'How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?'

Gamma Gamaliel

There's been some discussion elsewhere about the 'resurrection body' - with contributions from @Lamb Chopped , @Telford and @Martin54.

I suggested it would make a Kerygmania thread.

So here goes.

How do we understand 1 Corinthians 15:35-38?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians 15:35-38&version=NIV

And 1 Corinthians 15:42-49?
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians 15:42-49&version=NIV

If I understand Telford correctly, he seemed to suggest we leave our physical remains behind and become 'spirits' - or 'spiritual bodies.'

The Orthodox Christian view, in a nutshell and as I understand it, is that 'the resurrection body' is not 'dematerialised' but a 'fulfilment.' Our present body is as that of the 'first Adam'. The 'resurrection body' is that of the 'last Adam, Christ.'

Now, I don't understand how this 'works' and I'm certainly not saying that if someone's body is cremated or eaten by a crocodile - or blown to smithereens in an explosion - they won't be 'resurrected'.

As we go through the 'Western' Good Friday to Easter and the celebration of the Resurrection of Christ it might be a timely issue to consider. I've got a few weeks before our Easter with time to think about these things.

jay_emm

Body integrity ought to have been a problem in the early church, and doesn't seem to be to that extent.

Paul in Thessalonians for instance doesn't add a coda about making sure you die in the right way, and in hindsight the least intact bodies are those of the Christian saints that the church found.

I do think it's promised to be better than life, which doesn't sit with a ghostly spiritual or purely physical.

Lamb Chopped

Definitely better than life, and I agree with you! Also, the idea of a non-material eternity for us, who were created as composite creatures, sounds really odd to me when you consider that God seems to LIKE matter. I mean, we get cataracts of weird and beautiful stuff, macaws and diamonds and black holes, plasma and dark matter, a super-abundance of beetle species. It just doesn't look like his style to leave matter behind. Glorify it, yeah, though I have trouble imagining what that would be like. Obliterate it, no.

Lamb Chopped

Paul's contrast between flesh and spirit that I mentioned on the other thread seems to be a contrast between corruptible, fallen, broken human nature and incorruptible, redeemed, whole human nature--not a straight contrast between the body and the mind/spirit/psyche. He mostly uses sarx when he's talking about the sin-related "flesh" as opposed to "soma" for body, which is generally good or neutral. But it can get really confusing when translated into English, where we usually take "flesh" and "body" to be straightforward synonyms.

I understand him to be saying that yes, we will rise with a soma, a body--and that body will be directly related to the body we died with--but it will be glorified, holy, incorruptible, no longer subject to the results of sin, including death. We will NOT be rising with sarx, because that is what Christ put to death on the cross.

I'm not too fussed about what happens to my body after I die--we're thinking of cremation, and before that organ donation if any of it is useful--because it seems to me ridiculous to think God can't say the word and reassemble me any time he likes, regardless of whether a crocodile had me for dinner or not. What kind of god couldn't manage that?

I do think there will be differences, and maybe we can get some idea of them by looking at Jesus' own resurrected body and what we see him doing with it--blithely ignoring locked doors and things like stones in front of his tomb, for instance. And distance. But still able to eat... very intriguing. Though with him being the Son of God also, I'm not sure how far we can say "we will be just like that."

Have to wait and see...

Kendel

I like this part for context:

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

I don't know what the whole context of the letter was, but it seems like there was a lot of speculation about the process and results. There's not a lot of detail, but Paul probably addresses the concerns that were raised.

No info on mechanics or physics or if organic processes are involved or how. Paul couldn't have known, and we don't either.

No question people at this time had a much better grasp on human decomposition than we do. Shakespeare's grasp couldn't have been much more advanced than Paul's, and he clearly grasped the biological recycling program.

Claudius: Now Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

Hamlet: At supper.

Claudius: At supper? Where?

Hamlet: Not where he eats, but where a is eaten. A certain convocation of politic worms are e’en at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots. Your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service, two dishes, but to one table; that’s the end.

Claudius: Alas, alas.

Hamlet: A man may fish with the worm that hath eat of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

Claudius: What dost thou mean by this?

Hamlet: Nothing but to show you how a king may go a progress through the guts of a beggar.

Gamma Gamaliel

Sure. And yet look what Paul writes for all that.

Kendel

Yes. My point is that much speculation about the matter is a waste of time and energy. We know enough.
There are more practical things to think about and do.

Nick Tamen

Lamb Chopped wrote: »

Have to wait and see...

That’s where I come down on it. Or in the words of the incomparable Iris Dement, “I think I’ll just let the mystery be.”

Kendel wrote: »

I No question people at this time had a much better grasp on human decomposition than we do. Shakespeare's grasp couldn't have been much more advanced than Paul's, and he clearly grasped the biological recycling program.

Indeed. And Paul did say he was telling us a mystery. And yes, I understand completely the meanings of the Greek mysterion, but I think the sense of something that defies rational explanation remains.