The Mode of the Resurrection

³⁵ The Resurrected Body. Someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? What sort of body will they have when they come back?” ³⁶ This is foolish. What you sow must die before it is given new life, ³⁷ and what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare grain of wheat or of something else. ³⁸ God gives to it a body that he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own particular body.

³⁹ Not all flesh is alike. There is one kind for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. ⁴⁰ There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. The splendor of heavenly bodies is of one kind, and that of earthly bodies is another. ⁴¹ The sun has a splendor of its own, the moon another splendor, and the stars still another. Indeed, the stars differ among themselves in splendor.

⁴² So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. ⁴³ What is sown in dishonor is raised as glorious. What is sown in weakness is raised in power. ⁴⁴ What is sown is a physical body; what is raised is a spiritual body.

The Natural and the Spiritual Body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ As it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being; the last Adam has become a lifegiving spirit. ⁴⁶ But the spiritual body did not come first. Rather the natural body came first, and then the spiritual.

⁴⁷ The first man was formed from the dust of the earth; the second man is from heaven. ⁴⁸ The man formed from dust is the pattern for earthly people; the heavenly man is the pattern for those who are of heaven. ⁴⁹ Just as we have borne the image of the man formed from dust, so shall we also bear the likeness of the heavenly one.