1 Corinthians 15:35–36: But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
Paul will answer two questions: the how and the what. Men fail to distinguish the difference between the resurrection of the body and the immortality of the soul. Now the question is, “How can a body that dies be raised up again and be the same?” Paul says that we learn from nature that the bodies are not identical—they are the same but not identical. The answer to the first question: the how. He says in effect, “If you only had sense enough to see it, you would see that in a seed which is planted, there is dissolution and continuity—a seed that is planted will produce seeds which are essentially the same as that seed. But the seed itself has died and disintegrated, so that the seed it produces is not the very seed that died. It is like that seed, but it is not the same seed. In the seed that is planted there is a disintegration and yet there is a continuity. It is a mystery, but it is not an impossibility.”
What is death? Death is a separation. It is not the ending of the spirit or of the personality. These do not die. The real “you” goes on to be with the Lord if you are a child of God. It is the body that disintegrates. Death is a separation of the body from the individual, from the person. The body disintegrates, decays, decomposes. Dust to dust and ashes to ashes applies only to the body. 1
Application
- Read John 12:24. What (ambition) must you let die today, so that Jesus can raise it up in newness of life?
Thought to Share
I must let the seed drop and die, so Jesus can raise it up in newness of life. – TWEET IT
Prayer
Lord, thank you that death is just the beginning of a new life in You.
1. McGee, J. V. (1991). Thru the Bible commentary: The Epistles (1 Corinthians) (electronic ed., Vol. 44).
