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Pathways Through Paul
Daily Devotional
September 19
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Today's Pathway:
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In today's passage Paul responds to two questions that would be asked concerning the future resurrection of believers. The questions are: How can the resurrection happen?, and, What kind of body will resurrected saints have? The first question is based on the fact that everyone knows that when you put a body in the grave, it begins to decay. Even the Bible says
"for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return" (Genesis 3:19).
What about bodies that were lost at sea or cremated? In modern times we have the capability of transplanting the body parts of the dead into the bodies of the living. How could these bodies be raised? The answer in the mind of many was that this was impossible. The second question was probably rooted in the pagan philosophies of the day. As we have seen previously, the Greeks were teaching that it was a good thing to lose the body. In their thinking the body was inherently evil; a prison in which men are limited and restricted. In Asia culture, reincarnation was being taught, so if there was a resurrection, which of the numerous bodies the person had possessed during his many lifetimes would he be raised with? According to the Talmud (a compilation of Jewish civil and ceremonial law coupled with rabbinical discussions), the Rabbis believed that the particles of the body which died would reunite at the resurrection and form the same body again. And the Jewish Sadducees were teaching that there was no resurrection at all (Acts 2:8). No wonder there was confusion! However, at the heart of all of this was unbelief. We know this because of Paul's opening words in verse 36, "Thou fool". In noting Paul's response in verses 36-38, John Chrysostom asks,
"Why does not the Apostle appeal to the omnipotence of God?",
and then answers,
"Because he is dealing with people who do not believe."
Instead of simply reminding the believers that nothing was impossible with God (Mark 10:27), Paul gives an illustration from nature: a seed and a plant. He knew that the Corinthians would understand this because he calls it the seed "which thou sowest". He uses the analogy of the seed to correct two errors: that the resurrection body would be identical to the one that was buried, and that the resurrection body would be completely unrelated to the original body. If a farmer wants to raise a crop, the first thing he has to do is plant a seed. The seed dies in the ground, but as a result of that death the crop springs forth. Ray Steadman commented,
"The body that emerges from the seed that dies is different from the one that was planted. Put a grain of wheat or a kernel of corn into the ground and what comes up? Another grain of wheat or another kernel? No! What comes up is a green stem which does not look at all like what you put into the ground. Nevertheless it is tied to it; it is continuous from it; it has an identity with it. There is an undeniable tie with that which you put into the ground, and yet it is not identical; it is the 'same' without being similar. Now, if you had never seen that process before, would you have believed it if somebody had said that that is what would happen? You would have looked at him as though he were mad and said, 'How can that be?' because you can put almost anything else into the ground and that will not happen. It is one of those miracles that is so familiar to us that we miss the miraculous part of it. But Paul says it happens so frequently there should therefore be no struggle with believing in the resurrection of the dead."
We will look further into this tomorrow.
Pastor Mark J Montgomery
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