God Raises a Transformed Body in Continuity and Difference

The raised body is still a body: sown one way, raised another.

Someone asks how the dead are raised, and with what kind of body they come. Paul calls the question foolish, not the questioner disposable: what you sow does not come to life unless it dies. You do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed. God gives it a body as he has chosen, to each kind of seed its own body. Not all flesh is the same. There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, and they differ in glory as sun, moon, and stars differ.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead: sown in corruption, raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. The first man, Adam, became a living soul; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. It is not the spiritual that is first, but the natural, and then the spiritual. As we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Spiritual body names a Spirit-animated, transformed embodiment. It does not teach contempt for flesh, disability, aging, sexuality, ecology, or present medical care. Death is not denied; the seed really dies. Hope is that God raises a body in continuity and difference.