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Sunday 11 March 2018

1 Corinthians 15:35-38 - How are the dead raised?

15:35
More objections to the resurrection are now dealt with. First, how are we raised, and what sort of body will we have. The first thing to note is that people in those days did not consider resurrection to be a normal thing! They considered it highly unlikely, if not impossible. They were not gullible!

15:36,37
Paul uses an analogy from nature. For a plant to grow the seed has to be sown into the ground, it has to die. Perhaps Paul was aware of Jesus’ saying about a grain of wheat dying (John 12:24). Moreover, the plant that comes from the seed is radically different from the seed that is sown, though of course it is also completely dependent upon the seed that is sown.  You will not get a banana tree from a mustard seed. But there is a complete transformation. So it will be with us. We need to die, and resurrection is not a mere revival of the old body, but a complete transformation. Note that Paul uses nature as a guide to spiritual truths. Nature was designed and created by God, so it is not surprising that it indicates spiritual truths.
15:38

We see here the direct involvement of God in all of creation. He gives the seed its “body” when it grows from the ground. Now this does not mean that biological science is not true or irrelevant, rather biology is describing what happens, describing the process that God uses. Some people, both on the Christian and the atheist side, seem to think that because God is involved there cannot be a process, or because we find a process then God cannot be involved. This is just evidence of poor thinking.

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