Chapter 2. The New Testament about the General Resurrection of the Body

The New Testament about the General Resurrection of the Body

Here I explore key elements of the biblical witness about bodily resurrection, especially in the New Testament. As I pointed out in chapter 1, if there is no hope for bodily resurrection, then there could be no affirmative speculations about gender, sexual desire and delight, and/or genital activity in the life to come. We cannot explore the biblical witness about the latter, more particular claims, until the biblical foundation for the former, more general hope is established. Differences among the relevant texts themselves, as well as among their interpretations, complicate this analysis. The theological tensions within Christianity about what characterizes risen life, especially about the general resurrection of the body, have their roots in the New Testament. It must be admitted from the start that there is no consensus among biblical theologians about what should be said about the “historical” character of the narratives about the empty tomb, the appearances of the Risen Lord and/or their ontological implications.

Christian eschatological thought emerged in the ancient Mediterranean world, where—as in our world today—there were many competing views about death and the afterlife. When interpreting the biblical witness about resurrection, it is especially important to understand the Jewish and Hellenistic traditions in regard to these matters. These perspectives provide important background information against which the New Testament witness to bodily resurrection stands out. In addition to reviewing key ideas within these two contexts, in this chapter I will provide a brief overview of the exegetical debate about how best to interpret the claim to the resurrection of the body in the Pauline corpus and the gospels.

JEWISH BACKGROUND

Within Jewish thought there were, and still are, many views of death and of the afterlife. According to one of its oldest traditions a natural, nonviolent death at the close of a long and fruitful life is the inevitable, enviable, and the completely natural end of a good life. Death was not seen as a consequence of, or even associated with, sin.1 Whatever occurred after death was for most ancient Hebrew people largely unimportant. At most, one hoped at the end of one’s life to be laid to rest in the earth, near the bones of one’s ancestors.2

For the most part, ancient Israelites believed that life simply ended with death.3 There was no promise of afterlife, no hope for or even the notion of personal immortality of any sort. This is why having children, particularly sons, to inherit and carry on their father’s legacy here on earth became so important. This is why infertility was viewed as such a tragedy. Of course, ancestors were to be honored, but the focus in ancient Israel was largely on life in this world, in the here and now. Israel’s hope was for, and much of its prophetic literature pointed (and still points) to, the eventual establishment of God’s Reign on this earth.

Lo, I am about to create new heavens and a new earth; the things of the past shall not be remembered or come to mind. Instead, there shall always be rejoicing and happiness in what I create; for I create Jerusalem to be a joy and its people to be a delight; I will rejoice in Jerusalem and exult in my people. No longer shall the sound of weeping be heard there, or the sound of crying; no longer shall there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not round out his full lifetime; he dies a mere youth who reaches but a hundred years, and he who fails of a hundred shall be thought accursed. They shall live in the houses they build, and eat the fruit of the vineyards they plant; they shall not build houses for others to live in, or plant for others to eat. As the years of a tree, so the years of my people; and my chosen ones shall long enjoy the produce of their hands. They shall not toil in vain, nor beget children for sudden destruction; for a race blessed by the LORD are they and their offspring. Before they call, I will answer; while they are yet speaking, I will hearken to them. The wolf and the lamb shall graze alike, and the lion shall eat hay like the ox (but the serpent’s food shall be dust). None shall hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the LORD. (Isaiah 65:17–25)

Since ancient times, generation after generation of faithful Jews have looked for this promised Reign of God on earth, have wrestled with their personal disappointment, and yet have continued to hope for this better future for their descendants on earth.

There is not much hope for a personal life after death evidenced in ancient Israel, at least not until the second century BCE.4 But there is some mention in the Hebrew scriptures of all the dead—with a few notable exceptions like Enoch and Elijah—“existing” in a shadowy netherworld called Sheol. Here the restless spirits of those who died young, died without heirs, died violently, and/or who had displeased God, are reported to have an ongoing, if ethereal, existence of sorts.5 But in Sheol the dead are described as neither punished nor rewarded; they generally know no pleasure or pain, no community nor even any relationship to God. (Of course, though Yahweh is described as not being there, even Sheol is never described as beyond the sovereign power of God.)

Whatever this notion represented among the people of ancient Israel, Sheol was certainly not ongoing life in any meaningful sense. Similarly, while there are dramatic stories of healing the dead in the Elijah-Elisha narratives found in the Hebrew Bible, these are basically accounts of the dead being restored to ordinary life. Resuscitation, however, is not equivalent to resurrection to transformed life. For all these reasons, many reviewers of Jewish thought on death and “the afterlife” conclude that the Hebrew Bible evidences little hope for either immortality or resurrected life.

Such a conclusion, however, might not express adequately the complexity of Hebrew thought on this matter. In his book Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life, Ratzinger argues against such a conclusion. He suggests instead that there was actually significant variation, perhaps even development, in Jewish thought on this matter. He argues that resurrection hope found at least indirect expression in important biblical texts. Indeed, he hypothesizes that “the indestructibility of communion with God, and therewith our eternal life, follows in strictly theo-logical terms from Israel’s concept of God.” It is indeed an understatement to admit, as Ratzinger himself did, that there is “no little objection at the historical level” to such a theo-logical claim. Nevertheless, he argues that in at least a few Hebrew texts the hope that life will prove to be stronger than death is expressed.6

For example, though dead and buried, the Hebrew Bible envisions the Suffering Servant as being not only vindicated but also eventually brought into the light himself.

A grave was assigned him among the wicked and a burial place with evildoers, though he had done no wrong nor spoken any falsehood. (But the LORD was pleased to crush him in infirmity.) If he gives his life as an offering for sin, he shall see his descendants in a long life, and the will of the LORD shall be accomplished through him. Because of his affliction he shall see the light in fullness of days; through his suffering, my servant shall justify many, and their guilt he shall bear. Therefore I will give him his portion among the great, and he shall divide the spoils with the mighty, because he surrendered himself to death and was counted among the wicked; and he shall take away the sins of many, and win pardon for their offenses. (Isaiah 53:9–12)

Israel’s longstanding hope for its eventual restoration as a great nation could also be interpreted as an undercurrent—deep in the people’s psyche—that oriented them toward the prospect of a glorious future.8 Though not widely accepted, it is interesting to note that Ratzinger’s hypothesis has found at least a qualified advocate in the recent work of a prominent Jewish scholar. In Resurrection and the Restoration of Israel: The Ultimate Victory of the God of Life, Jon D. Levinson concludes that a belief that at the end of history God will resurrect the dead and restore them to full bodily existence eventually became central to Rabbinic Judaism.9

But it was the emergence during the Second Temple period of hope for the full vindication of the righteous that proved to be the most important foundation for belief in a general resurrection among some Jews by the time of the Common Era. Explicitly apocalyptic visions about what might happen at the end of time began to appear around the second century BCE in Israel.10 About this time there emerged a clear Hebrew voice expressing the hope that ultimately the wicked would be punished and the righteous restored to a transformed body and an ideal life. It seemed that many of this era thought that martyrdom for a just cause merited precisely this more personal, individual honor. The solace that accompanied being laid to rest near one’s ancestors, with its appeal to extended family and tribal values, simply wasn’t enough.

Many biblical scholars today believe that at the time of its compilation the book of Daniel is a chronology of current events, only thinly disguised as prophecy from preceding centuries. Compiled by many authors over several years during the period of the Maccabean Revolt (that is, during the second century BCE), it contains the only explicit reference to resurrection (generally accepted as such) within the Hebrew Bible. In this text the prophet Daniel is portrayed as encouraging the faithful to trust in the following promise: “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake; some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace. But the wise shall shine brightly like the splendor of the firmament, and those who lead the many to justice shall be like the stars forever” (Daniel 12:2–3).

John J. Collins notes in his commentary that this brief text does not specify resurrected life as embodied (as does, for example, 2 Maccabees 7:11 considered later), nor does it suggest an event universal in scope. Instead it focuses on “many.”11 Still, even if astral in character, Daniel’s vision of what is to come at the end of the world proved to be of great importance in the development of Christian eschatological thought.

Written in Koine Greek probably by a Pharisee in Alexandria around 128 BC, 2 Maccabees is a revisionist history of the events recounted in the first seven chapters of 1 Maccabees with the addition of elements from the Pharisaic tradition. The story narrated in 2 Maccabees 7 is the gruesome tale of a heroic Jewish mother and her seven sons, who all choose torture and death rather than violate the purity laws of their faith. They did so—the text makes clear—in the hope of future vindication and bodily resurrection.

At the point of death he said: “You accursed fiend, you are depriving us of this present life, but the King of the world will raise us up to live again forever. It is for his laws that we are dying.” After him the third suffered their cruel sport. He put out his tongue at once when told to do so, and bravely held out his hands, as he spoke these noble words: “It was from Heaven that I received these; for the sake of his laws I disdain them; from him I hope to receive them again.” Even the king and his attendants marveled at the young man’s courage, because he regarded his sufferings as nothing. After he had died, they tortured and maltreated the fourth brother in the same way. When he was near death, he said, “It is my choice to die at the hands of men with the God-given hope of being restored to life by him; but for you, there will be no resurrection to life.” (2 Maccabees 7: 9–14)

Though its canonical status is a matter of ongoing debate,12 this testimony makes it clear that the Pharisees held beliefs—probably of various kinds—about resurrection. One can find ideas of resurrection in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls as well. It can be accurately concluded that, by this time, ideas about resurrection, though probably not uniform, were fairly widespread.

By the first century of the Common Era, the idea of a general resurrection of the body at the end of time was at least familiar to some within Judaism. This Pharisaic idea was far from universally accepted. Many Jews of this era—among them the Sadducees—were deeply skeptical of the notion of a general resurrection of the body. There is no precedent among the Jews of Jesus’s era—even among the Pharisees—for the notion that any single person, however heroic, would be bodily resurrected before the end of the world.

HELLENISTIC BACKGROUND

Alongside those within Judaism, there were many other traditions about death and the afterlife during the first century CE in the ancient Mediterranean world. Alexander the Great had annexed Jerusalem and its environs into his empire around 333 BCE. Even though he had left it alone to govern itself, Hellenistic culture permeated the atmosphere throughout the Mediterranean world. Greek and Jewish traditions intermingled. Several Greek ideas proved to be important in the early development of Christian thought regarding the resurrection of the body.13 Certainly, the Greek emphasis on personal accomplishments challenged the traditional Jewish emphasis on honoring the past and serving the present and future generations of the extended family and tribe.

Greek philosophical thought clearly exposed the Jews of the Common Era to a different, more individual notion of immortality.14 A prime example of this perspective can be found in Plato’s Timaeus written around 360 BCE. This philosophical treatise (written in the form of a speech) is about the human soul’s journey into material embodiment and the world and its subsequent moral struggle to escape this incarnate existence and return to an eternal life in its “native star” in the heavens. According to Plato, the rational soul has no desire for the body (its “prison”) or for life on the earth, but it rather seeks to enjoy a purely spiritual, eternal life. Many prominent Jews during the first century of the Common Era—among them Philo—incorporated such Greek notions about the immortality of the soul into their thinking.

At the opening of the Common Era, variations on such dualism were not the only, or even necessarily the most important, ways Hellenism shaped early Christian thought. Included within traditional Greek religious myths and rituals, and depicted in its art and literature, were profoundly influential stories of important, heroic mortals who died and were then resurrected. Some of these were tales of mere resuscitation; others were narratives of resurrection. For example, according to Greek tradition, even prior to his divination, Asclepius, who became the god of healing, brought the newly dead back to life. In these instances, those so healed returned to normal life and eventually died (again). They were not portrayed as having been rendered immortal or otherwise transfigured. Other stories, however, involved tales of resurrection into eternal life. Achilles, for example, was a popular hero around whom a cult evolved on Leuce Island. He was portrayed as having died and been resurrected, becoming immortal, and hence as disappearing from ordinary life.15

These older Greek traditions about heroic figures in which immortality is linked with an incorruptible transformed body were familiar to most people in the ancient Mediterranean world. These figures participated in both the human and divine realm. In all of these Greek religious stories of resurrection, however, there is clear continuity between the body that had recently died and the one raised up and made incorruptible. It was de rigueur that all wounds and warts present at the time of death become eternal! An account of the Risen Christ appearing with stigmata would make perfect sense to the Hellenistic mind. Claims about the resurrection of a heroic leader like Jesus would probably not have offended most Greeks listening to the Good News.

It was the claim of a general resurrection of the bodies of the dead that would have seemed outlandish.16 Undoubtedly, this struck the Athenian imagination as absurd. Such a reaction was reported in Acts: “When they heard about resurrection of the dead, some began to scoff, but others said, ‘We should like to hear you [Paul] on this some other time’” (Acts 17:32; interpolation mine). And as shall be delineated in detail in the analysis of 1 Corinthians 15 later in this chapter, surely it evoked much skepticism in Corinth. There was no precedent in either Greek philosophy or mythology for the claim that the bodies of ordinary disciples that had turned to dust, had been burned to ashes, or had been devoured and digested by wild beasts could then be raised up. In Greek mythology, most of humanity is eternally lost through death. There is simply no precedent whatsoever for belief in something like the general bodily resurrection of the dead in Hellenistic thought.

THE NEW TESTAMENT AND RESURRECTION: AN OVERVIEW

In Jewish thought there was little precedent for the idea of a heroic individual being physically raised from the dead prior to a time of general bodily resurrection.17 In Greek thought, there was no whisper of a general bodily resurrection. Individually divinized exceptions simply proved the rule of human mortality in Greek thought. And yet, it is precisely beliefs in both the Risen Christ and a general bodily resurrection that became central to—and distinctive of—Christianity in the opening centuries of the Common Era.

The New Testament makes it clear that Paul proclaimed both the Risen Lord and preached the general resurrection of the dead everywhere he went. Both claims were central to his account of the Good News, whether his pulpit was in Athens or Jerusalem.18 He proclaimed them in nearly every letter he penned (or that has been attributed to him).19 In this chapter I will focus on Paul’s treatment of these fundamental beliefs as expressed at length in 1 Corinthians 15. The seed metaphor expressed therein is widely recognized to be the oldest Christian metaphor for the resurrection of the body.

Within decades, the four evangelists also produced written testimony about this distinctive feature of Christianity through their diverse stories about the empty tomb and Christ’s resurrection appearances. Because I am particularly interested in the bodily character of the risen life to come, and because the Risen Christ is identified by Paul as the first fruits of this great harvest, what little is revealed about this new bodily life must come from these early accounts. We will attend to them carefully in the next chapter.20 At several junctures the gospels also portray Jesus as teaching the general resurrection of the dead in ways that accord more with the thinking of the Pharisees than the Sadducees.21 However, Jesus is portrayed in these passages as saying little that was new, given his Jewish upbringing, except of course to declare that he would be vindicated “on the third day.” Still, in chapter 3 I will also attend to the record of the arguments Jesus had with those (like the Sadducees) who found such a notion unbelievable. This is of certain import since the dispute at that time speaks to the very heart of the matter under scrutiny in this book.22

In his analysis of the early Christian testimony about resurrection, biblical scholar N. T. Wright identifies several ways in which it modified its Jewish antecedents. Four of these points seem particularly noteworthy to me. First, beginning with the distinctively Christian witness, the idea of resurrection is split into a two-phase event. Paul is especially clear on this point. Everyone’s eschatological future begins with the Risen Christ, whose personal resurrection inaugurated and is the foundation for our current experience of the in-breaking of the Kin-dom of God. Belief in a general resurrection has its foundation in that decisive event.

Second, in the New Testament Jesus is not portrayed as having been turned into a heavenly light through resurrection (as was suggested in the book of Daniel). Instead, the New Testament portrays the Risen Christ as radically transformed by God and, yet, still recognizable as their beloved Teacher who was crucified, dead, and buried. In the stories of the empty tomb and resurrection appearances, the Risen Christ is portrayed as having a body that is normal in some ways,23 and not so normal in other ways.24 At times Jesus was mistaken for an ordinary gardener; he was touchable, touched, and asked to be touched. He asked that his disciples not cling to him. He was portrayed as cooking, sharing food, and eating. He was recognizable as Jesus of Nazareth. At other times, however, the Risen Christ is portrayed as having a body that is not normal. He was not always recognized. At these junctures he is portrayed as able to enter locked rooms and suddenly disappear. He ascended into heaven.

According to Wright early Christian testimony about resurrection modified its Jewish antecedents in a third way. The promise of resurrection was expanded beyond a hope for the glorious restoration of Israel’s sovereignty. The promise was expanded to include the transformation of all humankind, indeed the renewal of all the cosmos.25 Fourth, this promised new creation is proclaimed as both gift and task; present-day disciples are called to teach, preach, and heal in light of their destiny in this new heaven and new earth.

What triggered the production of such dramatically different expectations about the life of the world to come? Many Christians would certainly answer: “The events we celebrate at Easter.” While one should not be naïve about the complexities that characterize the relationship between history and truth, it is not necessary to conclude that narratives that have been fabricated through human experience and language are therefore false or not historical. While skepticism about the resurrection is as old as the hope it promises, faith abounds as well.

There is undoubtedly some truth in the conclusion reached by Alan F. Segal at the close of his analysis in Life after Death, when he notes that a vision of the afterlife—in heaven or on earth, as souls or bodies, after death or at the end of time—mirrors “the values of the society that produced it.”26 He cautions, therefore, that they frequently “benefit a particular social class.” One can certainly demonstrate how eschatological visions of “pie in the sky” have functioned as an “opiate of the people” (to use Marx’s language) and thereby served to “quiet” the underclass. But one can also demonstrate with certainty how these same visions have functioned to embolden resistance to injustice and liberate martyrs on the margins of society.

What Segal fails to see is that one can recognize the all too partial and distorted nature of all human, socially constructed testimonies, and recognize the perspectival nature of the experiences they give voice to, without precluding the possibility that these traditions, however contextual and limited, have in fact developed in response to unique historical events. Of course, no one can prove (scientifically) that the tomb was really empty, or that the women (or their “brothers”) were not hallucinating or that they had not encountered a mere ghost. But as Wright indicates, the ability to repeat an event has never been what makes it historically plausible or even intelligible. History as a discipline aims to study and propose plausible (in terms of the canons of reason) yet admittedly imaginative and inevitably perspectival (re)constructions precisely of what is not repeatable.

1 CORINTHIANS 15

During the time Paul was writing to the church in Corinth, that congregation was experiencing serious doubts about Christ’s resurrection. There is currently considerable debate among biblical commentators about how to characterize the misunderstanding(s) among the Christians at Corinth at that time. What was the confusion Paul was trying to clear up? Did the new converts at Corinth come to doubt (so soon after their conversion) the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth? Were they denying the possibility of their own postmortem existence? How so? Were they confused about when to anticipate the so-called general resurrection? Did they deny the bodily nature of this promise? What was the precise problem Paul sought to address?

Paul begins this chapter (1 Corinthians 15:1–8) by referring to what seems to have been an early creedal formula accepted in the early church.

Now I am reminding you, brothers [sic], of the gospel I preached to you, which you indeed received and in which you also stand. Through it you are also being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures; that he was buried; that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures; that he appeared to Kephas, then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred brothers [sic] at once, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. After that he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one born abnormally, he appeared to me. (1 Corinthians 15:1–8)

He starts with the church’s accepted confession of faith. Most biblical scholars do not believe that the resurrection of Jesus Christ was widely disputed in Corinth. Nevertheless, Raymond F. Collins’s position on this matter seems the most nuanced to me.27 He notes that even if it was not an issue of widespread debate in Corinth, nor a direct concern of Paul’s in this letter, the reality of the resurrection of Christ may have been contested by at least a few Corinthians. Why else, argues Collins, would Paul have devoted so much attention to the matter, rehearsing as he does the early Christian proclamation (in the Greek kerygma) about the Risen Christ and citing six different witnesses to it?28 Collins says the review of these many appearances of the Risen Christ to a significant number of different people serves at least two purposes. It establishes that Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus was not merely a subjective hallucination, and also that this (divine) exaltation (in the Greek egegertai) of Jesus of Nazareth “has legs,” that is, that indeed Christ lives!

Nevertheless, even if it was denied by a few, belief in the resurrection of Christ appears not to have been widely contested within the early Christian community at Corinth. So the question arises: if this was not the primary issue Paul sought to address in his letter, to what debate might he have been responding?29 Paul wants to demonstrate why it is mistaken to claim that “there is no resurrection of the dead” (1 Corinthians 15:12) as some in Corinth were doing. While the resurrection of Christ was not widely disputed, the idea of a general bodily resurrection could well have been hotly contested. Many biblical scholars believe the corporate and corporeal implications of Christ’s resurrection were disputed.30 A significant number of the Corinthian converts were struggling with the notion that they too would eventually be raised bodily from the dead.31 Here Paul is linking the raising of all the faithful with the raising of Jesus, naming His resurrection as “first fruits” that anticipate and initiate this final resurrection.

The fledging church at Corinth was divided over the question of whether they, like Christ, would eventually be raised bodily from the dead. What we now refer to as the general resurrection of the dead was deeply contested in Corinth.32 But at least some Corinthian Christians did not doubt that they too would be raised on the last day.33

As a Pharisaic Jew, Paul believed in life after death and had long held that God’s ultimate salvific act would entail the bodily resurrection of the dead. Indeed, he came to see that his earlier Pharisaic hope was reinforced by his encounter with the Risen Christ.34 Apart from this conviction, he thought faith in Christ pathetic and labor for Christ in vain.

But if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then empty (too) is our preaching; empty, too, your faith. Then we are also false witnesses to God, because we testified against God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if in fact the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, neither has Christ been raised, and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain; you are still in your sins. Then those who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are the most pitiable people of all. … Moreover, why are we endangering ourselves all the time? Every day I face death; I swear it by the pride in you (brothers) [sic] that I have in Christ Jesus our Lord. If at Ephesus I fought with beasts, so to speak, what benefit was it to me? If the dead are not raised: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.” (1 Corinthians 15:12–19, 30–32)

Paul’s response to the problem raised by the Corinthians was Christ’s resurrection. It was for him simply the “first fruits” of God’s harvest, and as such, it was a glorious herald of the destiny all Christian disciples would share as Christ’s brothers and sisters.35

But now Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead came also through a human being. For just as in Adam all die, so too in Christ shall all be brought to life, but each one in proper order: Christ the first fruits; then, at his coming, those who belong to Christ … (1 Corinthians 15:20–23)

As Paul conceived of God’s plan, Christ’s resurrection inaugurated the fulfillment of the Kin-dom of God.36 When the time is right, this will include—“each in its own turn”—the “general” resurrection of the dead and the Second Coming of Christ.37 This—the general resurrection of our bodies—is at the heart of the gospel for Paul. In fact, for Paul, the whole cosmos groans for its recreation in this new heaven and new earth.38

Evidently, however, this testimony remained controversial. Consider the explicit condemnation of those who denied the promise of a general bodily resurrection by the deutero-Pauline author in the second letter to Timothy. This epistle is thought to have been written considerably after Paul’s death, sometime in the early second century, and perhaps addressed to communities quite different from those of Paul’s era. Nevertheless, while we cannot be certain of precisely what was being condemned—were these early teachers “spiritualizing” the resurrection? or were they proclaiming a too fully “realized” eschatology?—the potential widespread appeal of their erroneous teachings was thought to pose a clear and present danger to the faith community (see 2 Timothy 2:16–18). And yet, doubts about this claim should not surprise us. This glorious vision of embodiment challenges the profoundly ambiguous experience of the body we have here and now. Indeed, it is a vision of embodiment difficult for most of us even to imagine, let alone upon which to place our hope.

Paul insisted that this general resurrection of the dead included the resurrection of the body. But he recognized this was an idea difficult to grasp, as well as easy to doubt. Giving voice to questions raised by those who would doubt the promise of bodily resurrection, Paul writes: “But someone may say, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come back?” (1 Corinthians 15:35). Paul contended that this corporate and collective (cosmic even!) resurrection would be a mysterious event that would happen “in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet” (1 Corinthians 15:52a). Questions about this mysterious event, such as would the dead be raised with perfect bodies? would they be naked or clothed? focused especially on the form of our newly transformed, resurrected bodies. They were not unique to Corinth. They had long been commonplace in Jewish apocalyptic thought. Familiar though these questions were to him, Paul doesn’t speculate very much about such details.

Generally, Paul thought it foolish to speculate too much in this regard because at this time “we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52). After all, it is a radical, barely imaginable transformation. But Paul excluded some hypotheses.

And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind; but God gives it a body as he chooses, and to each of the seeds its own body. … So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one. (1 Corinthians 15:37–38, 42–44)

Resurrection is not mere resuscitation. Rather, Paul testified to the resurrection of an imperishable body:

This I declare, brothers [sic]: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all fall asleep, but we will all be changed, in an instant, in the blink of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For that which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality. And when this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality, then the word that is written shall come about: “Death is swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:50–57)

In fact, the adjectives Paul used to describe this glorious body were multiple: “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one” (1 Corinthians 15: 42–44). In addition to being transformed and imperishable, he proclaimed that the risen bodies of the faithful united to Christ would be mysteriously glorious, powerful, and spiritual.

CONTEMPORARY INTERPRETATIONS

Just exactly what Paul meant by this seed metaphor and this notion of a “spiritual body” has been debated for eons. We shall consider some of these patristic and early medieval reflections at more length in chapter 4. Segal’s word study suggests that what is commonly translated “natural body” (Greek soma psychikon) could be more precisely translated “ensouled-body.” It might well also be translated as the “living creature” described in Genesis 2:7, since the Septuagint translation of Genesis 2:7 has the words “and the human being (anthropos) became a living psyche (psychēn).” The first Adam who was created from ground (adamah) becomes a “living psyche” by God breathing into the clay body. Such an expression would have been easily understood by Greek members of his audience familiar with Platonic thought. However, Paul’s notion of a “spiritual body” (Greek soma pneumatikon) would have undoubtedly struck his audience as a contradiction in terms. Segal suggests it was an expression completely out of the ordinary. Perhaps Paul understood that only an expression bearing such “contradictory” connotations could adequately point to such a transformed yet recognizable body.39

Many modern interpretations of “spiritual body” (Greek psychikon soma) are quite misleading in my opinion because they suggest the risen life will lack physicality. But as Wright points out, in Greek ikos (often translated as spiritual in the phrase “spiritual body”) refers to the power or energy that animates a body, not to the substances from which it is made. This would mean that Paul was trying to say that while our present corruptible bodies are animated by the Creator’s soul force, in the life to come our glorious risen bodies will enjoy the energizing power of the new creation, God’s pneuma or Spirit. So it might best be translated as “Spirit-animated body” (and here, think of God’s Spirit) rather than the “Psyche-animated body.” Paul is saying that in risen life the faithful share in the reality of Christ as the “new Adam,” not the “first Adam.” For this reason, I prefer the translation of this verse provided in the New Jerusalem Bible: “When it is sown it embodies the soul, when it is raised it embodies the spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:44).

Many of us today, perhaps not unlike the Corinthians before us, seem to be uncomfortable with, if not embarrassed by, the notion of the resurrection of the body. At the very least, Paul’s vivid language about the “rising of the corpses” (Greek anastasis nekron) strike some as more than a little creepy at least at first. One need only recall scenes from Michael Jackson’s video Thriller to sense why some today might find the claim embarrassing. Unsettlingly as this may be, however, it should not prompt us to doubt the bodily nature of this new life.

The struggle to discern the nature of the life to come continues today. Some still contend that all that Paul meant by “spiritual body” was simply that a purely spiritual self would be raised. For example, William Barclay concludes that what Paul “really meant was that man’s [sic] personality would survive.”40 Other biblical theologians, however, such as Richard B. Hays, N. T. Wright, Dale E. Martin, and J. Richard Middleton41—and I stand within this camp—argue, in contrast, that the resurrection for Paul involves a Spirit-ruled body, perfectly refitted for risen life. Otherwise, claims to cosmic resurrection (with all its physicality) fall flat. The Christian hope is that the whole of the created order, including our bodies, will be given a new existence by the Spirit of God.

It cannot be denied that Paul’s seed analogy connotes very little continuity between earthly and glorious bodies. It implies tremendous transformation. There is a great deal of discontinuity between what is sown and what springs to new life, between what is perishable, dishonorable, weak, and natural on the one hand, and what will be the imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual on the other. For Paul, grace is not only unmerited, forensic justification; it is radically transformative as well. He understood that the change implied by the general bodily resurrection of the dead is so great that the very prospect of such cosmic sanctification could unnerve the human imagination. In the end we must all allow Paul’s words of assurance to the Corinthians to comfort us. God will provide appropriate bodies for all! It is time to tackle the question whether such glorified bodies will be sexual.