"But someone will say,
“How are the dead raised up?
And with what body do they come?
(I Cor. 15: 35)
These are the chief questions that the apostle Paul answers in this great chapter on the resurrection of the dead. Although he especially addresses the resurrection bodies of the just (or righteous), yet what he says about the resurrection of the dead in that chapter in some respects applies to the resurrection bodies of the unjust. We will therefore focus on the resurrection of the righteous first.
I will not comment linearly from start to finish in regard to Paul's words concerning the resurrection of the dead but will comment on a different order and arrangement of my comments upon his statements. The two questions above, from verse thirty five, need addressing first, for they are the context for Paul's commentary and answer to the questions.
How Are The Dead Raised?
That is the easiest of the two questions Paul will answer in this great chapter. We have also already shown the answer to it and it came directly from the mouth of the Lord Jesus Christ. Recall that he said to the resurrection denying Sadducees "you err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God." It was also answered by the apostle Paul who asked king Agrippa - "why should it be thought an incredible thing with you, that God should raise the dead?" (Acts 26: 8) The how is God's omnipotence. Nothing is impossible with God. (Luke 1: 37; 18: 27)
We need not know the "how" of the things God does to believe in those things. We do not know all the mechanics of all the works of God, of how miracles are performed, or how the supernatural works, in order to believe in them. So it is with "how" the dead are raised. It is sufficient to know that God is omnipotent and that nothing is impossible with him. The fact is, God has raised the dead and we can believe it without understanding how God does it. No man knows how God can simply say "let there be light" and instantly light comes into being. We do not comprehend how God "speaks and it is done." (Numb. 23: 19)
Obviously, even the physical elements of the cosmos obey his commands. That is a unfathomable mystery, incomprehensible. Perhaps the Grecian Christians in Corinth wanted a scientific explanation, one that was in agreement with reason, and not based upon mere faith.
Heavenly Bodies
"45 And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being (rather 'soul').” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man." (vss. 45-49)
The resurrected and glorified bodies of the saints will be both "spiritual" and "heavenly." So, what does that mean? How is the Lord, the second Adam, a "heavenly man"? Does that mean he was not earthly or a human being? Was he born a superman? Or, did he become a heavenly man after his resurrection and bodily glorification? What does it mean that Christ as a man, or in his human body, was a "spiritual" man? Was his body spiritual before his resurrection or after? Does being a spiritual or heavenly man mean that the man is no longer a physical entity? What does it mean to have "the image of the man of dust"? Likewise, what does it mean to "bear the image of the heavenly man"?
When did Adam become a "living soul"? When God made him or when he sinned? Likewise, when did the second Adam become a "life giving spirit"? When he was born in the womb of Mary or when he was resurrected and glorified? Was Adam, when first created, solely a "natural man" or was he also a "spiritual man"? Or, did Adam become a natural man when he sinned? Was Paul comparing and contrasting the physical body, or humanity, of Christ to the physical body of Adam when created or when he sinned? That is not an easy question.
When speaking of Adam the focus is on how God made him in the beginning, and not on what he became after his fall into sin. Adam became a "living soul" when God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. He did not become a living soul when he sinned, though some bible teachers think so (saying he became a "soulish" man, guided by his depraved senses). Secondly, he was "natural" from the moment God created him, not becoming natural when he sinned. He was not a spiritual man in body, though he had a spirit and was spiritual in that sense. His body was not spiritual though he was spiritual in his inner man, having the spiritual law of God written on his heart. (Rom. 7: 14) Third, his body (which is the focus of the apostle) was "of the dust of the earth." But, Paul says that Christ is different because he was "from heaven" and therefore a "heavenly man." But, that does not mean that the human body of Christ was from heaven, nor his human soul from heaven, but that his divine person was from heaven. However, some bible teachers have believed in the preexistence of the human nature of Christ. The great hymn writer Isaac Watts (1674-1748) believed that the human soul of Christ was created before the world began and that this is what is involved in Christ begin "begotten" as the "Son of God." It is also similar to what the "Two Seed" "Primitive Baptists" believed and also to Mormon beliefs. When the apostle says that "the man" was "made of dust," does he not refer strictly to the physical body? Is it not true that the inner spirit of the physical man was not of the dust, but was breathed into him by the very breath of the Creator?
Christ’s resurrection body is called “spiritual” (v. 44) in the same sense that food and a literal rock (1 Cor. 10:4) are called spiritual. It is called a “body” (soma), which always means a physical body when referring to an individual human being. Verse 44 reads as follows: "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body." (vs. 44) That cannot be interpreted to mean "it is sown a physical body but it is raised a non-physical body." The resurrection body will still be physical, but it will be super physical, and made in such a way that the inner man or spirit has complete control over the physics of the material body.
In summation, the resurrection body of Christ is called “spiritual,” "heavenly," and a “life-giving spirit” because its source is the spiritual realm, or Heaven, not because its substance is immaterial. Christ’s supernatural resurrection body is “from heaven,” as Adam’s natural body was “of the earth” (v. 47). Also, the resurrection body is from heaven in the sense in which Adam's spirit, which animated his body, was from God or heaven. As the first man was from “earth” and had a material body and yet had an immaterial soul, even so the One from “heaven” also has a material body and yet had an immaterial spirit and divinity that was from heaven. As previously seen, the resurrected body of Jesus could transport itself from one location to another in an instant, could materialize inside of locked rooms, much the same way that we see occurring in the Star Trek genre of movies where people were by the "transporter."
In Romans chapter five the apostle compares Adam and Christ. However, in contradistinction to first Corinthians chapter fifteen, he shows how Adam and Christ are mostly alike, saying that Adam was the "figure of him who was to come." (vs. 14) There are similarities and differences between the first and the second or last Adam. Both those chapters will demonstrate this fact. All this is involved in a physical body becoming spiritual and heavenly. In other words, the body will become both physical and spiritual. About it being heavenly recall these words of the apostle that we cited in earlier chapters:
"For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven." (II Cor. 5: 1-2 nkjv)
As Christ' body is called heavenly because the power that made it is from heaven, so too with the resurrected saints. The new body is both of the dust and from heaven. That seems like a contradiction, but it is not because the sense in which it is from heaven does not negate it being still the body that was made of the dust and that was buried in dust.
Further, Christ in his physical body being "from heaven" must also allude to the fact that his physical body was not derived from the seed (sperm) of Joseph, but from the Father and Spirit. Thus, Christ being in his physical body a heavenly man denotes that his body was the product of God and heaven, though it was likewise a product of the earthly body of his mother Mary.
Theologians debate whether what is said of Adam the first was pointing to what he was when made by the hand and breath of God or whether pointing to what he was after he had sinned. Likewise, they debate over whether Christ being a heavenly man and becoming a life giving spirit was what was true by his incarnation prior to his resurrection or what was true by his resurrection from the dead.
Certainly Christ became, in his body, yea, in his whole person, a "life-giving spirit" as a result of his resurrection and glorification. That seems to be what Paul is affirming, and yet we read where Christ seemed to be a quickening spirit prior to his death and resurrection. Recall this text: "For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, even so the Son gives life to whom He will." (John 5: 21 nkjv) Recall that he also said to Martha "I am the resurrection and the life." (John 11: 25)
The words of Paul are clear however for he says that Christ "BECAME a life giving spirit" and does not mean that he became so by his incarnation but by his resurrection. Further, Christ in his divinity as the eternally begotten Son of the Father, was always a life giving spirit. But, this was not true of his humanity until his resurrection and when he became, in his relation to the dead, especially of dead saints, the source and power for resurrection. In other words, Christ' heavenly body becomes the source for the new bodies of his people. They are resurrected because of "the power of his resurrection" (Phil. 3: 10), because he is now a life giving spirit, having a spiritual body, and by becoming the source of resurrection and glorification for the bodies of dead saints.
JBF commentary says this about Christ becoming a life giving spirit: "so the spiritual body is the fruit of our union with the second Adam, who is the quickening Spirit (2 Co 3:17)."
I think that is what is meant by Christ becoming, by his resurrection, a life giving spirit. All in union with him will find that their dead bodies will be animated and live again just as all in union with Adam have natural life and animation through him.
Notice how reference is made to II Cor. 3: 17. It reads as follows: "Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." Here "spirit" does not mean the Holy Spirit and therefore the translations should not have "spirit" capitalized.
Matthew Poole's commentary says (emphasis mine):
"was made a quickening spirit: He was made so, not when he was conceived and born, for he had a body subject to the same natural infirmities that ours are; but upon his resurrection from the dead, when, though he had the same body, in respect of the substance of it, yet it differed in qualities, and was much more spiritual; with which body he ascended up into heaven, clothed with a power, as to quicken souls with a spiritual life, so also to quicken our mortal bodies at his second coming, when he shall raise the dead out of their graves."
I agree with this. The new body has a connection with the old. On that we will have more to say later. But, it is far different from the old. It differs as Poole says "in qualities." First of all, "spirit" is superior to "flesh." This is clear from these words of the prophet: "Now the Egyptians are men and not God, and their horses are flesh and not spirit." (Isa. 31: 3) Thus, involved in a "spiritual body" is power, supernatural power. As I have stated before, the resurrected and glorified saints will have greater power and abilities than they had while they were strictly flesh and blood in a sinful state. About these abilities we have already observed several things and will enlarge further in following chapters. In Christ being the second Adam, and a resurrected and glorified man, he has become the creator of a new humanity.
John Gill writes this good commentary on the text (emphasis mine):
"now he is made "a quickening spirit"; which some understand of the Holy Spirit, which filled the human nature of Christ, raised him from the dead, and will quicken our mortal bodies at the last day; others of the divine nature of Christ, to which his flesh, or human nature, was united; and which gave life, rigour, and virtue, to all his actions and sufferings, as man; and by which he was quickened, when put to death in the flesh, and by which he will quicken others another day: though rather I think it is to be understood of his spiritual body, of his body, not as it was made of the virgin, for that was a natural, or an animal one; it was conceived and bred, and born as animal bodies are; it grew and increased, and was nourished with meat and drink, and sleep and rest; and was subject to infirmities, and to death itself, as our bodies be; but it is to be understood of it as raised from the dead, when it was made a spiritual body, for which reason it is called a "spirit": not that it was changed into a spirit, for it still remained flesh and blood; but because it was no more supported in an animal way; nor subject to those weaknesses that animal bodies are, but lives as spirits, or angels do; and a quickening one, not only because it has life itself, but because by virtue of the saints' union to it, as it subsists in the divine person of the Son of God, their bodies will be quickened at the last day, and made like unto it, spiritual bodies; also because he lives in his body as a spiritual one, they shall live in theirs as spiritual ones: and so the apostle shows, that there is a spiritual, as well as an animal body; that as the first man's body, even before the fall, was an animal or natural one; the last Adam's body upon his resurrection is a spiritual and life giving one, as the Syriac version renders it."
So, in conclusion, resurrected saints will not only be glorious (with all that is entailed in that glorification) but also spiritual and heavenly in their new bodies from heaven.
No comments:
Post a Comment