Reflections with Andy - 1 Corinthians 15: 35-58 - The Imperishable

Paul talks today about the spiritual and heavenly body in comparison with our earthly body. While there’s a lot we don’t understand, we do know this. God has something great in store!

What happens to us after the resurrection? In this reflection on 1 Corinthians 15, we explore Paul’s attempt to describe the resurrection body and what it means for our hope as Christians. Paul uses the image of a seed becoming something far greater than what was planted to help us understand that while our resurrection bodies will be connected to who we are now, they will be transformed—imperishable, glorious, and no longer subject to sin, sickness, weakness, or death. We may not know exactly what eternity will look like, but we can trust that God’s future is better than anything we can imagine. And that hope doesn’t mean we simply wait for heaven; it calls us to live boldly and joyfully now, working to make life on earth look more and more like the kingdom of God.

Join us for our daily reflections. In 10 short minutes, we’ll dig a little deeper into Scripture and help us better understand God’s Word.

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Good morning! I hope you’re doing well on this Monday morning. I hope you’ve got a big week planned and a lot going on.

There’s certainly a lot going on up here in Starkville this week as State starts classes. There are a lot of good activities happening. Dog Days is going on, and I know Wesley has a lot of activities planned. We’re going to be cooking burgers at the church for them Tuesday night, so that’ll be fun.

I’ve been told that when the kids get back into town, Starkville really picks up. And I can now see what they mean because our streets are not designed for all these people! It’s a lot of people.

I think that’s probably true of every college town. Oxford is probably the same way. Hattiesburg is the same way. Clinton is the same way. But it really is a joy to have so much life and so much energy here in Starkville with all of our kids back in class.

I’m looking forward to seeing what a great semester looks like for everybody—including us. This is my first rodeo here, so I don’t really know what the rhythms look like myself. We’ll find out together.

Today we’re going to finish out 1 Corinthians 15: 35–58.

My Bible, the New Revised Standard Version, entitles this section “The Resurrection Body.” Sometimes you’ll see it called the “spiritual body.”

This is Paul trying to explain to the people what the resurrection life looks like.

And you’re going to see that it gets confusing.

There’s really no other way to put it.

Paul is trying to explain something that’s really hard to explain and really hard for us to understand. So we’ll look at some of the big-picture things that Paul is telling us today.

Paul says:

“But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’”

And then he goes into this whole discussion about seeds. He says that what you sow doesn’t come to life unless it dies. You don’t sow the body that it is going to be; you sow a seed, and God gives it a body as God chooses.

Then Paul goes on to say:

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

And then he gets into this comparison between Adam and Christ.

The first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

And then he says that just as we’ve borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

And then he gets to one of the most famous parts of this whole chapter:

“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”

Then he says:

“Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed.”

And he goes on to say that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

This perishable body will put on imperishability.

This mortal body will put on immortality.

And then Paul says:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

“Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”

And then he finishes with:

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Okay.

There’s a lot happening here.

Obviously, this goes back to the question the Corinthians were struggling with. In some ways, they’re asking, “Why is the Lord taking so long?”

What’s taking so long?

Why hasn’t the Lord returned?

Remember, in the earliest days of the church, they were expecting Jesus to come back at any moment. They fully expected the second coming to happen very soon.

We’ve almost become numb to that idea. Some of us get fixated on it sometimes, but most of us don’t think about the second coming every day.

They did.

They were pretty convinced it was going to happen at any moment.

But as it didn’t happen immediately, and more and more believers began to die, they started asking, “Well, what happens to those who die?”

And that’s really what this whole section is about.

What happens to those who die?

What happens to their bodies?

And Paul’s answer is essentially this: Listen, in the resurrection, we’re going to have a body.

And I think that’s what I really want you to hear today.

Paul calls it the resurrection body. Some translations call it the spiritual body.

I think Jesus after the resurrection gives us a good example of what Paul is talking about.

Post-resurrection Jesus had a physicality to him.

He walked.

He ate.

He traveled.

There was something physical about him.

But he was different.

He wasn’t like a regular, non-resurrected person. He could appear in places where the doors were locked. There was something different about him.

But he was recognizable.

He was physical.

He wasn’t just a ghost or a spirit.

And Paul is telling us that in the resurrection, we will be like that.

We will have a body.

Now, it will be an imperishable body. It won’t be exactly like this body, but it will resemble this body in the same way that a seed grows into something much larger.

The seed you put in the ground doesn’t look like the plant that eventually comes out of the ground.

But there is a connection between the two.

In the same way, this body that we have now will give way to a resurrected body.

So that’s what Paul wants us to hear.

We don’t need to worry too much about exactly what it will be like in eternity because God is going to take care of us.

And I think that’s really the point I take away from this chapter.

There’s a lot you could focus on. There are a lot of things in here that are hard to understand. Sometimes it can get a little confusing.

But there’s this word “perishable” that Paul keeps using.

What does that mean?

It means that this body is imperfect. This body is mortal. This body is subject to the consequences of sin and the fall.

And Paul connects sin and death because of sin, there is death.

But in eternity, there will be no sin.

And if there is no sin, there will be no more death.

There will be no more sickness.

There will be no more weakness.

There will be no more pain.

The fall is ultimately the root of all of these things.

Because we have failed as humans, things are disordered. Things aren’t right.

But in eternity, there will be no fall.

We will be perfectly restored.

So when Paul says that the perishable will put on imperishability, he’s saying that these bodies—which are God’s good gift to us but which have experienced the consequences of living in a fallen world—will one day no longer experience those consequences.

Our bodies will be physical, but they will be as they should have been.

And that’s the big takeaway for me.

The Bible tells us that no mind can conceive what God has in store for those who love him.

I don’t know exactly what eternity is going to look like.

I don’t.

But I know it’s better than anything we can imagine.

I know it’s better than anything we can experience here on earth.

And I know that we will have these bodies that are no longer stained by sin.

I just think that’s incredible.

There is going to come a time when there will be no more cancer.

No more illness.

No more pain.

No more death.

All of those things will be done away with forever.

That’s what it means for the perishable body to put on imperishability.

These bodies that experience all of these things will one day have a body that doesn’t have any of that.

That’s what we hope for.

We hope for a day when there won’t be sickness or death.

We hope for a day when there won’t be hungry children.

We hope for a day when there won’t be individuals who are beaten or abused.

We hope for a day when there won’t be addiction.

None of these things.

That’s what we hope in.

And so, as Christians, when we pray on Sunday morning, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” I think that’s also an encouragement for us to work to make this life as much like heaven as possible.

While we’re here on earth, let’s work to make sure that the life these perishable bodies live can be as much like the imperishable life as possible.

That’s part of our calling.

We know that one day God will make all things new.

But until then, we’ve got work to do.

So don’t stress too much about the things we don’t know or don’t understand.

Trust what Paul tells us.

God has something in mind for us.

And whatever God has in mind, it’s going to be awesome.

“But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

That’s our hope.

We have great hope today.

So live fully.

Live boldly.

Live joyfully.

And know that as great as this life is, there is something even better that God has in store for us.

Thanks for being with us. Have a great day today.

We’ll see you tomorrow.