But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3:20-21)

Because Jesus rose bodily, we will rise with a body like His.

This truth was a wonderful comfort to me last week in the wake of my father-in-law’s death. Believers, we hold truth and in times of suffering, those truths hold us.

Now some of us might find bodily resurrection ridiculous. And if you do, you certainly wouldn’t be the first. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul is addressing some skeptics. Actually, they’re more like hecklers. They are folks who find the resurrection of the body to be the dumbest thing they’ve ever heard. Almost as if they’d say, “You want to believe that your soul flies off to some invisible place, go ahead. No one’s going to stop you. But resurrection? The body placed in the grave coming back? Give me a break!”

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” (1 Cor. 15:35)

Now this is not the question of a humble seeker who is scratching his head trying to make sense of this. This is a heckler that wants to show Paul up. He’s essentially saying, “Paul, wait, you believe in bodily resurrection? Paul, do you know what happens to bodies when they go into the ground Paul?”

We might say the same thing. What if a body has been cremated and the ashes have been spread over the waters or carried off by the wind? What if the body has been lost at sea and the bones as scattered on the ocean floor? How is the hip bone going to connect to the thigh bone then? And what about just normal decomposition? The body becomes food for worms.

So how exactly are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?

Paul responds: You foolish person! (1 Cor. 15:36)

“Fool” was not so much a knock at your intelligence as much as a moral indictment. You’re a fool because you are not accounting for the power of God. What is it that God can’t do?

We say, Paul, how can something go into the ground, be buried under the dirt, and come back alive? How on earth can that happen? Paul goes on to say that God has filled the earth with a picture of resurrection. We’re just not paying attention.

Consider a seed.

What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. (1 Cor. 15:36-38)

Imagine you were my four year old son. I show him a seed. A small, brown, ugly, lifeless little seed. I bury the seed in the ground. And then I tell him that in just a little while, what went into the ground will rise with a glorious new body. What went in lifeless will spring to new life.

Stunned, you’d almost imagine my son would ask, “How are seeds raised? With what kind of body do they come?” If we hadn’t lost the wonder of it all, we’d ask the same.

Paul says, don’t you see. You bury a seed into the ground and the seed is gone forever. But from the death of that seed comes glorious new life. God has saturated His creation with this so that we would have a picture of resurrection.

Jesus’ body went into the ground. And that body was raised. It was the same body. At the same time, it was gloriously transformed. And what happened to Jesus’ body will happen to ours as well!

I still can hardly believe it. I, with shriveled, bent fingers, atrophied muscles, gnarled knees, and no feeling from the shoulders down, will one day have a new body, light, bright, and clothed in righteousness— powerful and dazzling. Can you imagine the hope this gives someone spinal-cord injured like me? Or someone who is cerebral palsied, brain-injured, or who has multiple sclerosis? Imagine the hope this gives someone who is manic-depressive. No other religion, no other philosophy promises new bodies, hearts, and minds. Only in the Gospel of Christ do hurting people find such incredible hope.

Joni Eareckson Tada