likely these objections were reported to him in the letter he had received from the Corinthians.  We see what at first glance looks like two innocent or sincere questions asked by the Corinthians; How are the dead raised and in what kind of body do they come?  Paul then answers them in the kindest and politically correct way possible by calling them fools!  Why does Paul give them such a harsh rebuke to what seems like legitimate questions?  Well, in the context of the letter we have seen that there are factions in the church at Corinth that are anything but innocent and sincere in their desire to follow Christ and these questions are taunts at those that preach Christ’s resurrection and the believers bodily resurrection.  These questions were raised in an attempt to undermine the credibility of the resurrection.  Paul calls them fools for questioning the reality of the resurrection and furthermore fools in the Old Testament would have referred to someone who rejected or ignored the idea of God.

Psalm 14:1 says The fool says in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds; there is none who does good.

As noted, the past two weeks the Greek culture around them would have found the idea of having a resurrected body disgusting as the Greek philosophers of the day taught that it was the flesh that was corrupted and the spirit was good.  The idea being the body goes into the ground to rot and decay while the spirit of man returns to its source to be with whatever god had sent it.  Even in the ancient world they knew it didn’t take long for a body to start to decay after death so the thought of resurrection seems foolish to them. 

So, they question and skeptics today question how does a decayed, rotten body rise?  What about a body that has been burned, lost a sea, or blown into nothing by war, how do those bodies rise?  How is this even possible? This is not the first time in scripture we have seen Paul deal with this issue, in Acts 26:8 he tells Agrippa Why is it thought incredible by any of you that God raises the dead? 

Agrippa like the Greeks was all in on the philosophy that there was no bodily resurrection.  How can destroyed bodies be raised again, how can a body that has been cremated and turned into dust be put back together and raised up again.  It is clear that these questions were intended to be contentious, skeptical questions.

To the Greek mind resurrection of the body would be a massive stumbling block as their whole world around them would be fundamentally opposed to this idea in every way.  This is why Paul gives such a harsh rebuke as calling them fools, they have decided to lean on their own understanding and not trust what God has revealed to them through the Apostles.  Remember Proverbs says that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God and here we see the Corinthians mocking the idea of Christ's resurrection to which Paul rightly calls them foolish people.  These objectors questioning the resurrection had a great amount of pride in what they thought they knew only to in fact be a fool.

As with most skeptics this is often true right, they think they have found some new error in scripture.  They think in their pride that after thousands of years they have found the great error in Christian doctrine and in the end always turn out to be the fool. These deniers of the resurrection here live like there is no resurrection, remember vs 32 let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die. 

What an easy self-pleasing religion to have, to have no accountability for your sins.  To be able to live in your own pride and when you die you return to whatever god or nothingness you believe in and there is no judgement for sin.  This kind of lifestyle appeals to people that want to live for themselves and live in whatever sin they please.  There is no truth in their lives but their own pride.

Paul deals with this questioning so strongly because the resurrection is our hope.  It is the hope that we trust in, it is the hope that we have that leads us through the sanctification process.  Without the resurrection there is no hope, no purpose to be conformed to the image of Christ.  With no resurrection we have no hope of accountability and no hope of eternal reward.    

In his first example defending and teaching of the resurrection Paul uses a picture of a seed.  I find it amazing that this is the very same analogy that Jesus used when some of the Greeks came seeking Him.

Jesus says this in John 12:24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit

In this illustration of a seed Paul makes the clear point that when a seed is put into the ground the form that it is in dies and through this death comes resurrection life.  A plant rises, and that plant is a very different kind of body than the seed. 

MacArthur says this about the seed,

“In fact, you could never tell by looking at the seed what the resurrected body of the plant will look like. You couldn’t tell by looking at the plant what the seed would look like either. There is dissolution, and then there is difference, but at the same time, there is continuity; one dies, and dying gives life. It is very different from what it produces. The seed is dissolved, decomposed, then it rises again, and there is a vast difference, a vast difference.”

So, we know that the seed goes into the ground with all of its genetic makeup, with all of its DNA and what comes out is nothing like the seed that went into the ground, but yet it still has the same genetic makeup and the same DNA.  This analogy pictures how it will be for those in Christ, we will go into the ground and begin to decompose and God will cause us to rise again in a different form, but the fruit remains in that it will be the same person changed by death and resurrection.  The same life, the same person being raised but in a different form.

Paul is telling these skeptics that if you don’t believe in the resurrection, you don’t believe that a person can go to the grave in one form and be raised into another form yet remain the same person then you better not believe in plants.  Paul uses the simple to confound the wise of the world, he tells them to simply look at what happens over and over again every time a seed falls to the ground. It falls to the ground as a certain type of small seed and will always become the plant God has made it to be, in that same way those in Christ will die and go into the ground and be resurrected into the form that God has made us to be.  Like the grain doesn’t change into an oak tree so we will not change from who we are when God resurrects us into our new form.  Our bodies will be our bodies, but they will be different and for the skeptics to question our resurrection is like saying they don’t believe that a grain of wheat will grow into wheat.  The spiritual reality that Paul wants us to realize is that God will keep who we are and He will raise us to be who we are with a new form, a new body.

In verse 38 Paul makes it clear that God gives the seed the body He has chosen.  “but God gives it a body as he has chosen, and each to its own kind.”  This great variety of plants that comes from these seeds shows us the sovereignty of God and His power. Gen 1:11-12 says 11 And God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed, and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, on the earth.” And it was so. 12 The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. And if God can produce all the different kinds of plants that we see in our world, like Paul told Agrippa, why would we be surprised or doubt that God can give us a new body? 

Paul’s defense of the resurrection is very similar to what Jesus told the Sadducees in Matthew 22:29 “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.Paul makes it clear that these skeptics are fools because they don’t know the power of God and all they need to do is to look at His creation to see that He is more than able to raise the dead.

In verses 39-41 Paul shifts his analogy away from plants to all the different life God has created.  Paul wants these skeptics to continue to see the power of God. He wants them to see that while people are covered in one flesh, there is another flesh for animals, another for birds, and yet another for fish.  But Paul doesn’t stop there, he pushes on reminding us that not only are all flesh of the earth different but that there are also different heavenly bodies.  That there is a different glory for the sun and the moon, and yet still each star in our sky has its own glory that it was given by the sovereignty of God. 

So, why does Paul go through all these different illustrations?  Simply put Paul goes through all these different illustrations so it is made clear in our minds that the God who created all creatures, earthly, and heavenly bodies with such diversity and beauty is certainly capable of raising the dead.  In other words, Paul says if you refuse to believe in the resurrection because of the picture of seeds becoming plants then go outside and look around and if that doesn’t convince you then look up and see all that God has made and know that God can and will raise the dead.  Know that we do not hope in vain.  Know that He will not leave you without hope and that He is able to make what was once dead alive. 

This brings us to our next point...

II. Transformation from Perishable

1 Corinthians 15:42-44 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

Paul has laid the groundwork to show God’s sovereignty over His creation to convince the doubter that He is able to raise the dead.  Paul now takes those illustrations and applies them to the resurrection emphasizing both the continuity and discontinuity of our life now and the one to come.  There is continuity since we are the same person, but there is also discontinuity due to God sovereignty changing our form in the resurrection.  The text shows us four contrasts.  What has died is perishable, but what is raised is imperishable.  What had died was sown in dishonor but was raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown natural, raised spiritual.  Paul shows us that God is not going to leave us how He found us.  Just as the Gospel had the transformative power to bring us from death to life, the resurrection has the transformative power to make us imperishable. 

1 Peter 1:3-4 says that God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is what? Our inheritance is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.

Don’t miss this, we have an inheritance that is imperishable, why, because we deserve it? Do we do enough good deeds for it? Do we pray enough for it? We said a prayer for it?  We tithed for it?  No, of course, not we have an imperishable inheritance because God has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 

Peter, like Paul, affirms that the resurrection is the transformative power of the Gospel.  Paul ties our bodily resurrection directly to Christ's resurrection and that it is through Him we are made imperishable. All a work of God!

The 2nd thing Paul tells us is that our bodies were sown in dishonor but raised in glory.  What does Paul mean that they were sown in dishonor?  It means that our bodies are weak and corruptible and we will all go through the dishonor of death.  There is no human that is above this dishonor as sin has corrupted all flesh and we know that sin’s wages is death.  But for those in Christ Paul says we will be raised in Glory and we will be free from what was corruptible and frail.  In Philippians 3:16 Paul says that Jesus will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body and in Romans 8:30 those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.  In other words, by His crucifixion Jesus justified us and by His resurrection He will glorify us.

Third, Paul tells us that we were sown in weakness, but raised in power.  As humans our bodies are overrun with illness, injuries, tiredness, and finally death.  We are unable to overcome our temptations, we can’t fulfill all of our dreams, parents we can’t keep our kids from sin, we are completely and utterly helpless.  In our death our weakness is made clear as our dead body has no power.  But in Christ we are raised in power and we will go from strength to strength.  We will be raised by and have full possession of His eternal divine power, power that is generated in and through us by the very life of God in us.  In Christ we are able to say with power O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?  The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through Jesus Christ. 

MacArthur sums Paul’s last three points like this,

“Yes, the grave does declare the body to be sown in corruptibility, dishonor, and weakness, and it decays. No matter how grandiose the eulogy is, no matter how well-dressed the corpse is, no matter how ornate the funeral, no matter how sweet the fragrances, no matter how beautiful the flowers, it is death, it is decay, the seed sown. But when the resurrection comes, out of the grave will come for the believer a new body. It will be a body raised imperishable, raised in glory, and raised in power.”

The last thing Paul contrasts is the natural body with a spiritual body.  If you remember back in 1 Corinthians 2:14 Paul says that the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, hence why Paul called them fools in vs 36, and the natural man is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.  All people possess a natural body when they enter this world as sons and daughters of Adam, when new spiritual life comes to the believer, we take possession of the spirit but are not given spiritual bodies until the end.   Paul does not mean that our spiritual bodies are immaterial as this would undermine and contradict all Paul has said up to this point.  What Paul means by a spiritual body is that it is imperishable, full of glory and power but still a physical body. 

As one commentator put it “As long as we live on earth, we are plagued by being natural, so we see corruption, dishonor, and weakness. That all is a part of sin, of course. The natural body then is not suitable for the life to come; it has to be sown, it has to die, so that another body can come forth, not a natural body, but a spiritual body. That is a body which is fit for the spiritual realm; not a spirit, but a body suited for the spiritual realm.”

So, now the question is what does this look like? Paul illustrates that while in Adam we see the natural body, in Christ we observe the spiritual body.

This brings us to our last point here this morning… 

III. Adam Versus Christ's Body 

1 Corinthians 15:45-49Thus 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.

Paul, as he does in many of his letters, compares Adam to Christ.  Here he is comparing them as two different heads of families with Adam representing the natural or earthly man and Jesus representing the spiritual or heavenly man.  Paul using the language of Gen 2:7 says Adam became a living being and through Adam, he has given us our natural life.  Then there is Christ who is the last Adam who becomes a life-giving spirit, and it is Christ that gives us spiritual life.  Adam gives us life that is best suited for this natural or earthly body, while Christ gives us life that is suited for our spiritual or heavenly body.  As we are all descendants of Adam and Eve his nature has been passed down to us.  We are all like Adam who is the prototype of our natural life in a natural body that is full of sin.

Jesus is the prototype of man’s spiritual life in a spiritual body.  So, to answer the question of what our spiritual bodies will be like, the best answer I can give is that it will be like the resurrected body of Christ.  I don’t think that is Paul’s main concern here though to tell the Corinthians exactly what their resurrected body will look like. Instead, Paul is trying to get them to understand that Christ is the better Adam and that our identity is in Christ and not Adam. 

We are no longer to be conformed to the image of this world, to our natural state, but to be conformed into the image of Christ, to His spiritual state.  That in Adam or our natural state we have no hope of resurrection, but in the better Adam the spirit giving Adam, Christ, we have an eternal hope securely fixed on His resurrection. 

Turn in your bible to Romans 8 with me to see Paul practically walk us through what being in our natural state looks like as compared to the spiritual.  Starting in vs 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Church, do you understand now why Paul calls those that deny and mock the resurrection fools now? 

The resurrection of Christ is so foundational to the Gospel for it is the guarantee that those who are in Christ will share in His resurrection.  Oh, what a hope we have that though our natural body is dead because of sin, a nature we inherited from Adam, we are now made alive because of Christ and the Spirit we have inherited from Christ that is imperishable and righteous.  Paul tells us unequivocally that if the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you that God will give life to our mortal bodies that have now been transformed and made new into spiritual bodies. 

Paul affirms what Eph chapter 2 says that our natural life is always before the spiritual life lest no man may boast.  No natural man is ever spiritual then falls into being natural as we were all sons of wrath, but for the mercy of God that He would send His son that we might be justified through His perfect life and death and given an eternal hope through His resurrection from death.  That the sting of death, the victory of death would be cancelled by the last Adam, who is Jesus Christ. 

Paul in 47-49 draws out the implications of being either a natural man or spiritual man.  In vs 47 Paul does not deny the incarnation of Christ rather sees Him as He is now our resurrected Lord.  This is why it is so important that Christ came as a man of the dust so that He could in fact be the last Adam.  Jesus did what Adam could not do and overcame the sting of death so that He might be glorified by the Father and through Him we too might be glorified. 

Sadly, there will be scoffers and mockers that will deny the resurrection of Christ and will remain as men of the dust or natural men.  They will lean on their own understanding and will not trust in the Lord for their salvation. The good news is that Jesus' death was not in vain and those that surrender to His Gospel will be born of the Spirit to one day receive spiritual bodies being men of heaven. 

In verse 49 Paul says that we have all borne the image of Adam, the man of dust, so then let us also bear the image of the man of heaven, Jesus Christ.  Let us take off the perishable and put on the imperishable which is Christ that we might walk in the newness of life.  Understand that what is perishable our flesh and blood will not inherit what is imperishable.   

In closing this morning, I pray that our church would be conformed to the image of Christ and that we would hold fast to the hope of His resurrection.  And if you are here this morning and you do not have an eternal hope found in Christ, I pray that you would right now in the very moment surrender your life to Jesus.  To have a hope that is beyond all foolishness and you would receive an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading.   

And if you are here this morning and you say I know my hope is secure in Christ I pray that we would live like we know our resurrection is secured and boldly go and make disciples.

I would like to end by reading 1 John 3:1-3 as a reminder of the Father’s love for His children found in the resurrection of His son.

1 John 3:1-3 See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. 2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. 3 And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.