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"How are the dead raised up?"

Text: 1 Corinthians 15:35

FOOLISH QUESTIONS

The deception caused by the false teachers had affected the faith of the Corinthians adversely. Paul had to address some of the questions that some raised up.

“But someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised up?
And with what body do they come?’
Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies.
And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be,
but mere grain- perhaps wheat or some other grain.
But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body.”
1 Corinthians 15:35-38

1. Questions raised: –

a) How are the dead raised up?

b) And with what body do they come?

2. These were probably questions raised by the false teachers

a) These questions were intended to create doubts about the resurrection.

b) The false teachers had no idea what resurrection meant!

c) Those who listened to them ended up having spurious doubts.

3. Paul’s answer

a) Drawn from agricultural knowledge.

b) No one sows a whole plant (wheat or otherwise).

4. Basic understanding

a) One sows the seed.

b) The seed must die in the ground.

c) Only then would it come alive.

d) The seed then goes on to produce the whole stalk of wheat (or whatever grain has been sown).

5. Similarly God will give it the body as He pleases

a) The seed of wheat will be very different from the full-grown stalk.

b) This is true with all other grains.

c) This principle applies to the doctrine of the resurrection.

i) The present mortal body will one day die.

ii) But God will raise it up and give it a new resurrection-body.

iii) The new resurrection-body will not be like the old sinful mortal body!