Does 1st Corinthians chapter 15 say that we will have a permanent physical life?

score:0

Accepted answer

Paul in his first epistle to the Corinthians reminds them Corinthians of the gospel he taught them:

1 Corinthians 15:1-8 NKJV

Moreover, brethren, I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received and in which you stand, 2 by which also you are saved, if you hold fast that word which I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. 3 For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, 5 and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. 6 After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. 7 After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles. 8 Then last of all He was seen by me also, as by one born out of due time.

By equating the earlier appearances of the risen Jesus with the appearance to himself, Paul appears to suggest that he believed all the post-crucifixion appearances to be spiritual rather than physical. Paul portrays the resurrection of Jesus as the 'type' for the general resurrection to come.

John Dominic Crossan says in The Birth of Christianity, page xix,

that it never occurs to Paul that Jesus' resurrection might be a special or unique privilege given to him because he is Messiah, Lord, and Son of God. Resurrection of the dead was a Jewish, apocalyptic notion that did not make sense to Greeks, and the Corinthians had gone so far as to say,

1Co 15:12 Now if Christ is preached that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

Paul asks how some Corinthians can say there is no resurrection of the dead if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, because if there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised, in which case their faith is for nothing. He calls them fools for believing that the resurrected will come back in their earthly bodies. He says there are earthly bodies, which are corruptible, and heavenly bodies, which are not (1st Corinthians 15:40).

To Greeks, the notion of a resurrected body was distasteful but Paul did not want to talk about resurrection of invisible souls.

Burton L. Mack, in hos book Who Wrote the New Testament, pages 132 & 3:

says he therefore proposed what surely must be the most preposterous conceptual equation of all his attempts to bridge the intellectual traditions of Jewish and Greek cultures - the notion of a “spiritual body”. He argues that:

  • There are many kinds of bodies among animals and human beings, and the “bodies of plants are different from the ‘bodies’ of the seeds from which they come.

  • There are earthly bodies and “heavenly bodies” (with reference to sun, moon, and stars: 15:40-41).

  • The first man, Adam, had a “physical body”; the “man from heaven” (Christ) had a “spiritual body”.

  • The resurrection of Christ was the first fruits of the general resurrection of Christians which would take place at the eschaton.

  • At the general resurrection, the bodies of the dead would be changed into imperishable bodies just like the heavenly body of Christ (15:52-54).

This “spiritual body” is not a physical body like our natural bodies, but it is more than just an invisible soul. In verse 51, Paul resolves his difficulty by calling it a mystery.

more information about the two books cited above can be found at these websites. http://www.johndominiccrossan.com/The%20Birth%20of%20Christianity.htm and. http://www.jesuspuzzle.humanists.net/review1.htm

Upvote:1

Not so much. It tells me we may need a body as a token to swap for a new body.

The earthly body is asleep, resurrected, then swapped for a new heavenly body while waiting for the final judgement (2 Cor 5:1-10).

For the New Heaven, the heavenly body from (2 Cor 5) has to be impure or be purified (Revelation 21:27).

(This might be a partial answer)

Upvote:2

We know from Scripture that Jesus possessed a physical body like ours. He could sweat (Luke 22:44), grow weary (John 4:6), and even be endure physical pain (resurrection story). Upon being resurrected we see Jesus possess a new body. This new body can eat physical food (Luke 24:42-43), hide his appearance (John 20:14, 21:4), walk through walls (John 20:19, 26), and it even retains wounds which no longer affect the health of the body (John 20:20, 27). The idea that is represented in this is that God embraces and redeems His creation. One of the ways we see Him embracing us is through the incarnation of Jesus. An important thing to note is that Jesus never separated Himself from His humanity. What we see in Jesus resurrected body is how God redeems his creation. In 2 Corinthians 5:17 and Philippians 3:20-21 Paul tells us that we will be made into a new creation through some type of bodily transformation. In order to get this new body we must first die in the one we have (1 Corinthians 15:35-38). Just like Jesus says about the grain of wheat 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.” (NASB)

This parallels the idea that Paul teaches a few verses down in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44:

“42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; 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.” (NASB)

Our new bodies will be a transformation of our physical bodies. They will emerge from our current ones in a renewed state. Romans 8:11:

“But 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.” (NASB)

In Matthew 10:28 Jesus alludes to this idea that there will be a bodily form present in the next life. If you do find your resurrected body is still an exact copy of your current physical one, perhaps we can hope that John 20:14 and John 21:4 are hinting that we have some control over how we look (joking of course). But in all seriousness, Scripture does demonstrate that our resurrected bodies will come from the death of our physical ones.

More post

Search Posts

Related post