Spiritual Bodies?
February 9th, 2009 by Ben Rae Posted in TheologyHave you ever wondered what Paul means when he writes about our future ‘spiritual bodies’ in 1 Corinthians 15:43–44?
In context Paul is dealing with some in the Corinthian church who are ridiculing the idea of a future resurrection by asking, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” (15:35). In other words, “Get real Paul, there’s no such thing as resurrection. I mean, we can’t even imagine what a resurrected body would look like!” Presumably they think that Christians will just die and go to heaven to live out eternity as disembodied spirits.
Paul will have none of their objection, pointing out:
1. It’s not so crazy to think that a body that dies will be transformed by resurrection into another type of body, after all that’s sort of what God does with seeds. You don’t have to plant a whole flower to get a flower, you just plant a seed and that turns into a flower. Same sort of thing with us when we ‘get planted’.
2. There are lots of different types of body. Animals, birds, fish, sun, moon, stars, all have ‘bodies’ and they all differ from one another. So why should it be so hard to believe that we will have resurrection bodies that are somehow different from our current bodies?
But then we get to verses 43–44 where Paul states that our body “is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” What does he mean by a ‘natural body’ (soma psychikon) versus a ‘spiritual body’ (soma pneumatikon)? Is Paul talking about a physical body versus a spiritual body (as the RSV, NRSV, and NEB translations say)? No, he isn’t!
When Paul talks about a natural body (more literally a ‘soulish body’) versus a spiritual body he isn’t talking about what they’re made of, but what they’re powered by. It’s like us talking about a steam engine versus a diesel engine. The engines aren’t made out of steam or diesel, they’re powered by them! Paul is saying is that our resurrected bodies won’t be powered by the normal life-force that powers us now, they’ll be powered by the Spirit of God.
So, three questions:
1. Do you expect your body to be resurrected, or were you—like some of the Corinthians—expecting to become some sort of disembodied spirit?
2. Where do we see our culture (Christian or otherwise) get it wrong?
3. What difference does it make?
2 Responses to “Spiritual Bodies?”
By Jon Rumble on Feb 12, 2009
Hey Ben, you’re post has challenged me to sit down and do some work on a question that’s been in the back of my head for a long time, the relationship between these different things we talk about – soul, spirit, mind an so forth…
One of the reasons this verse reads unusually for us (me) is that we tend to think of soul and spirit as being the same thing, but throughout the NT, whatever its precise meaning, psuchikon (soulish) is always contrasted with the spiritual, thus the translations natural/wordly/unspiritual. (cf 1 Cor 2:14, Jude 19, James 3:15)
How do soul, spirit, mind and body interact from a Christian perspective?
By Ben on Feb 15, 2009
Yeah, good question Jon. It would be interesting to look up all the uses of ‘soul’ and ‘spirit’ in the NT. Checking out the relationship between ‘body’ and ‘flesh’ would be interesting too. Something to think about in a future post!