1 Corinthians 15:35-38 addresses the false teaching that believers won’t resurrect by anticipating a counterargument. Paul states what the false teachers will say––they will ridicule the idea of resurrection, implying it is unnatural. Paul points to nature to show how God created seeds to go into the ground, dry up, and then burst forth with life. Something small dies, and then something new and different comes from it, bigger and better than before. We are all like individual seeds who will receive new bodies.
In 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, Paul answers the question of how the deadare raised with the analogy of a seed, which must die to come to life and rises with a bodyGod gives it. He begins this section by giving voice to an objector: But someone will say, "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?" (v 35).
Paul uses a hypothetical person (someone) to raise this objection. This is a rhetorical device we see worded the same way in James 2:18. But Paul also uses the concept of an objector throughout Romans. In Romans, he uses phrases such as "what shall we say?" (Romans 3:5, 6:1, 7:7, 9:14, 9:30) and "What then shall we say" (Romans 4:1), among other, similar phrases, in each case raising a rhetorical objection that he then answers.
In all cases, the likelihood is that the author applies this device as a means to present the objections his audience will hear from his opponents, those who claim there is no resurrection. He raises the objection so he can provide the answer and diminish the bad influence these people are having on the church in Corinth.
Paul voices the objection running underneath the Corinthian resurrection denial: "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?" (v 35). The tone is mocking, as though resurrection is an unthinkable thing not otherwise observed anywhere in nature.
Paul answers the objector, representing those who say there is no resurrection, by starting with a statement that delegitimizes the objector's question, saying You fool! (v 36). The answer Paul follows with is an observation from nature. Paul answers mocking tone (This is never observed!) with mocking tone and specific illustration which might be paraphrased as: "You fool! Resurrection surrounds you everywhere you turn, all throughout nature."
Paul answers the objector with what would have been one of the most commonly known aspects of nature and knowledge at that time--the planting of a seed--to illustrate that resurrection is designed into the very core of nature. Life depends on it. Their lives depend on it.
Continuing with Paul's full answer to the objector, he says: You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own (vv 36-38).
The objector appears to consider resurrection refuted by the grave itself, the very fact that the body went into the ground. Paul counters with the totality of agriculture--every fruit-bearing plant begins as a seed that is buried. It is only through burial that life comes. No burial, no life.
The application of a sown seed is thus: That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies (v 36). The farmer buries a seed. It figuratively enters the grave. The seed's own structure breaks down in the ground, and life rises up out of that dying.
Jesus used the same image of His own death: "unlessagrainof wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). The objector treats death and the grave as an obvious refutation of resurrection. Paul’s answer is that nature itself refutes their objection. Paul counters with one of the most basic of all natural observations—a plant only grows if the seed is first sown in the earth.
The seed illustrates that death is the appointed doorway to a greater form of life. Burial, in this analogy, becomes planting. The productivity of life the seed produces is a picture of the resurrection. What comes out of the sown seed is far greater than what is sown.
Paul observes that what the seed produces is much greater than what is planted: You do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain (v 37). A wheat seed is a small, dry, unimpressive kernel. It can be ground and turned into flour and bread, which is highly useful. But one bare grain is woefully insufficient to feed a beast or a human.
But the plant that rises from a single bare grain is green, tall, many-headed, and full of a life. The harvest from that one kernel is bounteous, producing many-fold what the single seed would have provided if simply consumed. The same bounteous multiplication will be true of the resurrection. As Paul will assert in a few verses regarding the resurrection of the believer: just as we have borne the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Corinthians 15:49).
Wheat comes from wheat, the same organism carries through. Yet the form that emerges from the death and burial of the wheat seed far surpasses the form that was buried. The objector demanded to know what kind of body resurrection produces. Paul answers that the buried body and the raisedbody stand in the same relation. They have a continuous identity, but have a transformed expression.
The principle does not apply just to wheat. It also applies to something else. The principle that any sort of bare grain that is figuratively dead, when planted (buried), raises to life and produces a hundred-fold in like kind. Like produces like. But each is unique: But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own (v 38).
This observation, that each of the seeds has a unique body of its own sets up the next section where Paul will make it clear that resurrection is not of human to beast, or one person to another. There is no reincarnation option. Rather, the resurrection is applicable to each unique person. They retain their personhood but obtain a new body. Same person, new body. We will see in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 some of the contrasts from old to new, the believer’s body sown in death and raised to a new life:
A perishable body is raised to imperishable,
A body of dishonor is raised in glory,
An earthly body of weakness is raised in power,
A natural body is raised to a spiritual body.
The power of God is on display throughout. Every harvest displays God assigning bodies at His pleasure, each seed receiving the body proper to its kind, the pattern set at creation when the earth sprouted plants "after their kind" (Genesis 1:12). As we see in Colossians 1:17, everything holds together in Christ. Nothing would keep working without Jesus as the divine binding agent. This applies to every single seed, as the verse asserts "all things" rather than "some things" are held together by Him.
Paul delegitimizes the mocking question rooted in natural observation with a natural observation that is ubiquitous in nature. It ought to be obvious that the creator of the resurrection of plants would all the more desire to resurrect those whom He made in His own image (Genesis 1:26).
1 Corinthians 15:35-38
35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?”
36 You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies;
37 and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
38 But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.
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1 Corinthians 15:35-38 meaning
In 1 Corinthians 15:35-38, Paul answers the question of how the dead are raised with the analogy of a seed, which must die to come to life and rises with a body God gives it. He begins this section by giving voice to an objector: But someone will say, "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?" (v 35).
Paul uses a hypothetical person (someone) to raise this objection. This is a rhetorical device we see worded the same way in James 2:18. But Paul also uses the concept of an objector throughout Romans. In Romans, he uses phrases such as "what shall we say?" (Romans 3:5, 6:1, 7:7, 9:14, 9:30) and "What then shall we say" (Romans 4:1), among other, similar phrases, in each case raising a rhetorical objection that he then answers.
In all cases, the likelihood is that the author applies this device as a means to present the objections his audience will hear from his opponents, those who claim there is no resurrection. He raises the objection so he can provide the answer and diminish the bad influence these people are having on the church in Corinth.
Paul voices the objection running underneath the Corinthian resurrection denial: "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?" (v 35). The tone is mocking, as though resurrection is an unthinkable thing not otherwise observed anywhere in nature.
Paul answers the objector, representing those who say there is no resurrection, by starting with a statement that delegitimizes the objector's question, saying You fool! (v 36). The answer Paul follows with is an observation from nature. Paul answers mocking tone (This is never observed!) with mocking tone and specific illustration which might be paraphrased as: "You fool! Resurrection surrounds you everywhere you turn, all throughout nature."
Paul answers the objector with what would have been one of the most commonly known aspects of nature and knowledge at that time--the planting of a seed--to illustrate that resurrection is designed into the very core of nature. Life depends on it. Their lives depend on it.
Continuing with Paul's full answer to the objector, he says: You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own (vv 36-38).
The objector appears to consider resurrection refuted by the grave itself, the very fact that the body went into the ground. Paul counters with the totality of agriculture--every fruit-bearing plant begins as a seed that is buried. It is only through burial that life comes. No burial, no life.
The application of a sown seed is thus: That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies (v 36). The farmer buries a seed. It figuratively enters the grave. The seed's own structure breaks down in the ground, and life rises up out of that dying.
Jesus used the same image of His own death: "unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). The objector treats death and the grave as an obvious refutation of resurrection. Paul’s answer is that nature itself refutes their objection. Paul counters with one of the most basic of all natural observations—a plant only grows if the seed is first sown in the earth.
The seed illustrates that death is the appointed doorway to a greater form of life. Burial, in this analogy, becomes planting. The productivity of life the seed produces is a picture of the resurrection. What comes out of the sown seed is far greater than what is sown.
Paul observes that what the seed produces is much greater than what is planted: You do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain (v 37). A wheat seed is a small, dry, unimpressive kernel. It can be ground and turned into flour and bread, which is highly useful. But one bare grain is woefully insufficient to feed a beast or a human.
But the plant that rises from a single bare grain is green, tall, many-headed, and full of a life. The harvest from that one kernel is bounteous, producing many-fold what the single seed would have provided if simply consumed. The same bounteous multiplication will be true of the resurrection. As Paul will assert in a few verses regarding the resurrection of the believer: just as we have borne the image of the earthly, we will also bear the image of the heavenly (1 Corinthians 15:49).
Wheat comes from wheat, the same organism carries through. Yet the form that emerges from the death and burial of the wheat seed far surpasses the form that was buried. The objector demanded to know what kind of body resurrection produces. Paul answers that the buried body and the raised body stand in the same relation. They have a continuous identity, but have a transformed expression.
The principle does not apply just to wheat. It also applies to something else. The principle that any sort of bare grain that is figuratively dead, when planted (buried), raises to life and produces a hundred-fold in like kind. Like produces like. But each is unique: But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own (v 38).
This observation, that each of the seeds has a unique body of its own sets up the next section where Paul will make it clear that resurrection is not of human to beast, or one person to another. There is no reincarnation option. Rather, the resurrection is applicable to each unique person. They retain their personhood but obtain a new body. Same person, new body. We will see in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 some of the contrasts from old to new, the believer’s body sown in death and raised to a new life:
The power of God is on display throughout. Every harvest displays God assigning bodies at His pleasure, each seed receiving the body proper to its kind, the pattern set at creation when the earth sprouted plants "after their kind" (Genesis 1:12). As we see in Colossians 1:17, everything holds together in Christ. Nothing would keep working without Jesus as the divine binding agent. This applies to every single seed, as the verse asserts "all things" rather than "some things" are held together by Him.
Paul delegitimizes the mocking question rooted in natural observation with a natural observation that is ubiquitous in nature. It ought to be obvious that the creator of the resurrection of plants would all the more desire to resurrect those whom He made in His own image (Genesis 1:26).