Commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, 42-50

In today’s passage, Paul functions as the Corinthians’ teacher. He starts to bring his long discourse on resurrection to its climax by exploring the nature of the resurrected body. “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (15:35). These questions are probably crafted by Paul and put in the mouth of an imaginary interlocutor (“someone”), rather than Paul’s quotation of a real person in the Corinthian community (it is different from 15:12). Right after posing the rhetorical question in verse 35, Paul retorts immediately by calling the hypothetical person “Fool!” (verse 36) and sets the stage for the coming lesson.

Of course, one does not have to emulate Paul’s chastising pedagogy. “What would you prefer? Am I to come to you with a stick, or with love in a spirit of gentleness?” (1 Corinthians 4:21). No modern preacher would teach her congregation by calling them fools, wielding a stick, or rebuking their slow understanding. One should focus on what Paul wants to communicate through this passage and how to appropriate it creatively.

In 15:36–38, Paul first employs agricultural metaphors to explain the resurrection body. It is probably common knowledge that the seed (which seems dead when sown) and the actual plant that grows out of it are radically different. Paul interprets this natural pattern of plants as God’s sovereign work. God gives each of the dead seeds its own future body. Likewise, the current mortal body of believers will transform into a new body from God.

In verses 39–41 (not part of this week’s passage), perhaps catering to his audience, Paul shifts from agriculture to philosophy. Paul suggests a taxonomy of bodies and kinds of flesh (animals, birds, fish, stars, et cetera), by which Paul demonstrates that a resurrection body classification makes sense.¹

Building upon the aforementioned nature analogies, Paul articulates the difference between the earthly and the resurrection body in a series of opposite pairings (15:42–44):

Paul depicts what is sown as inferior (perishable, dishonor, et cetera), and what is raised as superior (imperishable, glory, et cetera). The first three pairs consist of figurative examples, but the final contrast (physical body versus spiritual body) directly addresses the issue at hand.

It should be noted that Paul does not view the difference between the current body and the resurrection body as one between physicality/materiality and immateriality. In this regard, the New Revised Standard Version translation, “physical body” and “spiritual body,” is misleading. The terms indicate relationships. Incorporating Paul’s clarification in verses 45–49, the contrast between the two bodies is better phrased this way:

• sōma psychikon: a body animated by psychē in association with the earthly one (Adam); in other words, the living psychē
• sōma pneumatikon: a body animated by pneuma in association with the heavenly one (Christ); in other words, the life-giving pneuma

Or, more simply put, they are the Adamic body and the Christic body. Both bodies are concrete bodies, but bodies configured in different relationships.

Reading this teaching 2,000 years later, it is unclear whether (or how far) Paul convinced his Corinthian pupils. Maybe it was effective in its day, but it is still puzzling to a modern audience. While Paul does not devalue the body itself (because at the resurrection all will have bodies), he regards the earthly body as inferior and waits for a better body to come. How would this teaching be helpful for our diverse bodies?

As an ancient apocalyptic Jew, Paul does not answer modern questions explicitly. Yet, it is possible to seek and find pieces of truth revealed obliquely in Paul’s text. As Paul points out, all bodies are given by God (15:38), and no one can judge the way God works. Not all flesh is alike (verse 49). Whatever color of skin, ethnicity, gender/sexuality your body identifies with, the difference is appreciated and accepted as God’s own gracious gift.

Compared to the future glory of the resurrected body, all bodies on this side of eternity are temporal (“perishable”) and vulnerable to suffering (“dishonor,” “weakness”). Nevertheless, God will not simply condemn or eliminate these bodies. God will graciously clothe them with bodies that are no longer temporal nor vulnerable (verse 53), so that all may have transformed bodies, bodies that are in full relationship with Christ (life-giving pneuma)’s body. Paul says that this transformation is a mystery (verse 51). Until this mystery is fully revealed, Paul encourages his audience to be devoted to the work of the Lord with steadfastness (verse 58).

As Holly Hearon notes, “The fulfillment of that promise [of resurrection] is, from Paul’s perspective, dependent upon our remaining embedded (or embodied) in Christ in the present age.”² In the end, Paul’s vision articulated in the first century points to divine realities in the modern world: “GLBTI communities might then remind Paul that in God’s creative imagination, a body can encompass far more diversity and complexity than he could possibly suppose.”³

Paul’s rhetorical question about the nature of the body (15:35) should not be misunderstood as an invitation to a sophisticated theory of what this resurrection body will be or how this is all possible (this, Paul would rebuke!). The conclusion of the resurrection discourse is clear: it encourages a creative response to God’s work through embodied lives, in all forms, here on earth (verses 57–58).

Notes

1. Jeffrey R. Asher, Polarity and Change in 1 Corinthians 15: A Study of Metaphysics, Rhetoric, and Resurrection, HUT 42 (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), 100–110.
2. Holly E. Hearon, “1 and 2 Corinthians,” in The Queer Bible Commentary, ed. Deryn Guest et al. (London: SCM Press, 2006), 612.
3. Hearon, “1 and 2 Corinthians,” 613.