1 Corinthians 15:42 Commentary and Bible Study

‘It is sown in corruption’ – in sickness, in ageing, in decay, in disgust so that it is put out of sight in the ground – Abraham wished to bury his dead [his beloved Sarah] out of his sight (Genesis 23:4) – and after death the body rots, and experiences corruption. You sow a body, subject to corruption, which no one on earth has any ability to raise back to life. There are two kinds of corruption: physical corruption, decay, degeneration, ageing, and then from death, deterioration and decomposition. That's one kind of corruption – the rotting the decomposition of a physical kind. But it is sown with another kind of corruption also: moral corruption, behavioural corruption. Corruption in that this body, this life of mine, has so offended against the law of God and fallen so far short of his holy standards. So there's a double corruption, physical and moral. But here is one of the vast, tremendous differences between the body we know on earth and the body we will know at the Lord’s return – ‘It is raised in incorruption’. We will have a new body: no dying, no cell death. Think of that. In the marvellously recreated body no part of the body ages or decays or dies. The principle of death and corruption has gone, ended, finished. No imperfection, no weakness of mind or body, and no moral weakness. Recreated in the image of Christ in purity! How wonderful it will be like in the resurrection, when we see one another, and there is not a blemish, not a fault, but Christ-likeness in everyone! The very best attributes that you see in fellow believers, marvellously magnified, and the worst disappeared for good. The body that is raised in glory, is raised with a new principle of life, adapted for eternity, adapted for life in the new heaven and earth, an earth, wonderfully and gloriously spiritualised; physical and yet spiritual. Earth will be glorified and mysteriously merged with heaven itself: that is the eternal future of God’s people to which the apostle refers.Christ bears his scars in Heaven; but they don’t hurt him anymore. They are visible, to show the history of what he did for us. But they are beautiful now; and they are no impediment, no hindrance, no pain, no difficulty whatsoever. Who knows, in the heavenly glory with glorified bodies, maybe there will be even scars that were incurred through faith in Christ. But they will be beautified, and they will not hurt, because there is no corruption, no deterioration in heaven.