1 Corinthians 15:35-53

I can almost hear someone saying, “How can the dead come back to life? And what kind of body will they have when they are resurrected?” Foolish man! Don’t you know that what you sow in the ground doesn’t germinate unless it dies? And what you sow is not the body that will come into being, but the bare seed. And it’s hard to tell whether it’s wheat or some other seed. But when it dies, God gives it a new form, a body to fulfill his purpose, and he sees to it that each seed gets a new body of its own and becomes the plant he designed it to be. All flesh is not identical. Animals have one flesh and human beings another. Birds have their distinct flesh and fish another. In the same way there are earthly bodies and heavenly bodies. There is a splendor of the celestial body and a different one for the earthly. There is the radiance of the sun and differing radiance for the moon and for the stars. Even the stars differ in their shining. And that’s how it will be with the resurrection of the dead. The body is “sown” in decay, but will be raised in immortality. It is “sown” in humiliation, but will be raised in glorification. It is “sown” in weakness but will be raised in power. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. For it is written: The first man, Adam, became a living soul. The last Adam became the life-giving Spirit. However, the spiritual didn’t come first. The natural precedes the spiritual. The first man was from the dust of the earth; the second Man is YAHWEH, from the realm of heaven. The first one, made from dust, has a race of people just like him, who are also made from dust. The One sent from heaven has a race of heavenly people who are just like him. Once we carried the likeness of the man of dust, but now let us carry the likeness of the man of heaven. Now, I tell you this, my brothers and sisters, flesh and blood are not able to inherit God’s kingdom realm, and neither will that which is decaying be able to inherit what is incorruptible. Listen, and I will tell you a divine mystery: not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed. It will happen in an instant —in the twinkling of his eye. For when the last trumpet is sounded, the dead will come back to life. We will be indestructible and we will be transformed. For we will discard our mortal “clothes” and slip into a body that is imperishable. What is mortal now will be exchanged for immortality.