September 20 Click on verses for Full Scripture

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Today's Pathway: I Corinthians 15:38-41 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.

Paul is continuing his teaching on the bodily resurrection of believers. In verse 38 he is still referring to his illustration of the seed and the plant from verses 36-37. Though the plant looks different than the seed, the seed and the plant are still related. A seed of wheat produces a stalk of wheat, not a corn stalk. So, even though the resurrected body might be different, it is still related to the person who was "planted" in death. Larry Goins gave the following example of the meaning of verse 38:

"In Jesus' post-resurrection appearances in His resurrection body, none of His disciples and followers recognized him until He chose to reveal Himself to them. But once He told them Who He was, they did recognize Him. They saw the wound in His side and the nail prints in His hands. They knew his face. The promise for us is that we will have some kind of continuity of our personhood, our personality, our unique individuality, after death."

"What is deposited in the earth is very different from that which springs from it. Every seed produces its own plant. The product depends on the will of God. It was determined at the creation, and therefore the apostle says that God gives to each seed its own appropriate product, as he originally purposed. The point of this is, if God thus gives to all the products of the earth its own form, why may He not determine the form in which the body is to appear at the resurrection? You cannot infer from looking at a seed what the plant is to be; it is very foolish, therefore, to attempt to determine from our present bodies what is to be the nature of our bodies hereafter."

In verse 39 Paul shifts his illustration from plant life to the animal kingdom. Different species of wildlife have different types of flesh. Land animals, fish, and birds all have a different flesh. Caterpillars turn into butterflies, and their flesh changes during the metamorphosis. God designed the flesh of each creature exactly as He desired, and in such a way to best accommodate the particular needs of that species. So Paul's argument here is that if God gives different living creatures different kinds of flesh, then He is certainly able to create a resurrection body for humans that will be exactly what we need throughout eternity.

In verses 40 and 41 Paul shifts to another illustration. There are celestial bodies in the heavens: planets, comets, stars, etc. There are also terrestrial bodies on earth: humans, animals, plants, etc. And there are differences between all of them. They all have glory, but the glory differs from one to another. Albert Barnes wrote,

"The splendour, beauty, and magnificence of the heavenly bodies differs much from those on earth. They are one thing; the beauty of earthly objects is another and a different thing. Beautiful as may be the human frame; beautiful as may be the plumage of birds; beautiful as may be the flowers, the topaz, or the diamond, yet they differ from the heavenly bodies, and are not to be compared with them."

Tomorrow we will see Paul's application of these truths.