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Someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, "The first man, Adam, became a living being"; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.
What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
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This is the Epistle selection to be read aloud on the seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, Year C, according to the lectionary for the Episcopal Church. It will follow a reading from Genesis, where the brothers of Joseph have come before him, seeking help during a famine, unknowing that he was the brother they attempted to kill, whom they sold into slavery into Egypt. We read Joseph tell his brothers, “So it was not you who sent me here, but ha-elohim having made me a father to Pharaoh, and ule-adown of all his house and ruler over all the land of Egypt.” That is then followed by a singing of parts of Psalm 37, which includes: “Be still before Yahweh and wait patiently for him; do not fret yourself over the one who prospers, the one who succeeds in evil schemes.” All will accompany the Gospel reading from Luke, where Jesus said, “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.”
In this time period after the Epiphany, this makes the third Sunday in a row that has lessons coming from chapter fifteen of Paul’s first letter to the true Christians of Corinth. The first lesson hinged on understanding his writing “Christ died,” where an “Anointment” from Yahweh cannot “die.” Instead, that “Anointment” of Jesus had to be separated from his body. That separation allowed death of the body of Jesus, but made the soul [a.k.a. “the Christ”] available to become the vine that merged with the fruit of that “Anointment.” That then led to Paul writing, “Christ has been raised from the dead.” The separation of the “Christ” from Jesus made it possible for the souls inhabiting dead bodies of flesh [as far as eternal life is concerned] to be “raised” by having the “Christ” Spirit be “raised” in them. All of this is now leading to Paul placing focus on how bodies of flesh are death awaiting, but the souls and the “Anointment” by Yahweh are the truth of eternal life. Everything fits together, so all supports each other as the truth being told.
Because this is thirteen verses of text, which skips over three other verses in between, this is far too much written that a casual reader would care to find me writing about in deep discernment. The test of a true Christian can be found in all the Epistles, most of which were written by Paul. The lazy soul – a true non-Christian – will never care to read much that delves deeply into explaining divine text. Most will let someone else tell them what it means and think little about that opinion afterwards. An industrious soul – one of a true Christian, possessed by Yahweh and His Son Jesus – will be exactly like Paul and those Saints he wrote to in Corinth. Each word of the written text would be seen as a powerful statement sent to them by Yahweh, which they would ponder deeply, with divine assistance.
That means the Corinthians were just like all whose souls have married Yahweh, becoming His “Anointed” [His “Christs”], and had become the Mother of Jesus, just like Mary. When it is written that “Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Luke 2:19, after listening to the shepherds tell her what the angel spoke), it was the deep meaning that Mary treasured, which came from the Word of Yahweh, told through His messengers [a.k.a. “angels” in shepherd's clothing].
To do as I have done in the past (for longer sections of Paul’s writings), I will now cut the wheat (so to speak, using Paul's analogy) and thresh the grains for your consumption. That means I will now be presenting only the capitalized words that come from these verses, shown as a reflection of what these verses place divine focus on. Those capitalized words are as follows:
“Alla” – “But, Otherwise, On the other hand, Except, However” ....................... Verse 35
“Pōs” – “How?, In what manner, By what means” ....................... Verse 35
“Theos” – “God” ....................... Verse 38
“Houtōs” – “So, In this manner, In this way, Like this” ....................... Verse 42
“Ei” – “If, Forasmuch as, That” [a condition thought of as real] ....................... Verse 44
“Egeneto” – “Came into being, Happened, Became, Was born, Came about” .......... Verse 45
“Adam” – “Man” [Yahweh’s Firstborn] ...................... Verse 45
“Adam” – "Man” [Yahweh’s Firstborn] ..................... Verse 45
“All’” – [abbreviated “Alla”] “But, Otherwise, On the other hand, Except, However” .. Verse 46
“Touto” – “This” .................... Verse 50
“Theou” – “of God” ..................... Verse 50
To then take these and line them up in one statement, that capitalized statement says:
“Except By what means God, In this way Forasmuch as Was born Adam [the Only Son of Yahweh, therefore the soul of Jesus], Adam [the Only Son of Yahweh, therefore the soul of Jesus] On the other hand This [divine resurrection of Jesus’ soul] of God.”
That says everything about being raised from the dead is dependent on “God.” It has nothing to do with bodies of flesh being “raised,” as bodies of flesh are like the hull covering a seed within – a body covering a soul. The hull does not grow anything, so the hull dies. It does not get raised. Only the soul becomes raised. Thus, the soul of Paul and the Corinthians [and all the Saints] are raised by God implanting their souls with the soul of His Son Adam. The name “Jesus” means “Yah[weh] Saves,” so Adam was made by Yahweh for the purpose of holding the soul of Jesus. Therefore, the body that was Adam died, so the soul named Jesus could be raised. Everything divinely come about “of God.”
In verse thirty-six, after Paul calls those who question how dead bodies can be raised, he used the analogy of a seed. Seeds are sown for the purpose of growing grains. Paul surmised that nothing can grow [thus be raised] if death does not occur first. That which must die, as far as seeds of grain are concerned, is the hull, or seed coat (testa). When the analogy is applied to human beings, this means the death of the body of flesh must come first, so the soul can be released. However, there is a caveat to this which must be seen as reflecting Paul and all the Saints.
The seed analogy is a human being (soul in body) that has been placed on earth by Yahweh, as purposeful seeds to be planted and grown into Saints. As such, it makes no sense for the body of flesh to die, as that would raise the question asked by fools: How does a dead body get up and walk around again? While Jesus raised Lazarus to prove that is possible by Yahweh [all things are possible by Yahweh], the point of death must be seen as figurative [although the raising of Lazarus becomes metaphor for what all Saints must go through]. As such the hull or seed coat is that of worldly sins. The death of a sinful way of living must be shed, so the soul can be raised to become Jesus reborn. That is the point of verse thirty-eight (and thirty-nine).
In verse forty-two, it begins by stating: “kai this resurrection of this of dead , it is sown in decay , it is raised in immortality .” This importantly says Jesus’ soul is resurrected, but not in his body of flesh that died. His body of flesh was his “seed coat,” which released his soul as a plant that grows – the vine of Christ [where Christ is not the last name of Jesus, but the name of the vine of Yahweh]. That divine soul resurrects in the dead bodies that have souls leading sinful lives. That “resurrection of this of dead” is the transformative presence that is “sown into decay,” which is sinful flesh. With the soul of Jesus resurrected within the soul of one who was before dead to sin, the result is Jesus reborn, with a soul of a sinner then cleansed and thereby raised by being granted eternal life ["immortality"].
The paradoxes stated in verses forty-one and forty-two – “sown in dishonor, raised in glory; sown in weakness, raised in power; sown in body natural, raised in body spiritual” – says the death of the old brings on the birth of the new. The new is a Saint in the name of Jesus Christ.
The conditional stated as a thought of reality says, “If there is a body natural , there exists kai spiritual.” This says ALL human beings that are thought to be living [a big If] are so thought because they have souls giving animation to dead bodies of flesh [the natural]. The importance that marks one as being alive is the “spiritual,” which is the soul. When Paul wrote, "there exists," the word "estin" is a statement saying, "I am, I exist," which can only be by the presence of a soul bringing life to dead flesh [waiting to return to that state of death - dust]. The soul is the "spiritual" that is within the "body natural" [the seed covering].
Verse forty-three then quotes Scripture [Genesis two], where Paul said, “Was Born this first human Adam into the soul living ; this till the end Adam into a soul life-giving.” This is Paul understanding the meaning of Genesis 2, which is misunderstood by those who are not Saints. It is Paul saying that Yahweh created Adam, so Adam would be the metaphorical seed that would die of outer shell, releasing the soul of life so a vine could eternally grow, producing “life-giving” fruit.
In verse forty-four, Paul explained this creation of Adam was not so his death would initially lead to the soul of Jesus. Adam would be sent into the world, descended from demigod (or hero) to “natural” human being (which lived naturally nine hundred thirty years). That “first” birth and death would lead to the soul of Adam becoming the “spiritual” presence that would be reborn in others afterwards. This is a story of reincarnation, which is the history of the Patriarchs of the Holy Bible (the Torah). Still, the soul of Adam would return, sown into Mary, to be named “Jesus” – “Yahweh Will Save.” Yahweh will save through the resurrection of His Son Adam's soul in the souls that are His seeds sown on earth.
Verses forty-five through forty-nine then expand on this history that led to Jesus. Verse forty-six and forty-seven speak of the first man and the second man, where this is a statement of the “doubly fruitful” presence of the soul of Jesus resurrected in the soul of one who has married Yahweh, becoming cleansed of past sins. Verse forty-eight is then saying, in essence, the dust of a Saint is made so by the spirit of Jesus [Adam raised spiritually as the eternal life of the true vine]. Verse forty-nine says the image of Saul will become the image of Paul, where Jacob transformed into Israel, by wrestling with one’s demons and coming out victorious – through Yahweh’s help.
In verse fifty, Paul referenced the “brothers’ [not ‘and sisters’], because the true Christians of Corinth had all be reborn as Jesus, the Son of Yahweh. They were all spiritually raised brothers (males and females alike). Paul said the kingdom of heaven is not something that is an “inheritance,” which means being born a Jew (and thereby that applies equally to those calling themselves Christians today) was no justification to claim a right to gain heaven after death. No body of flesh will ever enter the spiritual realm of Yahweh, as that is a realm only for souls. This means only souls who have gained the right to truthfully say at Judgment, “I have been reborn as Jesus!” get to enter. That means only Saints go to heaven. That says only those in the name of Jesus get eternal Salvation.
As a reading selected to be read on the seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, the lesson to be gained is the death of the old self, in order to be reborn anew as a Saint. Paul’s explanation here of resurrection is clearly saying a Spiritual transformation must take place, His naming Adam gives depth to the uses of Ephraim being the firstborn, where that name means “Doubly Fruitful.” The dual “man” – the first man of dust and the second man of spirit or soul – is explaining the resurrection of Jesus, as the Christ, so two ‘men’ exist as one [males and females equally of humanity]. That resurrection make all souls likewise reborn be related, as “brothers.” When one enters ministry as Jesus reborn, one must be like Paul and understand these things. It was Paul’s personal experience that allowed him to testify to what the resurrection meant [the seed analogy], which allowed him to let others see the truth for themselves. Without that personal experience, one is (in the words of Paul) a “fool.”