The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
—1 Corinthians 15:41-50 (TNIV)
If you are like me, as I grew up in one of the mainline Christian denominations (and here I am not concerned about which one because they all tended to behave the same), I encountered a lot of muddled thinking about the Resurrection, in part because it became fashionable at that time to reject the plain meaning of passages like this one and assign to it a “deeper meaning” (whatever that means). This resulted in me thinking that “life after death” meant me going to heaven and living for eternity with God in a disembodied state, a prospect that I confess didn’t always sound all that appealing. Ugly as my body might be, I have grown attached to it and didn’t look forward to not having one.
But here we have some of the NT’s clearest teaching on the bodily resurrection. When Paul talks about a spiritual body, he is not talking about some kind of disembodied state. No, he is talking about a transformed body, patterned after our Lord’s resurrection body, a body that will be indestructible and impervious to disease, decay, and deformity. He is talking about life after life after death, the time after Christ returns and those who died in him are raised with him.
Whatever our resurrection (spiritual) bodies look like, they will be bodies of some kind, equipped to live in God’s New Creation, in his new heavens and new earth. This is a vision I can eagerly embrace. We have transformation of our old mortal, corruptible bodies but we also have continuity in our new spiritual (resurrection) bodies. Did you catch that in Paul’s writing today? That is why Paul tells us flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (the New Creation). Our bodies are corruptible and mortal. They will die and cannot live for eternity the way our new resurrection bodies will.
Paul is not saying that God hates our mortal bodies. After all, God created us (and our bodies). Why would God hate what he created? Rather, Paul is painting a glorious picture of the time when Christ returns to consummate his saving work and God reveals his New Creation in which there will never be any kind of brokenness or hurt or sorrow. What a wondrous promise this is! No wonder the early Christians lived such joyous lives! Do you?
In the meantime, however, as we await Christ’s return and the redemption of our bodies, Christian teaching on the Resurrection must lead us to value God’s creation here and now because we know God plans to redeem his good but fallen creation, just like he plans to redeem his good but fallen creatures. We have Christ’s blood shed for us and his mighty Resurrection as proof of this. Consequently, we need to get to work to help God in his redemptive work. We need to strive for justice and peace and sound ecological practices. We must be good stewards of God’s creation and use his resources wisely and reasonably. We must take care of and honor our own bodies. The promise of bodily resurrection does not give us warrant to abandon God’s created world. Rather we must put on Christ so as to allow God to use us to help him redeem his creation until he comes again to finish his mighty work once and for all.
This is a compelling vision of God’s great love for us and his mighty acts through Jesus. Once we get our minds wrapped around the Christian teaching of the bodily resurrection, we surely will find power and hope with which to live.
Nice. Like you say, it doesn’t matter to me when we get the new body, or what it’s like. Knowing that I’ll be with Him is enough. And it will be nice to be out of this body!
Thanks, T. I owe a tremendous debt to +N.T. Wright regarding this. He reminds us that we Christians have given away one of our greatest teachings–the Resurrection–and the hope that accompanies it. I am resolved to try to help St. Andrew’s recover some of that hope this Easter season.
Yes, there will be a time when we are separated from our mortal bodies. Jesus told the repentant thief that he would be with him that day in paradise and so whatever that looks like, we know that even while we await our final redemption and our new resurrection bodies, we will be safely with the Lord. Cool.
That’s what I meant by talking about life after life after death. We’ll spend some time disembodied and in the Lord’s Presence (life after death) but there will be a day when Christ returns and we’ll get our new resurrection bodies, the kind Paul describes in today’s passage. That will be our final destiny, our life after life after death.
Again, great teaching! And thanks for explaining so much about resurrection bodies. I remember I “complained” once that I would like more on that. This is good!