1 Corinthians 15:36 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Thou fool!’ We don't use such terms with people, but what he means is, ‘You who are a minority at Corinth there, you count yourself as members of the Christian church, and yet you don't believe in the resurrection? You fool: to prefer your pagan philosophy above the teaching of God and of Christ.’ It was indeed foolish. ‘Yes,’ we say sympathetically, ‘but is it so foolish? It's rather hard perhaps for people to believe in something as remarkable as the resurrection of the body. Do we not have a little sympathy for them?’ Well not so much for Christians, people who profess to be Christians who find it hard to believe in the resurrection. There was, not so very long ago, a bishop in the Church of England who called the resurrection a box of conjuring tricks. He didn't believe. Yes, the apostle Paul would say in so many words, ‘Thou fool! How can you possibly be a Christian and not believe this?’ But I only had a query. I was only puzzled. Can’t I ask these questions? Can we not speculate? O yes, I am sure the apostle Paul wouldn’t mind us asking these questions at all. He wouldn’t call us fools for saying, ‘Please tell us, if we may understand, something about the resurrection body? Will there be recognition? In what form will take? Will we eat; will there be the elimination of waste from the body; will we sleep; will we labour; will we need to clean; will there be reproduction? They are perhaps some questions which might cause people to doubt resurrection in the body. Will there be an upheaval of all the tombs? Or will the bodies somehow come down from heaven? Will we look the same? Will be aged if we died when old? Will we be infirm if we were injured; will we be injured still if we were burned or stoned?’ He won’t call us a fool for asking those questions. So why does he here? It was the spirit in which the questions were being asked. There is a big difference between saying, ‘I do not, and I cannot, believe in the resurrection, because: “How will it happen? What will it look like? What will we be like?”’ In answer to that spirit, the apostle says, ‘You fool’. If we come and we say, ‘I believe God can do anything. I believe in the resurrection. But I would like to know how’, he will never say, ‘You fool’; not to a sincere enquiry. It depends whether you are making an objection, or whether you are asking an honest question. If you ask an honest question, you are not a fool. But if you say, ‘I don’t believe in the resurrection because of this and this; and you raise your objections, you are a fool. And then he proceeds to explain and give examples. That which you sow in the ground, as a farmer – they all had smallholdings in those days, except the city dwellers – does not find life in growing corn, unless the seed first dies. The seed must expend its life in order to produce the new plant. These people, they were used to it. They knew all about sowing, and the seed germinating and the plant growing up. God has made it part of the biology of this world that something which appears to be dead, can take on life. If God can do it as a natural consequence in an everyday matter in the world, you would be a fool to say, ‘It can’t possibly happen after death.’ God has given us an illustration of it in life.