One has to read the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians
15 in order to properly understand what the latter half of the chapter is
actually referring to. You propose the latter half of the chapter is
talking about a change that occurs when we are buried. I contend that
the first half of the chapter lays just the sort of foundation so that once
we get to the latter half, we realize your proposal cannot be true at all.
You say the body you will have is going to be physical and yet spiritual.
But you do actually not believe anything is "changed." Paul spoke
of us being "changed". You do not believe the body you have now will
be changed into another one. You believe your present body will be laid in
a grave and left there, after you have a new spiritual body. I think that
is the point of your error.
1 Corinthians 15:37 And that which
thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it
may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
The seed that goes into the ground
changes into another body.
It is not left there as a seed. It becomes another body, which is
the stalk of the plant.
When I dig up a plant, I do not see a seed that did not change, and then
see roots all around it from another body of the stalk, as through the roots
and stalk are not the "changed" seed. The seed has been transformed into
the stalk and plant. That is what Paul said in 1 Cor 15:37.
1 Corinthians 15:42-46 So also is the resurrection
of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is
raised in incorruption: (43) It is sown in dishonour; it
is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it
is raised in power: (44) It is sown a natural body; it
is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual
body. (45) And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul;
the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. (46) Howbeit that was not first
which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which
is spiritual.
Notice the "IT". The IT is the body. And IT is changed. You have no change
occurring in your doctrine. Nothing is changed. Where is the change that
Paul talks about in your doctrine?
The above scriptures say that we cannot dig up a grave of a resurrected
saint and see any bones, dust or anything else from the earthly body they
had. It will be changed and gone. That has not occurred yet, so the dust is
still there.
To "change" the body requires the body being made into another form, having
other characteristics. But you are saying the present earthly body is not
changed at all, but left in the ground to rot away, while our spiritual
bodies are gone somewhere else. But Paul did not say that.
You noted to me that the body Jesus was raised with was only temporary
and was actually the earthly body. And since Paul said flesh and blood
shall inherit the kingdom of God, you insist that Jesus' resurrected body
of flesh cannot be the body He now possesses. However, you agree that
Jesus' body was changed in the tomb into a resurrected body, but insist it
is still earthly. And you believe He gets His spiritual body in the clouds
after He ascended into Heaven, and not in the tomb. But then you say
we get our spiritual bodies in the tomb. That is inconsistent.
I propose that your idea disagrees with everything Paul
said in 1 Cor 15. When we read form the start of the chapter, we find that
Paul said that the bodies we will have will be like the body Jesus had when
He resurrected from the tomb. Paul repeatedly makes reference to the body
Jesus had that He left the tomb with in his introductory words that lead
up to that section we are concerned with at the end of the chapter.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 Moreover, brethren,
I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have
received, and wherein ye stand; (2) By which also ye are saved,
if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in
vain. (3) For I delivered unto you first of all that which I
also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;
(4) And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according
to the scriptures:
Notice the Gospel includes death, burial and resurrection.
Not death, burial, resurrection and change in the clouds.
What happened in the clouds is not part of the Gospel.
(Isn't it interesting that clouds do play a part in our resurrections,
only
after we are changed, just as after Jesus rose from the dead,
he went up in clouds? Clouds are not the places we are changed. We are changed
in the graves.)
Now, you did say we are changed and get spiritual bodies in the graves.
But you insist the earthly body is not changed and stays there. However, if
we are changed in the grave, then Jesus must have been changed in the grave
as well! Paul is basing our resurrection on Jesus' resurrection. And
Jesus' resurrection involved a body that was raised up from the tomb. Therefore,
any change that occurs in resurrection had to occur with Jesus' body in the
tomb. But you insist he was changed in the clouds.
The word of Paul insist that there is change first, and then the experience
in the clouds.... both for Jesus and ourselves!
And after Paul makes this statement, He compares that to our
resurrections
when our bodies will be
changed.
We cannot just read part of the chapter. We have to read the entire chapter
to get the whole picture from start of the issue to the end.
Then Paul spoke of those who saw
Jesus in His resurrected Body.
1 Corinthians 15:5-8 And that he was seen
of Cephas, then of the twelve: (6) After that, he was seen of above five
hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present,
but some are fallen asleep. (7) After that, he was seen of James; then of
all the apostles. (8) And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born
out of due time.
This is significant, because this is the body Paul says that our bodies
will be changed into.
Then we read some personal notes about Paul, followed by this:
1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached
that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection
of the dead?
Jesus was resurrected since people
saw Him after the resurrection.
Keep this in mind. And what they saw was what you are calling an earthly
body. But I propose that is incorrect. Anyway, they saw a body resurrected
and alive. Many many witnesses saw it.
Then we read:
1 Corinthians 15:13-14 But if there be
no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: (14) And if Christ
be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
If Christ did not resurrect, then the Gospel is foolishness, because it
involves resurrection of Jesus.
We read:
1 Corinthians 15:17-19 And if Christ be
not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. (18) Then they
also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. (19) If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Paul said that It affects
us, too, if Christ did not actually resurrect.
Now why is Paul saying all of this? It is because of this verse:
1 Corinthians 15:13 But if there be no
resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
People in Paul's day were saying there was not going to be a resurrection
of the church. But Paul said if that be the case, then why did Christ resurrect?
Paul was implying that the very manner in which Christ resurrected is the
manner and
proof that we will resurrect.
You seem to be saying that if I was laid in a grave and you saw my body
come back out of the grave, changed -- the same body changed into an immortal
body -- I did not actually "resurrect". You propose my "resurrection"
is going to be when I am laid in the grave and nobody sees anything come
out of the grave. An invisible spiritual body comes out, while the earthly
one is not changed and lays there.
But Paul said my resurrection is going to be like Jesus'. His body that
went in the grave was "changed" and came out again for all to see. And on
that basis, there is going to be a resurrection of my body, too.
Something that is resurrected has to have been dead first. What
is "resurrected" in your doctrine? If the body is not changed in the
grave, and stays there, then what is resurrected? "Resurrected" means
"brought to life again". My earthly body will die and it will be brought
to life again. The same body! Otherwise nothing resurrected.
Where does the Bible say that Jesus got another spiritual body in the clouds
when He ascended?
2 Kings 2:16 And they said unto him, Behold
now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee,
and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the LORD hath taken
him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said,
Ye shall not send.
It sounds as though Jesus' body experienced what the sons of the prophets
thought happened to Elijah's body, if Jesus was changed in the clouds, and
the body was not the part that changed, though, but is left behind. Since
it was not changed into another body, because our bodies are not changed
into anything else, then it only stands to reason that it fell to the ground
somewhere when He got His spiritual body in the clouds.
If our bodies are left in the graves when we get spiritual bodies, then
Jesus' body fell from the clouds when He got His spiritual body.
If it did not fall to the ground, did it vanish?
Since you propose that the earthly body is not "changed" into a spiritual
body, then what happened to the body Jesus ascended with into the clouds?
If we are "changed" (with no change at all) in the grave, then why was
the only change Jesus had in the grave a change of His earthly body so that
it could walk and live again with no blood and nailprints and riven side?
Why does Paul base our change upon Jesus' "raised" body in verse 37?
His body was
dead and was
changed so that it could live again.
That is resurrection. And Paul is arguing that in the same way He
resurrected, we are going to resurrect. In other words, our dead bodies will
change so that they live again. But the change will also make those
dead bodies spiritual and no longer earthly.
Paul said that we have no hope if Christ was not raised (resurrected).
Why? Because our hope is the resurrection. So this is telling us that the
raising of Jesus is our hope, also. But you are telling me that the changing
of our bodies will not occur as the resurrection of Jesus occurred. You
are telling me that our changed bodies will be as Jesus ascended body changed
in the clouds. But Paul does not base our resurrection on that part of it
at all. He bases it upon the part of Jesus' experience where Jesus raised
out of the grave and was seen by so many people.
That is the link
to
our resurrection.
That is the manner our resurrection will
be!
1 Corinthians 15:23 But every man in his
own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his
coming.
And based upon comparing Christ's raising from the tomb to be seen of all,
we then read the above verse. And since He is
firstfruits, there
will be others to follow.
First always means
there are more to
come (Sort of like
first resurrection!). What part of His experience
is called
firstfruits? What part of His experience will we experience
to follow? You will find the answer if you read verses 1 through to
8 -- the experience of Jesus that occurred first, which we will also experience,
is the raised body from the tomb.
That is the pattern for our resurrection.
Not His ascension into the clouds where you claim He was changed.
And based upon all of that, Paul then says:
1 Corinthians 15:35-36 But some man will
say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they
come? (36) Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it
die:
He asks us what Body does the dead have when they are "raised" up. he says
that they will have a
body that they will come with at that
raising.
The answer is to find the answer to the question of when was Christ raised
up? Christ was
raised on the third day...
not the forty-third
day. You claim Christ was changed the forty-third day after His burial,
because He ascended forty days after He arose from the tomb, and you claim
His ascension into the clouds was when He first got a spiritual body. That
means the forty-third day He was "changed".
However, verse 35 says the spiritual bodies we will have are like the body
Jesus had
when He was raised up. When He was
resurrected!
And that speaks of the body in which He was seen as Paul speaks
about from verse 1 to 8 in this chapter.
One has to chop off all the verses before verse 35, and forget the note
about what was
raised in verse 35, in order to say the bodies we shall
have were not like the body Jesus was raised from the tomb with. But verse
35 speaks of the body Jesus was
"raised" with. And
that is what
our bodies will be like.
These verse says the bodies of those who are presently dead shall remain
in the grave until the trumpet sounds: 1 Cor 15:51-52; 1 Thess 4:16-17.
Paul taught that the terrestrial body
is changed into the spiritual
body. Verse 40 is not talking about our bodies. When it says celestial,
it is speaking of what we read in the next verse.
1 Corinthians 15:40-41 There are also celestial
bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and
the glory of the terrestrial is another. (41) There is one glory of the
sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for
one star differeth from another star in glory.
It is speaking of the sun, moon and stars. These are celestial bodies.
They are in outer space.
Paul did not say our new bodies will be celestial. He is simply differentiating
the various bodies in the universe. Earthly (terrestrial) and non-earthly
(celestial), just as he differentiated between the body of a seed and the
body of a plant. The point he was making about the body of a plant and a
seed, is that the body of the seed
is changed and transformed into
the body of the plant.
Jesus was not raised up a terrestrial body. His body was changed in the
resurrection into a spiritual one, just like a seed is changed into a stalk.
Furthermore, Jesus was never said to have an earthly body! You are
contending that Jesus' resurrected body is "earthly" because it was an earthly
body that was buried. And since the Bible says earthly bodies will
not enter heaven, then the earthly body He resurrected with can not be what
Paul is saying the spiritual body we shall all have is what Jesus had at
that time. But you are actually mixing up the entire thought of Paul.
he never said anything about an earthly body of Jesus. When he
was talking about an "earthy" element, he was not speaking of the body.
1 Corinthians 15:47 The first man is of
the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
Adam, himself, was earthy. Not just his body. Jesus is not earthy,
nor ever was earthy. This is not talking about Jesus' body when it
says
earthy. Why do you speak of an earthy body of Jesus when "earthy"
is not used here to refer to anybody's body at all? Earthy is only used in
this entire chapter to refer to origins of the person of Adam, as opposed
to origin of the person of Jesus.
Adam was from the earth. Jesus was from heaven. Jesus was heavenly.
The corruptible is the earthly body. But
it shall
put on incorruption.
Our bodies stay like Adam's, originating from him, until the trumpet sounds.
That means it will not stay in the grave. It will be changed. But some earthly
bodies will be changed
outside the grave while they still live and
walk around.
1 Corinthians 15:51-54 Behold, I shew you
a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (52) In
a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet
shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be
changed. (53) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal
must put on immortality. (54) So when this corruptible shall have put on
incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall
be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory.
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (13)
But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are
asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. (14)
For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which
sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. (15) For this we say
unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto
the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. (16)
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice
of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall
rise first: (17) Then we which are alive and remain shall
be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in
the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (18) Wherefore
comfort one another with these words.