Exegetical Essays On The Resurrection Of The Dead, pp.68-76
Samuel M.Frost, M.A.
But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?”
The Greek should read, ‘but how are the dead being raised? In what body are they coming?’ Note that so far, Paul has not mentioned ‘soma’ (Gr- ‘body’) until this point. It is strange that if this is the major concern of Paul’s his lack of use is puzzling for the traditional view.
The subject is ‘the dead ones’ and this must be kept in mind. We have already discussed that they are not representative of every dead person ever. The deniers believed in their own resurrection, as well as those who fell asleep in Christ (those who accepted the gospel before seeing the Parousia). The ‘dead’ are those who lived and died before the gospel was announced. This includes all of I old covenant Israel. They would not, it was asserted, be raised from Hades or Sheol. They will not participate with those ‘in Christ’ who were being saved by the eschatological Spirit. They have perished. How could they I (note the plural third person pronoun, not ‘we’) be raised? They died under the law and entered Sheol, as the Scriptures say. They did not have the life of Christ? They could not be said to have been in the body of Christ. Therefore, if they are being raised, in what other body would they be coming in?
The eschatological Spirit promised in Ez 37, mentioned above, inaugurated Israel’s hope and resurrection from the dead. This “Holy Spirit of the promise” (Eph 1.13) was promised to OT Israel. It was being fulfilled since the days of Pentecost. Jesus states the same thing (Jhn 5.25). However, if the “body of Christ” is perceived as having its origin from Pentecost onwards, then the question is not that difficult to imagine. How could the dead before Pentecost descend with Christ in his body when his body does not include them? How are they being raised if not through the body? In what body are they coming (present active indicative)? But, if Israelites are being baptized ‘on behalf of the dead’, then the solidarity between the ‘firstfruits’ and those long dead and in Sheol becomes clear. The Spirit was a ‘seal, guaranteeing our inheritance, the redemption of the possession’ (Eph 1.14). Israel was God’s “treasured possession” (Ex 19.5). Israel was “promised” an inheritance. The outpouring of the Spirit guaranteed that God would redeem his possession, and as a result, redeem the world. That this is Paul’s line of reasoning in Ro 11.11-15 is assured. The rejection of Israel brought “riches to the world”. The acceptance of Israel would bring “greater riches” to the world. Through their rejection (of part), salvation came early to the Gentiles. But, because salvation came to the Gentiles, this in turn would bring Israel into her “fullness” and "life from the dead."
If Israel does not come into her designed fullness, then what purpose is there for Gentile salvation? It is understanding this design of God to save the Gentiles in order to bring in the fullness of Israel. That was the reason for the Gentile mission, and the reason as to why Paul, the Jew, could “make much of my ministry to the Gentiles.” He did not go to the Gentiles in order to start a different religion. He went because he was following the prophetic Scriptures (Is 54.1-ff) which stated that the ‘nations’ would come in through the time of Israel’s deliverance. The coming in of the nations by the Spirit meant only one thing according to the Scriptures: “all Israel shall be saved, as it is written” (Ro 11.26a). Therefore, in Ephesians, Paul could write, “and you also (Gentiles) were included…marked in Him with a seal of the Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our (Israel’s) inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession (Israel)” (1.13-14).
The use of the question is telling. The distinction between ‘they’ and ‘we’ is to be noticed. It is not ‘in what body are we coming? How are we being raised?’ If they doubted their own resurrection re-embodiment, why not use ‘we’ instead of ‘they’? The ‘they’ being referred to here is not seen as belonging to the same ‘body.’ Note also that ‘body’ is singular, not plural. It is not necessary for Greek to make a distinction like this, but it can show that the singular body in which ‘they’ (plural) were ‘coming’ (present active indicative) is none other than the ‘body of Christ.’ Thus, this question is not asking, ‘how can dead people, long decomposed, be raised? In what body are they coming since the body that was buried is long disintegrated?’ That this is not the question becomes perfectly clear in the analogy Paul gives.
The ‘dead’ stand for the ‘seed.’ The seed is first seen simply as an existing entity; a single seed. Then, it is ‘sown’ into the ground. Following this, it starts its process of dying. It ‘cannot be made alive unless it dies.’ Being made alive’ is present passive indicative. A seed cannot be in process of ‘being made alive’ (‘the dead are being raised’) unless it has first undergone the process of decomposition. The dead, existing as they do, must be sown, then must die in order to be made alive (‘being raised’).
Paul has set out four things in his analogy that follow a sequence: 1). The existence of the seed, which stands for the ‘dead,’ in keeping with the question that was asked. 2). The seed is then sown into the ground. 3). The seed then dies. 4). It is also, at the same time, being brought to life. Let’s run the traditional view through this analogy.
In the traditional view, the dead body stands for the individual ‘seed.’ The dead body/seed is then sown (buried in a casket) into the ground. Then the dead body/seed begins to die, and is at the same time being made alive. Does this fit? Clearly, in the traditional view, the dead body/seed is already dead before it is sown! In Paul’s analogy, death occurs after it is sown. Also, how does the traditional view answer the ‘being made alive’ question as a process? Are physical bodies currently undergoing a death/life process in the casket until the resurrection of the dead? How can Moses’ body be said to be in a process of ‘being made alive’ for 4,000 years now? For Fee, the problem of the analogy is dismissed by not comparing the analogy given by Jesus in John 12.24. ‘There the emphasis is on the necessity of death for fruit.’ (Fee, Gordon D., NICNT, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, 781) But this is not the point. Fee realizes that if the necessity of physical death is what Paul has in mind, then he contradicts himself in vss. 50-53, where we see that ‘we shall not all sleep’ (or physically die). I find that Fee must devalue the seed analogy in vs. 36 and its point that ‘unless it dies’ because he cannot maintain his view and stay consistent. He cannot maintain that physical bodies must die in order to be raised, for that would indeed bring Paul into a severe contradiction.
However, Paul is clear: ‘unless it dies, it cannot be made alive.’ How can something ‘be raised’ unless it first die? It is not a resurrection body unless it is raised from the dead! It cannot be a raised body unless it was first a dead body. But, even more than that, Paul is answering a question having to do with ‘the dead’ and how ‘they are being raised.’ In keeping with our thesis, the ‘some’ among the Corinthians knew that in Christ that they themselves had died in Christ and were being made alive in him as well. Equally, those who had fallen asleep in Christ had also died with Christ and were made alive and would rise again into their eternal inheritance. The question is, how can those who died apart from Christ be considered as being in Christ’s body? Do they not have to undergo the “death/life” process through the death/life of Christ?
Wright notes that Paul is no longer talking about the dead as so much as their bodies. Thus, Paul ‘switches to speak of ‘bodies’ when thinking of that which is to be raised.’ (Wright N.T., The Resurrection of the Son of God, 343n92) To switch, then, is a must for the traditional view. It cannot maintain consistency with ‘the dead’ being in view here. It must now ‘switch’ to talk about dead bodies, and not the ‘dead.’ There is a difference between talking about corpses and dead persons. However, if the ‘dead ones’ were speaking of persons in the first part of this chapter, then why does it now “switch” to their bodies without any indication from Paul? The question is not “how will their bodies be raised” but, “how will dead ones be raised?” I seek to stay consistent within Paul’s argument here and therefore do not need to “switch” the meaning of the plural noun “dead ones.”
Not all bodies are the same, says Paul. The ‘body’ of Christ is not like ‘other bodies’ that we see and touch. It is a spiritual body. It is subject to different laws. You cannot take a fish out of water. If you take a fish body out of water, out of its environment, then it cannot function. Same for the sun and moon. These bodies are subject to their own environmental laws, and these laws are different for each of these bodies. So it is with the resurrection of the ‘dead ones’ and the body they are coming into, says Paul.
The dead of Israel were being sown while in their perishable Adamic nature, with dishonor, decay, and bondage. (The translation above says, ‘the body is sown’ for verse 42, but the word ‘body’ appears in italics, meaning it is not in the text. It is just as possible to be ‘the dead’ here since ‘the dead’ occurs at the end of verse 45) But, they were also ‘being raised’ (the present passive is used throughout) into the imperishable body of the second Adam: Jesus Messiah. The present passive for both “being sown” and “being raised” is in keeping with Paul’s seed analogy for “dying” and “being made alive”, being viewed as concurrent actions. They, in Adam, the ‘natural man,’ in that corrupted body of Adam, are sown into the body of the second Adam, Christ. In that body they are put to death (“dying”) and are also being made alive through the work of the quickening Spirit which was restoring to them all that was promised. The seed (‘the dead’ being denied) ‘dies’ in Christ, and is also ‘being made alive’ and ‘will be made alive’ in Christ, and when Christ comes. When Christ comes, not all will physically die, but all: the dead, those fallen asleep in Christ, and those currently alive who have accepted Christ, will be changed together, for there is only ‘one body’ (Eph 4.4).
Thus, the contradiction of ‘dying’ in v. 36 and in v. 51 is removed. The former verse speaks of dying ‘in Christ,’ whereas the second speaks of physical demise. Fee has them both speaking of physical death, however, he realizes that if both verses are speaking of physical death, and since Paul said “not all will die”, then he eliminates the “necessity of death” in v. 36! Rather, since a seed must die (isn’t that necessary agriculturally speaking?), and since Paul says “not all will die”, the solution is to be seen in that in verse 36 Paul is speaking of dying in Christ. The dead must also go through the ‘dying in Christ’ in order to be raised in Christ. Israel must go through the death that abolished “in his flesh, the Law” which “stood against us” (Eph 2.15; Col 2.14). How else would Moses be raised? His physical death certainly did not “free him from the Law” did it? The penalty of the Law was death. Moses did not “enter heaven”. He did not enter into his promised inheritance.
Christ was the “firstborn” from the dead ones, the first in all things. As a Jew according to the flesh, he was the forerunner for those faithful servants of God under the old covenant. His death was a removal from the penalty of the Law, and his resurrection was a resurrection from The Death that held all of Israel in “fear” (Heb 2.15). Israel, then, must enter in through the body of Christ and be incorporated in it. Christ was the way of their redemption because he was covenantally tied with them in the flesh.
Therefore, the natural body in Adam that Israel had is not “the body of that which is raised.” There are different bodies. Christ’s body is different from the body of that which is sown. However, there is continuity of the same body. That which is sown, it is also being raised. Israel, dead in Adam, who were promised a ‘new heart’, who were not made alive before the outpouring of the promised Holy Spirit, were sown in Christ while yet corrupt, but they are also being made alive with Christ into their incorruptible inheritance. They were being sown while in a natural body (life in Adam), or a seed, but were being raised as a spiritual body, like the seed, which is not raised as the same body with which it was sown. In short, Israel was sown while in a corrupted nature, but Israel is also raised incorruptible. The body of Israel before will not be the body of Israel after, but it will still be Israel! It is Israel transformed, just like an apple seed is transformed into an apple tree. This transformation can only take place in the body of Christ.
Paul’s consistent use of the present verbs reveals that he is not speaking of something in the far distant future, but of what was then transpiring in his generation through the work of Christ. If Israel’s inheritance is heavenly glory, then she has been postponed since the work of Christ even longer than she was under the Law of Moses! This just will not do. Christ came to redeem “his people.” The traditional view states emphatically that this has not yet happened. Rather, Paul views the reign of Christ for the purpose of putting the death that separated man from God due to Adam under his feet. When he did that, then Israel would be “saved” and “raised from the dust of the earth” (Da 12.2).
Paul has already mentioned the difference between `the spiritual’ and ‘the natural’ man before. In 1 Co 2.14,15 the ‘natural man’ (psychikos anthropos) ‘cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God.’ The ‘spiritual man’ (pnuematikos) does. If ‘natural man’ here means ‘man in a biological body,’ then no person alive can ‘receive the things of the Spirit’ while in a physical body! Paul is saying that he is attaining unto a ‘spiritual man’ because he has received ‘the mind of Christ.’ Does this mean that he was getting better eyesight and glorified legs? If it is absurd to read that into these words, why is it not equally absurd to see it in the verses in 1 Co 15?
