With what body will the dead be resurrected?

The hope of all Christians is that believers will rise to immortal life at Christ's coming. Therefore, it is no surprise that when the Apostle Paul heard that some members of the church in Corinth were denying the resurrection, he forcefully refuted their misunderstanding in his First Letter to the Corinthians, chapter 15. First, Paul reiterated the message of the gospel to which they, too, affirmed: Christ had risen. Paul recalled how the body of the crucified Jesus had been laid in a tomb and, three days later, had been bodily raised to glory (verses 3–4). He then explained that Christ, as our forerunner, had risen from death to life—to show us the way to our future resurrection at his coming (verses 1, 4,20–23).

Christ is risen

To affirm that the resurrection of Christ was truly real, Paul cited over 500 witnesses to whom Jesus had appeared after being raised from the dead. Most of these witnesses were still alive when he wrote his letter (verses 5–7). Christ had also appeared to the apostles and to Paul personally (verse 8). The fact that so many people had seen Jesus in the body after his burial meant that he had indeed been bodily resurrected, although Paul did not explicitly address this in chapter 15.

He did, however, let the Corinthians know that it would be absurd and unreasonable for the Christian faith to doubt the future resurrection of the faithful, for they believed that Christ had risen from the grave. Not believing in a resurrection of the dead logically meant nothing more than denying that Christ Himself had risen. But if Christ had not risen, believers would have no hope. But that Christ was risen, give the believers the certainty that they too will be resurrected, Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

Paul's message about the resurrection of believers is centered on Christ. He explains that God's saving power through Christ in his life, death, and raising to life enables the future resurrection of believers - and thus God's ultimate victory over death (verses 22-26, 54-57).

Paul had repeatedly preached this good news – that Christ had been raised to life and that believers would also be resurrected at his coming. In an earlier letter, Paul wrote: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus.” (1. Thessalonicher 4,14). This promise, Paul wrote, was in accordance “with a word from the Lord” (verse 15).

The church relied on this hope and promise of Jesus in Scripture and from the beginning taught faith in the resurrection. The Nicene Creed of AD 381 says: “We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come.” And the Apostles' Creed of about AD 750 confirms: “I believe in ... the ... resurrection of the dead and eternal life.”

The question of the new body at the resurrection

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul specifically addressed the Corinthians' unbelief and misunderstanding regarding the bodily resurrection: "But someone might ask, 'How are the dead raised, and with what kind of body do they come?'" (verse 35). Here, the question is how the resurrection would occur—and what kind of body, if any, the resurrected would receive for their new life. The Corinthians mistakenly thought Paul was speaking of the same mortal, sinful body they possessed in this life.

Why did they need a body at the resurrection, they wondered, especially a body as corrupt as this one? Hadn't they already reached the goal of spiritual salvation and didn't they rather have to free themselves from their bodies? Theologian Gordon D. Fee says: “The Corinthians believe that through the gift of the Holy Spirit, and especially through the appearance of tongues, they have already come into the promised spiritual, “heavenly” existence. The only thing that separates them from their ultimate spirituality is the body they had to shed at death.”

The Corinthians did not understand that the resurrection body was of a higher and different kind than the present physical body. They would need this new “spiritual” body for life with God in the kingdom of heaven. Paul used an example from agriculture to illustrate the greater glory of the heavenly body compared to our earthly physical body: He spoke of the difference between a seed and the plant that grows from it. The seed may "die" or perish, but the body - the resulting plant - is of far greater glory. “And what you sow is not the body that is to come, but mere grain, whether of wheat or of any other thing,” Paul wrote (verse 37). We cannot predict what our resurrection body will look like compared to the features of our present physical body, but we do know that the new body will be much, much more glorious—like the oak compared to its seed, the acorn.

We can be confident that the resurrection body in its glory and infinity will make our eternal life far grander than our present physical life. Paul wrote: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown perishable and is raised imperishable. It is sown in lowliness and is raised in glory. It is sown in poverty, and it is raised in power” (verses 42-43).

The resurrection body will not be a copy or an exact reproduction of our physical body, says Paul. Also, the body that we receive at the resurrection will not consist of the same atoms as the physical body in our earthly life, which is rotten or destroyed at death. (Apart from that - which body would we receive: our body at the age of 2, 20, 45 or 75 years?) The heavenly body will stand out from the earthly body in its quality and glory - like a wonderful butterfly that has its cocoon , previously a dwelling of a low caterpillar.

Natural body and spiritual body

It makes no sense to speculate on how our resurrected body and immortal life will look exactly. But we can make some general statements about the great difference in the nature of the two bodies.

Our current body is a physical body and therefore subject to decay, death, and sin. The resurrection body will mean life in another dimension—an immortal, incorruptible life. Paul says, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body”—not a “spiritual body,” but a spiritual body, so that it will be worthy of the life to come. The new body of believers at the resurrection will be “spiritual”—not immaterial, but spiritual in the sense that it was created by God to be like the glorified body of Christ, transformed and “conformed to the life of the Holy Spirit for eternity.” The new body will be completely real; believers will not be disembodied spirits or ghosts. Paul contrasts Adam and Jesus to emphasize the difference between our present body and our resurrection body. “As the earthly one is, so are those who are earthly; and as the heavenly one is, so are those who are heavenly” (verse 48). Those who are in Christ when he appears will have a resurrection body and a life in Jesus’ form and being, not in Adam’s form and being. “And as we have borne the image of the earthly one, so shall we also bear the image of the heavenly one” (verse 49). The Lord, Paul says, “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.” (Philipper 3,21).

Victory over death

This means that our resurrected body will not be made of perishable flesh and blood like the body we know now—no longer dependent on food, oxygen, and water to live. Paul emphatically stated: “Now I say this, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” (1. Korinther 15,50).

At the Lord's appearing, our mortal bodies will be changed into immortal bodies—eternal life and no longer subject to death and corruption. And these are the words of Paul to the Corinthians: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed; and that suddenly, in a moment, at the time of the last trumpet [a metaphor for the future appearance of Christ]. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed” (verses 51-52).

Our bodily resurrection to immortal life is cause for joy and nourishment for our Christian hope. Paul says, “But when this perishable puts on the incorruptible, and this mortal puts on immortality, then the word that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory' (verse 54) will be fulfilled.

by Paul Kroll