Forbidden Bible Verses — 1 Corinthians 15:39-41

The three-year Lectionary that many Catholics and Protestants hear in public worship gives us a great variety of Holy Scripture.

Yet, it doesn’t tell the whole story.

My series Forbidden Bible Verses — ones the Lectionary editors and their clergy omit — examines the passages we do not hear in church. These missing verses are also Essential Bible Verses, ones we should study with care and attention. Often, we find that they carry difficult messages and warnings.

Today’s reading is from the English Standard Version with commentary by Matthew Henry and John MacArthur.

1 Corinthians 15:39-41

³⁹ For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. ⁴⁰ There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. ⁴¹ There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.

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Last week’s post was about faith and the belief in a personal resurrection which Christ guaranteed to us by rising from the dead. Paul says that if there is no resurrection, then he is putting his life at risk every day for no reason.

Corrupting influences in the Corinthian church made some in the congregation doubtful of an afterlife. Paul is setting them straight.

Paul says that God gives everything and everyone the body that He wills:

³⁸ But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.

Paul points out that every living being has a body according to its species, whether animal or human (verse 39).

John MacArthur says that amino acids are responsible for our individual makeup, and all life on Earth is individual, because even within species, there are differences in each creature (emphases mine):

Now, verse 39 is interesting from a scientific viewpoint. All flesh is not the same flesh. You ought to know that. In fact, there are, according to what I read, 600 octodecillion combinations of amino acids.

Now, I don’t know how many 600 octodecillion combinations is; it’s a lot. It’s almost infinitesimal. It’s almost immeasurable. And the reason there are so many is because amino acids are the building blocks of flesh. Amino acids are what produce you and me and anything else in us. And I have my own little set at work in me, and you have your own little set. And amino acids, for every individual, the combinations are unique. No two people are alike. Have you ever noticed a difference in complexion and skin features and wrinkle capacity and resistance in different people? All the different – the colors of the hair, all different features, the growth patterns, width, height, all that stuff. Everything is different because everything’s individual – there’s no two stars alike, no two flowers alike, no two blades of grass alike, no two snowflakes alike, no two any things alike – not even identical twins. They have their own little set of amino acids.

Try it at home. Look at the birds and the bees in your own garden. There is always some tiny difference to observe among robins, wrens and so on in plumage. The same goes for bumblebees, which are easier to observe than honeybees. The coloration differs just a tiny bit, even when they are of the same variety.

As for differences in humans, this is one of the reasons why ‘one size fits all’ groupthink and totalitarian governments are dangerous. We each have a different set of life experiences, even among identical twins somewhere along the line.

Paul goes on to say that there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies but that both of those have their own particular glories, separate from one another (verse 40).

That is Paul’s way of saying that, when we rise in glory to be with Christ forever, our bodies will become glorified forever.

MacArthur explains:

And really, folks, the glory is vastly different. The difference between a pretty flower and the sun is a lot of difference. A lot of difference. A pretty flower is nice. It has a certain amount of glory. But it doesn’t have anything like the sun. And there are stars in our universe that are like thousand suns and more. The glory of the celestial – listen, whatever you see on earth is not what has to be up there is what he’s saying. From the human viewpoint, we look at a flower, and then we look at a star, and there’s no comparison. A flower is gone in a week; the star’s been there since God created.

Now, the notice here. “There are two kinds of bodies,” he says. “The earthly kind and the heavenly kind. There’s a big, big difference.” So, what he’s saying is, “Listen, in resurrection, the body is going to be different. The glory of the resurrection body can be infinitely beyond anything we can conceive in this earth – the earthly, the terrestrial.

Paul then discusses the universe and the differing types of glory among the sun, the moon and the stars, particularly the stars (verse 41).

He is saying that we will have our own varying degrees of glory when we join Christ in the world to come.

Matthew Henry’s commentary says:

All this is to intimate to us that the bodies of the dead, when they rise, will be so far changed, that they will be fitted for the heavenly regions, and that there will be a variety of glories among the bodies of the dead, when they shall be raised, as there is among the sun, and moon, and stars, nay among the stars themselves.

MacArthur cites a Reader’s Digest article by way of explanation:

Donald Peattie, in Reader’s Digest, said this, quote, “Like flowers, the stars have their own colors. At your first upward glance, all gleam white as frost crystals; but single out this one and that for observation and you will find a subtle spectrum in the stars. The quality of their lights is determined by their temperatures. In the December sky you will see Aldebaron as pale rose, Regel as bluish white, and Betelgeuse orange to topaz yellow.” End quote. So, that’s just an idea. They’re different. Every star is different. Every sun is different. The moons are different. It’s all different. It is unique. There are no two stars alike, no two suns alike, no two people alike, no two flowers alike, no two blades of grass alike, no two birds alike, no two anything alike.

Therefore, if God can create the planets and the rest of the universe, He can certainly raise us from the dead and give us glorified bodies for eternity.

Henry says:

All this carries an intimation along with it that it must be as easy to divine power to raise the dead, and recover their mouldered bodies, as out of the same materials to form so many different kinds of flesh and plants, and, for aught we know, celestial bodies as well as terrestrial ones …

To speak directly to the point: So also, says he, is the resurrection of the dead; so (as the plant growing out of the putrefied grain), so as no longer to be a terrestrial but a celestial body, and varying in glory from the other dead, who are raised, as one star does from another. But he specifies some particulars: as, (1.) It is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown. Burying the dead is like sowing them; it is like committing the seed to the earth, that it may spring out of it again. And our bodies, which are sown, are corruptible, liable to putrefy and moulder, and crumble to dust; but, when we rise, they will be out of the power of the grave, and never more be liable to corruption.

MacArthur answers questions about what we will look like with glorified bodies:

I think we’ll all be there, in a sense, unique.

For example, Moses and Elijah, long after they had died, were given some kind of form to return to appear on the Mount of Transfiguration and were recognizable in some way as Moses and Elijah. And God is the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are still Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And we see in the resurrection, even at the end, at the great white throne, that standing in resurrection form before God are the small and the great, which means the variables are still there.

You say, “Will I look like me?”

Well, yeah. You’ll be recognizable as you.

“Will I be the same as I am?”

No, you’ll be different, but recognizable as you. Listen, Jesus had all the nail prints in His –

People say, “Will I still have this scar here? Will is still have my nose over here? Will my ears be funny? Will I…”

I don’t know, but Jesus had the same scars in the same places that He had in the body before His glorified body. So, what Paul is saying, you see, is this: the basic form of resurrection will be glorified another level of glory. We will be different from this body, and yet different from each other in that body. That’s exciting to think about.

There are a lot of dear saints who are dead, and their spirits are with the Lord, and they’re waiting for that day when they get clothed with that body. And here – we’re here, and looking at our infirmities and weaknesses, and wanting so much that body …

There is an incorruptible existence, with no decay, no infirmity in the future. So, we go into the grave corrupt; we come out uncorruptible – incorruptible. It’s a fantastic thing to realize. That body will never decay; it’ll never get old. It’ll have absolutely no time limitation. It will have no capacity to deteriorate. We will be permanently incorruptible. No decay.

That is a thrilling thought — and reality to be made manifest one day.

The rest of the chapter is in the Lectionary, however it is worth quoting some of it to reinforce the points made above, especially with the mention of the two Adams, the first man and Jesus Christ:

⁴² So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³ It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. ⁴⁴ It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”;^[e] the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. ⁴⁶ But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. ⁴⁷ The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall^[f] also bear the image of the man of heaven.

This chapter also has the following familiar verses so often quoted about death and the afterlife:

⁵¹ Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵² in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. ⁵³ For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. ⁵⁴ When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”
⁵⁵ “O death, where is your victory?
    O death, where is your sting?”

I hope this reinforces our belief in the resurrection of the body, which will be glorified forever and ever.

Next time — 1 Corinthians 16:1-4