Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 15:36
[Thou] fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
36. Thou fool ] Literally, O man without understanding. Insipiens, Vulg. Unwise man, Wiclif. The stronger term fool ( ) (except in ch. 1Co 3:18, 1Co 4:10) seems in the Scriptures to imply moral as well as intellectual error.
that which thou sowest ] The word thou is emphatic in the original: “Thou who art mortal and perishing.’ Chrysostom. “The force or emphasis may be gathered thus. If God doth give a body unto that seed which thou sowest for thine own use and benefit, much more will the same God give a body unto the seed which He himself doth sow.” Dr J. Jackson.
is not quickened, except it die ] “Thus what they made a sure sign of our not rising again he makes a proof of our rising.” Chrysostom. Cf. St Joh 12:24. It is a law of the spiritual as well as the natural world that decay is the parent of life. From the Fall came corruption, from ‘the likeness of sinful flesh’ a new and higher life. Humanity died to sin in Christ: it arose again to righteousness in Him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Thou fool – Foolish, inconsiderate man! The meaning is, that it was foolish to make this objection, when the same difficulty existed in an undeniable fact which fell under daily observation. A man was a fool to urge that as an objection to religion which must exist in the undeniable and everyday facts which they witnessed. The idea is, The same difficulty may be started about the growth of grain. Suppose a man who had never seen it, were to be told that it was to be put into the earth; that it was to die; to be decomposed; and that from the decayed kernel there should be seen to start up first a slender, green, and tender spire of grass, and that this was to send up a strong stalk, and was to produce hundreds of similar kernels at some distant period. These facts would be as improbable to him as the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead. When he saw the kernel laid in the ground; when he saw it decay; when apparently it was returning to dust, he would ask, How can these be connected with the production of similar grain? Are not all the indications that it will be totally corrupted and destroyed?
Yet, says Paul, this is connected with the hope of the harvest, and this fact should remove all the objection which is derived from the fact that the body returns to its native dust. The idea is, that there is an analogy, and that the main objection in the one case would lie equally well against the acknowledged and indisputable fact in the other. It is evident, however, that this argument is of a popular character, and is not to be pressed to the quick; nor are we to suppose that the resemblance will be in all respects the same. It is to be used as Paul used it. The objection was, that the body died, and returned to dust, and could not, therefore, rise again. The reply of Paul is, You may make the same objection to grain that is sown. That dies also. The main body of the kernel decays. In itself there is no prospect that it will spring up. Should it stop here, and had you never seen a grain of wheat grow; had you only seen it in the earth, as you have seen the body in the grave, there would be the same difficulty as to how it would produce other grains, which there is about the resurrection of the body.
Is not quickened – Does not become alive; does not grow.
Except it die – See the note on Joh 12:24. The main body of the grain decays that it may become food and nourishment to the tender germ. Perhaps it is implied here also that there was a fitness that people should die in order to obtain the glorious body of the resurrection, in the same way as it is fit that the kernel should die, in order that there may be a new and beautiful harvest.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
1Co 15:36-40
Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.
The reproof of scepticism
I. Justly severe. Thou fool. Because–
1. It is opposed to God and Divine truth.
2. Is based in ignorance and self-conceit.
II. Severely just. Because–
1. It ignores the analogy between natural facts, and the higher purposes of God.
2. Cannot realise anything beyond the domain of natural sense.
3. Denies everything it cannot realise. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
From death to life
The text may be applied to–
I. The facts of nature as here.
II. The events of history.
1. In general. Note the fate of empires. They are born, grow, decay, die or are killed, and out of their ruins, phoenix like, the new emerge: evolution succeeds revolution. So with the dynasties who rule these empires.
2. In particular rulers and statesmen die to give birth to their successors. Moses dies, but Joshua rises. John must decrease that Christ must increase. Saul holds the mantle of martyred Stephen and then wears it.
III. The phenomena of providence. The old order changeth, giving birth to new, etc. Our little systems have their day, etc. Each age has its own mission, and having accomplished it, it dies only, however, to hand on the results of its mission which are embodied in the work of the next.
IV. The development of the Church. This is marked by a series of burials and resurrections, beginning with the burial and resurrection of its great Head. The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the Church. What was more completely dead than Christendom before the reformers awoke it into life! What was deader than religion in England before the great evangelists of the last century aroused it into activity! What are revivals but resurrections of dead churches?
V. The progress of the soul. True manhood is ever mounting on its dead self to nobler things. This is true–
1. Mentally. What intellectual revolutions a thoughtful man passes through! How dead are the dreams of childhood, the ideals of youth, the purposes of later years! How opinions, principles, beliefs change, and how necessary for the minds growth that they should!
2. Spiritually. From the moment when a man passes from death to life to the moment the mortal puts on immortality moral growth consists of a perpetual dying to sin that righteousness may live. (J. W. Burn.)
And thou sowest not that body that shall be.—
The present and future of the body
1. Christianity does not teach us to despise even the mortal body. We are taught that Christ Himself–without whom was not anything made that was made–formed man of the dust of the earth. The body, therefore, is a sacred thing; the very handiwork of Christ, though sadly marred and spoiled. By His incarnation a new sacredness has been added to it. God was made flesh, and dwelt among us. The instrument whose strings could be made to express the harmonies of a Divine perfection, cannot be too feeble for the lowlier music of the holiness proper to humanity.
2. Although we are taught to expect that this mortal body must be transfigured before our feet can stand on the pavement of the city of God, yet how wonderful a thing it is even now! I do not refer to the marvels of its mere physical structure, the miracles of skill which the anatomist delights to celebrate. I refer to the relationship which exists between every part of your physical nature and your thoughts, your affections, your conscience and your will. It is the necessary servant, and sometimes the imperial master of an immortal nature which sprang direct from God, and is still capable of intercourse with Him. Take the eye, and dissect it as skilfully as you please; but for that the soul would be a stranger to the splendid pageantry of nature, and to the more affecting beauty which irradiates the faces that we love. And, what is, if possible, more wonderful still, the body is gradually moulded and transformed by the energy or feebleness, the purity or the wickedness of the soul within. The inward kindness makes the eye gentle–the inward fury makes it burn with a terrible fire. The very lines of the face are gradually determined by the thoughts which occupy the most secret sanctuary of the soul, and the passions by which the depths of the heart are agitated.
3. But yet, mighty as are the susceptibilities of our physical being, it is not yet equal to the high claims of its spiritual alliance. We are hindered and enfeebled by it continually. Hardly have we plunged into our work before fatigue compels us to lay it aside; hardly has the day begun before the night returns, and with it the necessity of sleep. By the most trifling physical accidents the very mightiest are made powerless. No brilliance of genius, no heroism of moral nature can wholly defy the tyranny of weakness and suffering. The richest wisdom, the noblest moral energy, may all be made nearly useless by physical infirmity, and must at last be driven away from the world altogether by physical death.
4. Let us be thankful that we sow not that body that shall be. Bare grain is cast into the ground, but after a few months the hidden life reappears in the slender and graceful stalk, and the richly laden ear. So shall it be in the resurrection of the just. The body will rise again; but, thank God, not the same body (verse 34). As yet we cannot imagine the nature or the results of that transforming process which our flesh and blood must undergo before they can inherit the kingdom of God; but the unsuspected capabilities of human nature, even on its inferior side, have already been most wonderfully illustrated in the resurrection of Christ, and His enthronement at Gods right hand. He reigns not as God merely, but as man. His entire nature has been received into glory. The body in which He endured the feebleness, and suffering, which made up His earthly history, He wears still. Think, then, of the vast and tremendous duties to which the Redeemer of man has been appointed. And yet, in the discharge of the duties of His high government, His brain knows no weariness, His strength no exhaustion. A few hours of public teaching, when He was on earth, made it necessary that He should lay His head on a pillow and seek repose, though the night was dark, and the winds were loud, and the billows rough. But there is no danger now when the tempest is raging of finding Him asleep. And our vile bodies are to be made like to His glorious body. (R. W. Dale, D.D.)
Four important principles bearing upon the doctrine of the resurrection
I. Change of form–thou sowest not, etc.
II. Identity of body–to every seed his own body.
III. Identity of species–wheat cannot produce tares or tares wheat–neither can the sinner be raised a glorified saint nor the saint a reprobate sinner.
IV. Difference in the degree of development in the same species–one stalk of wheat is more fairly developed than another, God giveth, etc.
so also in the resurrection of the dead. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
But bare grain.—
Bare grain
During the last week we have had a second edition of our summer, which seemed almost gone–a second edition, abridged, condensed into a few days, but charming, because unexpected. No wonder the poor Indian, with untutored mind, lonely in his narrow thought, feeling after God, if haply he might find Him, dreamed that he saw in the haze illumined sky of October some glimpse of the happy hunting-fields where his fathers roamed. Work-people in Europe, besides their regular wages, expect some little extra gift, which they call, in Italian, buono-mano. And they seem to take more pleasure in their buono-mano than in their regular wages. These warm days in September are Natures buono-mano. God has left this margin of the unexpected, the casual, around all the majestic machinery of law, in order to give us the joy of feeling the gift, to give Himself the joy of being loved as the Giver. Let us be thankful that there are some surprises in the world, some things which elude mathematics, some Indian summer days which come when no one has predicted them, to warm the heart through and through; because being unlooked for, they seem more like a direct gift from God. This return of summer in the form of Indian summer has suggested to me the subject of returning events, of recurrence in human affairs, of the circular and spiral movement in history and life. Things come back, but when they come back they are seldom exactly what they were before. Summer returns as Indian summer; history is always repeating itself, but on a higher plane. The difference between two men, one having Christian faith and the other not having it, is this: both commit the same faults, and repeat the same experience, but the one repeats it always high up. He has more faith, more hope, more love to God and man. Thus he takes the past with him, as precious seed of a better future. His youth departs, with its golden summer days, but returns again an Indian summer with mellower warmth, and a more enchanting peace. The Christian army marches ever to the east, with the dawn shining on its white shields of expectation. But just in proportion as this faith is wanting, life goes round and round, in a mere mill-horse circle of routine. If we look only at this, life grows very tiresome. The despair of the Book of Ecclesiastes comes over us, and we say, What profit has a man of all his labour that he takes under the sun? For all things return, according to their circuit. But the New Testament teaches another lesson than the Book of Ecclesiastes. It is a proof of the Divine origin of these gospels and epistles–that they are full, through and through, of the spirit of hope. Throughout they cry to us: The life we sow to-day is seed of something better to come to-morrow. We do not plant that which is to be, but only its seed. Our present life, which we are leading now, compared to that which is to come to us, is only as naked seed is to the green and graceful plant which springs from it. The Old World of Pagan religion and philosophy was very much ennuyed. It expected nothing, it had little hope left in its heart. Now, the new life of Christianity consisted very much in giving hope to the world. As when a glacier pours its enormous river of ice through Alpine ravines, descending into the valleys, it wastes away imperceptibly, and turns to moist vapours, filling the valley with masses of foliage–so this glacier of despair melted in the warm breath of the new Christian life. The letters of Paul and Peter are full of expectation of Christs coming to reign on earth. That great expectation of Christs coming was the seed that the New Testament planted in civilisation; and it has borne its fruits in all human progress. The one thing needful, the only essential in Christianity, is to have Christ formed within us, the hope of glory; hope of glory here, in all forms of growing goodness, generosity, honour; and of glory, honour, immortality hereafter. Christ Himself was the seed planted in Palestine, which has come up in Christianity in that new body which pleased God. When in the world Jesus worked outward, physical miracles. He works miracles still, but in a new way. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, but not now by a mere touch or word. We have blind asylums, and deaf and dumb asylums, and sanitary associations. These all proceed from the Christian spirit of humanity, and so come from the seed which Christs miracles planted. Those miracles were bare grain, to which God gave the body which pleased Him. Visitors to Rome, looking out from its lofty walls over the Campagna, see with delight the long line of arches which cross the plain, converging towards the city from the distant mountains. They are the remains of the ancient aqueducts, which formerly brought supplies of water to the immense population of ancient Rome. Visitors to Chicago are carried down to see a tunnel running two miles under the lake, which brings pure water in inexhaustible supplies to that new-born metropolis of the prairies. The methods differ, the water is the same. Forms change, but the needs of men remain. So the soul of man needs always to drink the same living water of faith and hope. The water is the same, whether it is drawn up from Jacobs spring, or brought through a Roman aqueduct, or spouts from an artesian well, or is pumped up through a Chicago tunnel. So, if we have love to God and man, and have faith in the great and blessed future, if we believe good stronger than evil, and life more permanent than death, it is no matter by what Jewish or Roman aqueduct or modern creed that pure water comes. God gives it the body which has pleased Him, and to every seed its own body. (James Freeman Clarke.)
But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his own body.–
The permanence of human identity
I. Natural life preecedes spiritual life—in the sinner.
II. Natural life is combined with spiritual life–in the believer.
III. Spiritual life is consummated in the glorified natural life–in the risen saint, yet the man loses nothing essential to his identity. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
All flesh is not the same flesh.–
The wealth of Divine power displayed
I. In the visible creation.
1. Variety of living forms.
2. Adaptation to different spheres.
3. Degrees of glory and beauty.
II. In the resurrection.
1. The same body yet wonderfully changed.
2. Adapted to heaven and hell.
3. Differing in glory. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The falsity of the development theory
I. All flesh is not the same flesh.
1. Man differs from a beast in the very constitution of his flesh, blood, nervous system–as also other genera of animal life.
2. Modification is possible, but change is a pure assumption unsustained by facts, and contradicted by revelation.
II. Much less is all spirit the same spirit.
1. The spirit of the beast goeth downward.
2. The spirit of man returns to God.
III. The folly of such assumptions is manifest–they contradict.
1. Fact.
2. Reason.
3. Eternal and infallible truth.
4. And incur a terrible responsibility. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
The resurrection body will be wonderfully changed
I. In its tissues. Though its elements be substantially the same, the variety of flesh proves the possibility (verse 39), the Word of God asserts its certainty (verse 50).
II. In its adaptations–to a new and heavenly sphere–there are bodies celestial and terrestrial.
III. In its appearance–all glorious–yet one glory of the sun, etc. The first shall be last, etc. (J. Lyth, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 36. Thou fool] . If this be addressed, as it probably is, to the false apostle, there is a peculiar propriety in it; as this man seems to have magnified his own wisdom, and set it up against both God and man; and none but a fool could act so. At the same time, it is folly in any to assert the impossibility of a thing because he cannot comprehend it.
That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die] I have shown the propriety of this simile of the apostle in the note on Joh 12:24, to which I must refer the reader. A grain of wheat, c., is composed of the body or lobes, and the germ. The latter forms an inconsiderable part of the mass of the grain the body, lobes, or farinaceous part, forms nearly the whole. This body dies-becomes decomposed, and forms a fine earth, from which the germ derives its first nourishment; by the nourishment thus derived the germ is quickened, receives its first vegetable life, and through this means is rendered capable of deriving the rest of its nourishment and support from the grosser earth in which the grain was deposited. Whether the apostle would intimate here that there is a certain germ in the present body, which shall become the seed of the resurrection body, this is not the place to inquire; and on this point I can with pleasure refer to Mr. Drew’s work on the “Resurrection of the Human Body;” where this subject, as well as every other subject connected with this momentous question, is considered in a very luminous and cogently argumentative point of view.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
He saith not: Thou fool, in anger, (which is that using of this term which our Saviour saith, Mat 5:22 brings a man under the danger of hell fire), but in the way of a grave and authoritative reproof, calling them fools for their want of a due understanding of the things and ways of God. He lets them know, that they might as well ask, how the grain of wheat, which they ordinarily sowed in their field, did rise again; for that grain also rotteth under the clods of the earth, under which it is buried, before it again riseth.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
36. foolwith all thy boastedphilosophy (Ps 14:1).
that which thou“thou,”emphatical: appeal to the objector’s own experience: “Theseed which thou thyself sowest.” Paul, in this verse andin 1Co 15:42, answers thequestion of 1Co 15:35, “How?”and in 1Co 15:37-41;1Co 15:43, the question, “Withwhat kind of body?” He converts the very objection (thedeath of the natural body) into an argument. Death, so far frompreventing quickening, is the necessary prelude andprognostication of it, just as the seed “is not quickened”into a new sprout with increased produce, “except it die”(except a dissolution of its previous organization takes place).Christ by His death for us has not given us a reprieve from death asto the life which we have from Adam; nay, He permits the law to takeits course on our fleshly nature; but He brings from Himself newspiritual and heavenly life out of death (1Co15:37).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Thou fool,…. Not transgressing the law of Christ, which makes him that calls his brother a fool in danger of hell fire; for the apostle said not this in anger, and from a malevolent disposition, as that rule supposes, but out of zeal for truth, and to reprove the stupidity and folly of such a bold objector; in opposing the veracity and power of God, in setting up his reason above divine revelation, and in not attending even to natural philosophy itself; in which professing to be wise he might be justly called a fool, and therefore sends him to the husbandman to learn of him how to answer his own queries:
that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and which is more especially true of a grain of wheat: our Lord observes the same, [See comments on Joh 12:24], and designs by the simile his own death, and resurrection, and the fruit following thereon. This seed being cast into the earth corrupts, rots, and dies, and then is quickened, and rises up in stalk, blade, and ear. Which shows that the dissolution and corruption of the body by death is so far from being an objection to its resurrection, that it is necessary to it, even as the dying and putrifying of the seed, or grain of wheat, is necessary to its quickening and rising up again; and that if God is able to quicken a seed or grain that is rotten and entirely dead, and cause it to rise up in verdure and with much fruit, as he does every year in millions of instances, why should it be thought incredible that God should quicken dead bodies, when the one is as much an instance of his power as the other? The Claromontane exemplar reads, “except it die first”; and so the Vulgate Latin version.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Thou foolish one (). Old word ( privative, ), lack of sense. It is a severe term and justified by the implication “that the objector plumes himself on his acuteness” (Robertson and Plummer). Proleptic position of (thou) sharpens the point. Sceptics (agnostics) pose as unusually intellectual (the intelligentsia), but the pose does not make one intelligent.
Except it die ( ). Condition of third class, possibility assumed. This is the answer to the “how” question. In plant life death precedes life, death of the seed and then the new plant.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Thou sowest [ ] . Thou is emphatic. Every time thou sowest, thou sowest something which is quickened only through dying. Paul is not partial to metaphors from nature, and his references of this character are mostly to nature in connection with human labor. Dean Howson says : “We find more of this kind of illustration in the one short epistle of St. James than in all the writings of St. Paul” (” Metaphors of St. Paul. “Compare Farrar’s” Paul, ” 1, 20, 21).
Die. Become corrupted. Applied to the seed in order to keep up the analogy with the body.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “Thou fool,” (aphron) “Thou storehouse of stupidity,” propounder of mentally stupid, incompetent inquiries, Mat 12:36-37.
2) “That which thou sowest is not quickened,” (su ho speireis, ou zoopoiertai) “What thou sowest is not made alive.” The stupid gnostic question regarding the resurrection of dead bodies no more destroys the reality of the fact than to raise a question of doubt of intelligence in one who sows seed in a garden. Life rises from the dying seed, planted in the earth, and brings forth a body — so in the resurrection.
3) “Except it die “ lean me apothane) “Unless it dies.” The seed must die, mature, ere its life is extended in a higher form of being. So in the resurrection. This our Lord by clear implication taught, Joh 12:23-25.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
36. Thou fool, that which thou sowest The Apostle might have replied, that the mode, which is to us incomprehensible, is nevertheless easy with God. Hence, we must not here form our judgment according to our own understanding, but must assign to the stupendous and secret power of God the honor of believing, that it will accomplish what we cannot comprehend. He goes to work, however, in another way. For he shows, that the resurrection is so far from being against nature, that we have every day a clear illustration of it in the course of nature itself — in the growth of the fruits of the earth. For from what but from rottenness spring the fruits that we gather out of the earth? For when the seed has been sown, unless the grains die, there will be no increase. Corruption, then, being the commencement and cause of production, we have in this a sort of picture of the resurrection. Hence it follows, that we are beyond measure spiteful and ungrateful in estimating the power of God, if we take from him what is already manifest before our eyes.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(36) Thou fool.Better, Fool, or more literally, Senseless one. The word in the Greek has not the sense of opprobrium conveyed in the word translated fool in Mat. 5:22; Mat. 23:17; Mat. 23:19. You who with your own hand sow seed, ask such a question as that! The Apostle now proceeds to show, by the analogies in Nature, how a resurrection of a body is possible, how substantial identity may be preserved under variation of form. The Apostle does not here prove anything. Analogy cannot ever be regarded as logically conclusive as an argument. The object of analogy is to show how a difficulty is not insuperable. The doctrine of the resurrection has been logically established. A difficulty is suggested as to how it is possible. Analogy shows that the same difficulty exists in theory in other directions where we actually see it surmounted in fact. It is most important to bear this in mind, as some writers, forgetful of the difference between a logical argument and an illustration from analogy, have regarded some of the Apostles arguments in these verses as inconclusive. The fact of a buried seed rising into flower does not and cannot prove that man will rise; but it does show that the objection suggested in the question, How are the dead raised up? is not a practical difficulty.
We have in these verses three illustrations of the preservation of identity under change of form:(1) Seeds growing into flowers and fruit; (2) flesh in the variety of men, beasts, fishes, and birds; (3) heavenly and earthly bodies in infinite variety of form and of glory.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
36. Thou fool The italic thou is furnished by the translators. Similar was Solomon’s fool, who said in his heart, There is no God.
Thou Yet here, as in Romans 9, the apostle has a conceptual opponent face to face. This thou would be more emphatic in Paul’s Greek than in our English, for the Greek can omit the pronoun, and inserts it only for the keen point. As Dr. Poor (in Lange) pertinently says, “It is the pointed finger aiming at the objector present to the author’s mind thou.” And fool belongs to this thou, just because his own planting a seed refutes him. When you yourself put a seed in the ground, you know what follows.
Quickened Made alive in the future plant.
Paul here, be it noted, is not dealing in the secrecies of science, but with the bare facts presented to the eye of the seed planter. The three patent ocular facts are, a burial, a death, and a reappearance. The seed goes into the ground, dies, and is “resurrected” in a plant above ground. To Paul’s conception the plant is the same seed reappearing; the same matter in a new form. Yet this sameness is not what he is now illustrating; he is now only showing the Gnostic that as matter is not necessarily inglorious, so the materiality of our present body is no reason for objecting to its future remodelling in glory. Paul’s view is, that the same materiality rises re-organized, and endowed with new properties. It is idem et alter; the same in substance, but different in phenomena; just as the same carbon may be first a charcoal and then a diamond.
Except it die Is it strange to you that corruption, decay, and death should be the antecedent of immortal life? Lo, the seed you plant cannot live until it die. Death is the necessary condition to future life.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘You foolish one. What you yourself sow is not made alive except it die. And what you sow, you do not sow the body which shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind. But God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own.’
Paul, now calling them foolish for being so undiscerning about what God can do, replies by pointing to nature. As nature reveals, for seed that is sown death is not the end, rather it is the precursor of life. Men do not sow the full body of what shall be, but merely the bare grain. And from that small beginning comes the full growth of whatever crop it is. Nobody looking at the acorn would imagine that within it was a mighty oak. So God takes each seed and produces from it its own body, and there are many varieties. The thought is that in the case of human beings who are raised from the dead a new body will be produced, resulting from the seed of the old which has died. This is intended only to be an illustration, not a scientific explanation. It is simply saying that God does not need much of the old with which to create a new spiritual body which shares the essence of the old, and that death is therefore not necessarily final but can be the precursor of new life.
‘You foolish one.’ In the Old Testament those who fail to take God into account are regularly called ‘fools’ or ‘foolish’. Compare Psa 14:1; Psa 53:1; Psa 74:18-22.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
1Co 15:36. Except it die. It has been objected to this, that if the seed die, it never bears fruit; but it is certain that the seed in general does consume away in the ground, though a little germen or bud, which makes a part of it, springs up into new life, and is fed by the death and corruption of the rest. So that these wise philosophers of our own, talk just as foolishly as the Corinthian free-thinkers whom they vindicate. See Joh 12:23-24.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Co 15:36-41 . In the first place, analogies from the experience of nature, [72] by way of preparation for the instruction, which then follows at 1Co 15:42 ff., regarding the of the resurrection-body inquired abou.
] The deniers have thus, on the assumption of the identity of the resurrection-body with the body which is buried, found the of the former to be inconceivable; but how foolish is this assumption! The nominative is not address , because without the article, but exclamation ; so that to explain it grammatically we must supply . Comp. Luk 12:20 (Lachmann, Tischendorf), and see, generally, Bernhardy, p. 67; Winer, p. 172 [E. T. 228]; Khner, II. 507 c , remar.
] What thou sowest , is not made alive, etc. The has the emphasis of the subsequent contrast with the divine agency in 1Co 15:38 : Thou on thy part ; hence we must not take togethe.
] description (suggested by the thing typified) of the springing up of the seed, which must first of all die; inasmuch, namely, as the living principle in it, the germ, grows out thereof, and the grain containing it becomes subject to decomposition. Comp. Joh 12:24 . The is therefore, in the case of the seed sown, the analogue of the decay of the body buried. As the seed-corn in the earth must die by decomposition, in order to become alive in the springing germ, so must the body decay in the earth in order to become alive in the resurrection-body arising out of it at the resurrection of the dead. That it is not simply the necessity of dying to attain the resurrection-life (van Hengel; comp. Rckert and Holsten, z. Ev. d. Paul. u. Petr. p. 374) which is depicted, is clear from this, that in the explanation of the resurrection the being sown necessarily represents the burial , and consequently the of the seed-corn , because it follows after the being sown, must correspond to the decay of the body.
[72] Comp. Clement, 1 Cor. 24.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
36 Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
Ver. 36. Thou fool ] A hard knot must have a hard wedge, a dead heart a rousing reproof. He confutes atheists from the course of nature, which they ascribe so much unto.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
36 41 .] Analogies illustrative of the question just asked: and first, that of seed sown in the earth (36 38).
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
36 .] Meyer would point this, , , because according to the common punctuation there is necessarily an emphasis on , which the context does not allow. But on the other hand, it seems to me, there is an objection to the introduction of a new matter so lamely as by . Besides which, the emphatic does not necessarily require any other agency to be emphatically set against it, but may imply an appeal to the objector’s own experience (as Billr. in Dr. Peile): ‘ thou say this, who art continually witness of the process, &c.?’ And let it be remembered that we have another below, 1Co 15:42-44 , which may be set against thy sowing . I retain therefore the stop at (nom. for voc. as freq. See Luk 12:20 ; Mar 9:25 ; Luk 8:54 , al., and Winer, edn. 6, 29. 2), and the emphasis on . The similitude was used by our Lord of His own Resurrection, ref. John.
] Its life is latent in it; but is not developed into quick and lively action without the death of the deposited seed, i.e. its perishing, disappearing from nature. The same analogy was used by the Rabbis, but to prove that the dead would rise clothed : ‘ut triticum nudum sepelitur et multis vestibus ornaturm prodit, ita multo magis justi,’ &c.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
1Co 15:36 . (opposite of , 1Co 4:10 , 1Co 10:15 ) taxes the propounder of these questions not with moral obliquity, but with mental stupidity (see parls.). Wanting the art [2481] ( cf. Luk 12:20 ), the word is an assertion rather than an exclamation: “Insens que tu es, toi qui te crois si sage!” (Gd [2482] ). Some attach as subject to , but this weakens the adj [2483] , and the pron [2484] is required to give due emphasis to following. With a little sense, the questioner might answer himself; every time he sows his garden-plot, he assumes the principle denied in regard to man’s material form, viz ., that death is the transition to a further life “that which thou thyself sowest, is not made alive except it die”.This answers ; by ref [2485] to the analogy of nature. P. does not explain, any more than Jesus, the modus operandi of the Resurrection; what he shows is that the mystery raises no prejudice against the reality, for the same mystery is wrapped up in every vegetating seed. in the question is substituted by in the answer (see note on 1Co 15:22 ; cf. other parls.), since it is life that rises out of the dying seed, and the Resurrection is an evolution, not a reinstatement. Our Lord uses the same figure with the like implication, but another application, in Joh 12:23 f.
[2481] grammatical article.
[2482] F. Godet’s Commentaire sur la prem. p. aux Corinthiens (Eng. Trans.).
[2483] adjective.
[2484]ron. pronoun.
[2485] reference.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
fool. See Luk 11:40. The fourth occurance:
quickened. Same as “made alive”, 1Co 15:22.
except. Greek. ean (App-118) me (App-105).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
36-41.] Analogies illustrative of the question just asked: and first, that of seed sown in the earth (36-38).
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 15:36. , Thou fool) The apostle wonders, that any one could have any difficulty on this subject, he considered it as a thing so certain. This also appertains to the shame [which their ignorance of God reflected on them], 1Co 15:34. To that man inquiring about the way [how are the dead raised?] of the resurrection, and the quality of the bodies rising [with what body do they come?] he answers first by a similitude, 36-42, at the middle; then, without a similitude, 1Co 15:42, etc. In the similitude, the protasis and apodosis admirably correspond to each other: and the question is concerning the way of the resurrection in the protasis, 1Co 15:36; in the apodosis, 1Co 15:42, it is sown, etc.: then concerning the quality of the bodies, in the protasis, 1Co 15:37-41 : in the apodosis, 1Co 15:43.-) thou thyself, silly fellow.-, sowest) in the field. A copious allegory follows.- , is not quickened) to a new sprout.- , unless it die) Paul completely retorts the objection [converts the very objection into an argument]: death does not prevent quickening, but goes before it, as the prelude and prognostication, as sowing precedes the harvest.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 15:36
1Co 15:36
Thou foolish one,-The one who involves himself in such needless difficulties he calls a foolish one.
that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened except it die:-He illustrates the resurrection by the analogy of the grain. As long as the grain remains in the bin, it is a dead thing-there is a germ of life in it, but that is to all appearance as if it did not exist. It can only start into life by being buried in the earth, and the whole body of the seed thus buried decays and becomes food for the life germ which cannot be seen till it has attained some size by having received nourishment from the decayed seed, and by this principle of life gathers the matter in a body as suits its wants; so that here is the great mystery of nature, patent on all sides of us, and the beginning of a new life from a dead seed.
[This, of course, is only an analogy, and an analogy is not a proof; for the proof of the resurrection is historical. It is the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who during his life displayed supernatural power and wisdom, and whose resurrection was proclaimed by men who lost every worldly advantage and exposed themselves to death daily, because they asserted its truth. This, in the apostles view, was the proof of the resurrection, but when men asked, How are the dead raised up? as if it were an impossible thing, then he used the analogy of the seed and the plant. How the plant is actually developed from the seed is as great a mystery as the resurrection-not, of course, as great a thing-but as great a mystery, as inexplicable, as unsearchable. And the unbeliever who says that it is produced by a law of nature only introduces a still greater mystery-the mystery of laws not imposed by any intelligent being, but acting no one knows how-blindly, unintelligently, though they require the brightest intellects of the human family to describe or measure their action.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
fool: Luk 12:20, Luk 24:25, Rom 1:22, Eph 5:15
that: Joh 12:24
Reciprocal: 2Ch 16:9 – Herein Job 14:8 – die in the ground Hos 14:7 – revive Luk 11:40 – fools 2Co 11:29 – and I burn Col 2:8 – philosophy Col 2:13 – he Jam 2:20 – O vain
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 15:36. Fool is from APHEON, and Thayer defines it, “senseless, foolish, stupid; without reflection or intelligence, acting rashly.” It does not mean that the person does not have natural mental ability, for then he could not justly be censured. But he is one so devoted to his notion that he will not use his mind to consider other matters with which he is familiar, and which would meet his own quibble in the question at hand. Such a matter is the well known truth that a vegetable grain will never reproduce its kind unless it dies and mingles with the earth in which it was placed.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 15:36. Senseless man! Fool is too strong a rendering of the word here used (which is not that rightly rendered fool in Mat 23:17; Mat 23:19; Luk 11:40; Luk 12:20)that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened, except it die (compare Joh 12:24). Not more truly does the grain require to die in the ground, to yield the bread we live on, and not more certainly does it yield it when thus first buried in the earthy than must this mortal body die in order to live again, nor more surely will it then rise to life. The next objectionwith what manner of body do they come?is answered more respectfully; for even Christians themselves may be troubled with itand that which thou lowest, thou lowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind. What is reaped is not precisely what is sown.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
1Co 15:36-38. Thou fool Greek, , without mind, or understanding. Or, thou inconsiderate and thoughtless creature, who thinkest a matter impossible, of the possibility of which thou hast an example in the very seed thou sowest. Macknight thinks the apostle here addresses the false teacher at Corinth, giving him the appellation of fool in the same sense, and for the same reason, that our Lord himself called the Pharisees fools, namely, on account of their ignorance and wickedness, Mat 22:17. What thou sowest is not quickened except it die To illustrate the possibility of the resurrection, the apostle appeals to a thing which men every day behold, and which is little less wonderful than the resurrection itself, the reproduction of grain from seed sown, which does not grow unless it be rotted in the ground. But after its body is destroyed something springs out of it, which, by a wonderful process, the effect of the power of God, ends in the reproduction of the same kind of grain, not bare as it was sown, but richly adorned with blades, stalk, and ear. Thomas Paine, in his Age of Reason, and some other modern infidels, have maintained, against the apostle, that the seed does not die in vegetation, because the germe lives and expands itself, and only the extraneous matter corrupts. But in fact the seed, as such, doth die: it ceases to be a grain of corn; though a part of it springs, as it were, into new life, by a process which we can no more comprehend than we can the manner of the resurrection. Even Lucretius, the Epicurean atheist, says, Whatever change transfers a body into a new class of beings, may be justly called the death of the original substance: for what is changed from what it was, that dies. Scott. And that which thou sowest is not the body that shall be Produced from the seed committed to the ground; but bare, naked, grain Widely different from that which will afterward rise out of the earth. But God Not thou, O man, nor the grain itself; giveth it a body In the course of his natural operations, by certain laws of vegetation, with which thou art entirely unacquainted; as it hath pleased him With such a variety of parts as he hath thought fit to determine for that particular species; and to each of the seeds Not only of the fruits and plants, but animals also, to which the apostle rises in the following verse; its own body Not only a body of the same sort, but that which, by virtue of some connection it had with this or that individual grain, may properly be called its own, though in its form much different, and much more beautiful. It is justly observed by Dr. Macknight here, that, having such an example of the divine power before our eyes, we cannot think the reproduction of the body impossible, though its parts be utterly dissipated. And although the very numerical body be not raised, which the apostle intimates when he affirms that the grain produced from the seed sown is not the very body which is sown, yet the body is truly raised; because what is raised being united to the soul, there will arise in the man, thus completed, a consciousness of identity, by which he will be sensible of the justice of the retribution which is made to him for his deeds. Besides, this new body will more than supply the place of the old, by serving every purpose necessary to the perfection and happiness of the man in his new state. According to this view of the subject, the objection taken from the scattering of the particles of the body that die, has no place, because it does not seem necessary that the body to be raised should be composed of them; for the Scripture nowhere affirms that the same numerical body is to be raised. In the opinion of some, indeed, the example of the grain which first dies, and then revives, is mentioned to intimate, that in the human body there is a seminal principle, which is not destroyed by death; and which, at the appointed season, will reproduce the body in a more excellent form than before, through the quickening influence of his power. But is a seminal principle any thing different from that power? What occasion then have we to carry our thoughts in this matter beyond Gods power? Besides, as there is no inextinguishable principle in plants, the analogy doth not hold. I therefore suppose this wonderful, though common instance, is mentioned, to show that the resurrection of the body is not beyond the power of God to accomplish; and that it may certainly be expected according to Christs promise.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Vv. 36. Fool! That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.
The vocative , fool, is evidently a correction, and to be read as a nominative; comp. Luk 12:20. This nominative is used by apposition: Fool that thou art, thou that thinkest thyself so wise!
The pronoun , thou, by its position, is strongly emphatic; according to some, as opposed to , God, in the sense: As for thee, thou sowest what dies, whereas God sows what is to live; but this antithesis is foreign to the context. This , thou, put first, is logically connected with the epithet fool: Thy own daily experience might instruct thee, if thou hadst eyes to see! Every time thou sowest a grain, thou thyself dost overturn the objection thou art raising.
The term , is quickened, does not strictly apply to a grain of corn; it is chosen in view of the application made of it to the raised body.
The death of the seed, the condition of its return to life, consists in the dissolution of its material wrappings under the action of the earth’s moisture and heat. It is by this process of destruction that the impalpable germ of life which dwells in it, and which no anatomist’s scalpel can reach, is set free. In proportion as the putrefaction of all the material elements takes place, this force awakes and shows itself by the simultaneous appearance, in opposite directions, of the two vital shoots, the stem and the root, the first vestiges of the new organism which is preparing to appear. Such is the answer given by nature to the first question raised: How is the resurrection effected? Through death itself! Through dissolution to true life: such is the way! What appears to be the obstacle is the means. This is the law which nature illustrates, and which satisfies common sense as solving the point in question. The apostle, by answering thus, avoids two rocks, against which those who treat this question lightly are very apt to make shipwreck. The one consists in identifying the raised body with the present body, as if the first must be formed by the reunion of all the material molecules of which the second was composed. Who could regard a magnificent oak, or an apple-tree laden with its vernal beauty, as the material reconstruction of the acorn or of the pip from which they sprang! The other, on the contrary, consists in destroying all connection between the two bodies, as if the latter were a new creation, without organic relation to the former. In this case we could no longer speak of resurrection. In reality, death would not be vanquished; it would keep its prey. God would simply do something new by its side.
In Joh 12:24 the Lord uses this same figure of the grain of corn, applying it, however, to spiritual death and resurrection.
The apostle answers the second question, 1Co 15:37-40. And first summarily, 1Co 15:37-38.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened except it die [comp. Joh 12:24]:
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 36
Is not quickened; does not grow.–Except it die. The main body of the seed decays, and becomes food for the small germ which shoots from it.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
15:36 {21} [Thou] fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
(21) You might have learned either of these, Paul says, by daily experience: for seeds are sown, and rot, and yet nonetheless they are far from perishing, but rather they grow up far more beautiful. And whereas they are sown naked and dry, they spring up green from death by the power of God: and does it seem incredible to you that our bodies should rise from corruption, and that endued with a far more excellent quality?
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Such an objection sounds very reasonable on the surface, but it is really foolish, and it drew a sharp rebuke from Paul. The "wise" Corinthians were "fools!" The body that God resurrects will not be the same type of body that died even though it is the body of the same person. Paul proceeded to illustrate with a seed of grain. A new form of life springs forth from death. The body surrounding the life is different before and after death. Likewise human life exists in one form of body before death, and after death it exists in a different type of body. God does this with grain, so He can do it with humans too. This is so obvious in nature that we can understand Paul’s sharp retort in 1Co 15:36. A fool in biblical literature is someone who excludes God from consideration. That is exactly what the Corinthians were doing when they failed to observe what God did in the seed that they sowed in their fields.