| E-MAIL SERVICE | Sign me up to receive the daily Word of Righteousness free via my E-mail address! ( ONLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH ) | |
| ARCHIVES | I want to check out the daily Words of Righteousness for any of the last fourteen days or from previous weeks. ( ENGLISH ONLY ) | |
| FEEDBACK | I have a question or comment about today's Word of Righteousness. ( ENGLISH AND SPANISH ONLY ) | |
| BOOK LIST | I would like to see the complete book list of the Words of Righteousness author Robert B. Thompson. (SOME SPANISH TITLES AVAILABLE ) |
The Daily Word of Righteousness
The Resurrection and Eternal Judgment, #7
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: (I Corinthians 15:37) The above passage appears to teach that our physical body will not be raised.
But if our physical body is not to be raised, then the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians is incoherent; for the first part of the chapter obviously is speaking of our dead physical body. If our physical body is not to be raised, it would be true that our resurrection is not to be patterned after that of the Lord Jesus; for the physical body of Jesus is not in the cave of Joseph of Arimathea.
The pagan concept that matter is evil and spirit is good has entered Christian thinking. The pagan influence has resulted in I Corinthians 15:37, plus Paul's teaching concerning the "house which is from heaven," of II Corinthians 5:1-4, being interpreted to mean our present body will be no more and we will receive a new body.
If our present body is not to be raised from the dead, then there is no resurrection of the dead.
What, then, is Paul saying in I Corinthians 15:37?
Paul is answering those who were questioning the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead. Some of their questions were like those of the Sadducees, who approached Jesus and raised the insincere question of the woman who had been married to seven brothers (Luke 20:27-33).
Paul is not saying that our present body will not be raised. He is stating that it will not be the same body because it will not be limited by its present constraints. It will be a "different" body in the sense that it will be greatly improved. It no longer will be subject to weakness, to tiredness, to sickness, to death. It will have powers and capabilities of which we understand little.
It will not be motivated by blood but by spiritual energies. Our body then will be filled with righteousness rather than sin. It will be a source of freedom for the inner man rather than a miserable prison of sin and death.
Paul speaks of our discipleship on the earth as the sowing of our outward man into death in the hope that we will reap a harvest of incorruptible life in the form of a glorified body.
Precisely so. Note that the farmer sows wheat seed. The germinating stalk does not come from another place but from the seed that was sown. So it is true that our new body will not come from another place but from our present body that is being sown to death.
Our present body will be clothed with incorruptible life provided we have sown to the Holy Spirit.
For he that soweth to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. (Galatians 6:8)
The clothing of our risen flesh and bone body with the house of eternal life that has been kept in Heaven for us is revealed in the design of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was constructed from acacia wood covered within and on the outside with refined gold (Exodus 25:10,11), the wood typifying our risen mortal body and the gold typifying the Divine Life with which the risen body of the saint will be clothed.
To be continued.