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Pathways Through Paul
Daily Devotional
September 21
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Today's Pathway:
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Paul has spent the last several verses proving from the natural world around us that God has created different bodies with different glories and He has done so at His good pleasure. Now He starts verse 42 by stating that God is going to do the same thing at the resurrection of the saints. He then compares the earthly body that the believer currently has with the eternal body that he is going to have. The human body that we now have corrupts. As we get older, our body begins to break down. Solomon gave a thorough synopsis of how our bodies corrupt as we age in Ecclesiastes 12:1-6. Once we have passed away the rate of corruption increases dramatically. Lazarus had been dead for four days, and Martha stated that "he stinketh" (John 11:39). However, at the resurrection, our new bodies will never corrupt. There will be no sickness or loss of physical abilities. There will certainly be no death (Revelation 21:4). They will continue to exist forever in the perfect condition in which they were created. Paul next says that our current bodies are "sown in dishonor". Not only do we bring dishonor upon ourselves during our lifetime through sin, the fact that we will someday be buried in the ground to return to dust is very dishonorable as well. Simon Kistemaker commented,
"The dissolution of the human body when committed to the grave is the ultimate humiliation for humans who were crowned with glory and honor to rule God’s creation."
But at the resurrection our bodies will be glorified. Nothing about them will bring dishonor to God or to ourselves. The body that we have today is "sown in weakness". We are weak physically, both in terms of our natural strength and also in terms of our ability to resist sin (Matthew 26:41 - "the flesh is weak"). Certainly our death shows the weakness of our bodies, for at some point we will be too weak to overcome the illness or accident that will end our lives. At the resurrection there will be no more weakness, but only power. We do not know what all that will entail, but we can safely say that our resurrection bodies will be able to accomplish everything that we need or want to do.
Beginning in verse 44, Paul writes that we will no longer have a natural body as we do now, but we will instead have a spiritual body. The words "spiritual" and "body" seem to be contradictory, for we do not think of that which is spirit as having a body. Bruce Barton explains,
"Paul did not mean that this body will be 'spiritual' as opposed to physical or material, for that would contradict all that Paul has just written about resurrected bodies. Believers will not become 'spirits.' Instead, 'spiritual' refers to a body that suits a new, spiritual life, just as our present bodies suit our lives today. Each believer will no longer have a natural body, like Adam, which was designed to live on this earth; instead, each will have a spiritual body, like Christ had after his resurrection."
Verse 45 quotes Genesis 2:7, which says that God
"breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul".
Adam was a living soul, and he in turn gave life to the human race, and humans have a body like his. The second Adam, Jesus Christ, is a quickening spirit. In John 5:21 Jesus said,
"The Son quickeneth whom he will".
As Adam gave physical life to men, and they have a body like his, so Jesus gives spiritual and eternal life to those who receive Him, and we will someday have a body like His. Paul then notes in verse 46 that Adam, the natural, chronologically came before Jesus, the spiritual. In the same manner the natural body, the one we have now, comes before the spiritual body, the one we will have in the resurrection. The seed comes first, and dies, but what comes afterwards is glorious. The human body comes first, and dies, but what comes afterwards for the Christian is more glorious than words can describe.
Pastor Mark J Montgomery
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