Trinitarian Resurrection II
What is true in heaven will one day be true on earth. And the one thing that we know for sure about the earth is that we are here in our bodies. We can doubt everything else, but we cannot doubt the existence of our own bodies. We may not know what they are, or how they work, but the reality of our own bodies is an undeniable fact. We eat, we sleep, we go about our business all of which serves as a testimony to the reality of our bodily existence. If you can hear what I'm saying, or see the words before you, that hearing or seeing is a testimony of your bodily existence.
Therefore, argued Paul, if bodies are an undeniable element of our existence on earth, then, because earth is a reflection of the greater glory, the greater reality of heaven, then heaven will also be populated with bodies. Of what sort he cannot say. But the fact that there are resurrection bodies fitted for heaven is as certain as the bodies that already populate earth.
It is so on the principle of reflectivity. As the moon reflects the light of the sun, but has no light of its own, so, the earth reflects the glory of heaven but has no glory of its own. Paul alludes to this in 1 Corinthians 15:41, "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." Paul was struggling to explain how it is that the reality of earthly bodies points to the reality of resurrection or heavenly bodies. He knows that the glory of Christ is reflected in the people of Christ. He has tasted it personally in his own life, in his own body, through his own regeneration, and he sees it in the faces of the saints, as well. He knows it as bedrock reality because it is the reality of his own body.
In 1 Corinthians 15:42 he applies this principle of reflectivity to resurrection, "So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable." Here he contrasts perishable and imperishable, or in some versions corruption and incorruption. The Greek words (phthora and aphtharsia) literally mean ruin and unruinable or destruction and not-destroyable. Paul contrasts the deterioration of the earthly body with the inability of the resurrection body to deteriorate or decay.
Continuing the analogy Paul wrote, "It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power" (1 Corinthians 15:43). This contrast between the superior and inferior heaven and earth, the celestial and the terrestrial, the imperishable and perishable can also be seen in the contrast between dishonor and glory, weakness and power. On earth we experience dishonor, weakness and perishability, all of which lead to death. And in death the body is sown (planted) as a seed in order that it may sprout in a form that does not resemble the seed, but in which all of the potential of the seed, all of the characteristics of the seed, become manifest in their fullness through the life or fruit of the plant, in the resurrection body.
Finally, Paul concludes, "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:44). Again, Paul has been arguing for the reality of resurrection and has used many examples and arguments. Here he has been arguing that the reality of resurrection is an ordinary consequence of the reality of bodily existence on earth that is grounded in the principle of reflectivity. If God's glory is reflected at all on the earth, then that reflection points to the reality of God and His heaven, and to the reality of bodily resurrection. If God's glory is reflected at all on earth, then it is but a shadow of the greater reality of God, of God's Christ, and of Christ's resurrected people.