Today I want to begin exploring 1 Corinthians 15, the passage of scripture that most overtly discusses the future bodily resurrection of the dead. There are 58 verses in this chapter and the focus of the entire chapter is resurrection. I don’t plan to quote the entire chapter within the blog. So, I’m asking you up front to pause here for a moment a read the chapter. You can read it online here: http://ref.ly/1Co15

My focus in this series of posts is to clarify that Paul is discussing a future bodily resurrection and that it is this future event that is at the center of Paul’s hope. I recognize that some will read the previous sentence and think “duh,” for they have always read this passage with that understanding. But many haven’t. My observation has been that most assume that the narrative of scripture is aimed at eventually taking us all to heaven. This assumption, when brought by the reader to this passage, shapes the interpretation to fit the shape of that narrative. The bits that clearly indicate a hope for bodily resurrection are thereby screened out, and those that appear less clear (once the clear ones are no longer seen as a point of reference) are interpreted rather as a hope for a future disembodied trip to heaven where we will live happily ever after.

Before I begin examining the text itself, I want to point out why thinking of the aim of scriptural narrative in terms of going to heaven doesn’t work in general. In Genesis 1-2 we find the Creation story, where we begin to understand God’s purpose and design. He creates Man in his own image and according to his own likeness (an idiom expressing a parent/child relationship). God gives Man delegated authority and a commission to fill the earth and to rule over it. God breathes into Man the breathe of his own life and thereby becomes Man’s source of life and identity. God’s aim in Creation is established. God desires a world filled with Men who enjoy a parent/child relationship with God, who are connected to God by his own breath, and who exercise his delegated authority as his representatives to govern the planet. Obviously, it is this plan that became side tracked because of sin. Instead of being God’s children, Man became God’s enemies, disconnected from his life and living for themselves. Instead of governing this world as God’s representatives, Man has abdicated this responsibility and Satan has become the ruler (not the owner) of this world. Man has filled the earth, but not with God’s image, authority, or life.

If that really is God’s plan, then we must understand God’s redemptive work through Christ as God’s gracious and powerful work to restore this world and Mankind to that original design. In my last post, I discussed this very reality in terms of Romans 8:18-25. The common view that God’s redemptive work through Christ was primarily aimed at taking us all from the earth to heaven when we die simply fails to recognize the significance of God’s original design and plan. If God’s redemptive work is about us leaving earth and going to heaven, then it is apparent that God has given up on his original plan and that, to a significant degree, God’s purposes have been ultimately thwarted by the devil and sin. This is obviously false. God will end up getting in the end exactly what he was after from the beginning.

This expectation of God’s redemptive work bringing restoration to this planet is a consistent prophetic theme throughout scripture.

Numbers 14:21 (ESV)
21But truly, as I live, and as all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the LORD,

Psalm 72:19 (ESV)
19Blessed be his glorious name forever; may the whole earth be filled with his glory! Amen and Amen!

Isaiah 11:9 (ESV)
9They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Habakkuk 2:14 (ESV)
14For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

Zechariah 14:8–9 (ESV)
8On that day living waters shall flow out from Jerusalem, half of them to the eastern sea and half of them to the western sea. It shall continue in summer as in winter.
9And the LORD will be king over all the earth. On that day the LORD will be one and his name one.

Today I want to begin my exploration of 1 Cor 15 by looking at some of the verses that, when taken alone, might seem to indicate that Paul’s subject is something other than bodily resurrection. This is important, because we must interpret scripture by scripture. Whatever conclusion we come to must make sense of these verses. We can’t just pretend they aren’t there.

“And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied. ” (1 Corinthians 15:17–19, ESV)

In vs 17-19 it is possible to understand Paul as speaking of something other than bodily resurrection. He takes the reality of Christ’s resurrection and makes both our (those still alive) present status before God and those who have died contingent upon the Jesus’ resurrection. The implication here could be that because Christ is raised, the result is that the status of those who live and have believed is changed, and the status of those who have perished is secure. We who are alive are saved. Those believers who have fallen asleep (died) are alive with God. The hope expressed here could be seen as a hope for disembodied existence with God in heaven.

“What do I gain if, humanly speaking, I fought with beasts at Ephesus? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” ” (1 Corinthians 15:32, ESV)

Believers, Paul himself as the example, are facing significant persecution for their public declaration of another Lord besides Caesar. The cost is high. Paul’s argument here is that the present cost is only worth it if the dead are raised.  If the dead are not raised, then it is foolish to pay this price. Why? For tomorrow we die. There seems to be two options in Paul’s mind. Either we will die and there is nothing, or we die and there is resurrection. If nothing, then why suffer now? If resurrection, then present suffering completely makes sense. When we die, what happens? Paul’s argument here seems to be that the two options available for our consideration are either 1) nothing or 2) resurrection. Since we know that Paul elsewhere affirms that when we die, though our body is buried, we ourselves are absent from our body and present with Christ, and this is clearly not “nothing”, then it appears that Paul is equating resurrection with the non-bodily existence with Christ in heaven expected for believers who perish.

“There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. ” (1 Corinthians 15:40, ESV)

In vs 40 Paul specifically defines the resurrected body as being “heavenly” as opposed to “earthly”. This could be taken to mean that when Paul uses the term resurrection, he isn’t speaking of a bodily resurrection at all, but rather the reality of our heavenly, non-material existence after our death.

“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. ” (1 Corinthians 15:44–49, ESV)

In contrasting our present embodied existence with our resurrected existence, Paul, in vs 44-49, contrasts “natural” with “spiritual”, “being” with “spirit”, as well as “earth” and “dust” with being from “heaven”. Taken alone, these verses can also seem to indicate that Paul, when discussing resurrection, isn’t talking about bodily resurrection at all. In fact, he might seem to be saying the opposite, that our hope in resurrection is a hope for a disembodied, spiritual, heavenly existed subsequent to our natural death.

“I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. ” (1 Corinthians 15:50, ESV)

Vs 50 seems to support this as well, for here Paul equates “flesh and blood” with the “perishable” and declares that this state of being (flesh and blood that is perishable) will not inherit God’s kingdom. This would also seem to imply that we should expect resurrection, whatever it is, to NOT be a bodily, flesh and blood type of existence.

In my next post, I plan to examine verses from 1 Cor 15 that do seem to strongly imply a bodily resurrection from the dead. Stay tuned!