Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of 1 Corinthians 15:38
But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
38. but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him ] Literally, as He willed. Cf. ch. 1Co 12:11 (where however the word is not the same in the Greek). “Life even in its lowest form has the power of assimilating to itself atoms.” Robertson. And these are arranged and developed according to the law that God has impressed on each seed.
and to every seed his own body ] “That body with which it is raised may be called its own body, and yet it is a new body. It is raised anew with stem and leaves and fruit, and yet all the while we know that it is no new corn: it is the old life in the seed reappearing, developed in a higher form.” Robertson.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
But God giveth it a body … – God gives to the seed sown its own proper body, formation, and growth. The word body here, as applied to grain, seems to mean the whole system, or arrangement of roots, stalks, leaves, flowers, and kernels that start out of the seed that is sown The meaning is, that such a form is produced from the seed sown as God pleases. Paul here traces the result to God, to show that there is no chance, and that it did not depend on the nature of things, but was dependent on the wise arrangement of God. There was nothing in the decaying kernel itself that would produce this result; but God chose that it should be so. There is nothing in the decaying body of the dead which in itself should lead to the resurrection; but God chose it should be so.
As it hath pleased him – As he chose. It is by his arrangement and agency. Though it is by regular laws, yet it is as God pleases. He acts according to his own pleasure, in the formation of each root, and stalk, and kernel of grain. It is, probably, here intimated that God would give to each one of the dead at the resurrection such a body as he should choose, though it will be, doubtless, in accordance with general laws.
And to every seed his own body – That which appropriately belongs to it; which it is suited to produce; which is of the same kind. He does not cause a stalk of rye to grow from a kernel of wheat; nor of maize from barley; nor of hemp from lenthes. He has fixed proper laws, and he takes care that they shall be observed. So it will be in the resurrection. Everyone shall have his own, that is, his proper body – a body which shall belong to him, and be suited to him. The wicked shall not rise with the body of the just, or with a body adapted to heaven; nor shall the saint rise with a body adapted to perdition. There shall be a fitness or appropriateness in the new body to the character of him who is raised. The argument here is designed to meet the inquiry how should the body be raised, and it is that there is nothing more remarkable and impossible in the doctrine of the resurrection, than in the fact constantly before us, that grain that seems to rot sends up a shoot or stalk, and is reproduced in a wonderful and beautiful manner. In a manner similar to this, the body will be raised; and the illustration of Paul meets all the difficulties about the fact of the resurrection. It cannot be shown that one is more difficult than the other; and as the facts of vegetation are constantly passing before our eyes, we ought not to deem it strange if similar facts shall take place hereafter in regard to the resurrection of the dead.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 38. But God giveth it a body] And is there any other way of accounting for it but by the miraculous working of God’s power? For out of that one bare grain is produced a system of roots, a tall and vigorous stalk, with all its appendages of leaves, c., besides the full corn in the ear the whole making several hundred times the quantum of what was originally deposited. There are no proofs that what some call nature can effect this: it will ever be a philosophical as well as a Scriptural truth, that God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him; and so doth he manage the whole of the work, that every seed shall have its own body: that the wheat germ shall never produce barley; nor the rye, oats. See Clarke on Ge 1:12.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
But God giveth to every grain, or kind of seed, such a kind of body as it pleaseth him, and a several body, according to the nature of the grain; yet none will deny, but it is the seed sown which cometh up, though with a different body, in respect of some qualities.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
38. as it hath pleased himatcreation, when He gave to each of the (kinds of) seeds(so the Greek is for “to every seed”) a body ofits own (Ge 1:11, “afterits kind,” suited to its species). So God can and will give tothe blessed at the resurrection their own appropriate body,such as it pleases Him, and such as is suitable to theirglorified state: a body peculiar to the individual, substantially thesame as the body sown.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But God giveth it a body, as it hath pleased him,…. It is not the husbandman, nor the sun, nor the rain, that give the grain of wheat, or any other, its verdure and beauty, the form in which it springs up, its stalk, blade, and ear, but God by his own power, and of his sovereign will and pleasure; and he does not create this new form, but gives it; and does not barely give it, but gives the body to it: to the selfsame grain, and not another: so the resurrection of the dead is God’s work; it is an instance of his power, and of his sovereign will; and is to his people a branch of that eternal life, which is his pure gift through Jesus Christ; all that glory in which the body will arise springs from his free grace, and is bestowed upon the selfsame body, which was carried about here, and laid in the grave: and to every
seed its own body; which is suitable and natural to it, according to its kind; see Ge 1:11 as cummin to cummin, anise to anise, wheat to wheat, barley to barley, and not on the contrary; showing, that it is the same body that is raised that dies, though it is in a more glorious, and with more excellent qualities; which is manifest from express passages of Scripture; see Job 19:26 from the signification of the word resurrection, which is a raising up of that which is fallen and if the same body that falls by death is not raised, but another is given, it will not be a resurrection, but a creation: and also from the figurative phrases by which it is expressed, as here by the quickening of seed cast into the earth, and elsewhere by awaking out of sleep; now as it is the same seed that is sown that springs up again, and the same body that sleeps that awaked out of it, so it is the same body that is interred in the earth, and falls asleep by death, that will be quickened and awaked at the resurrection: and it is clear from the places from whence the dead will be raised, the repositories of them, as death and hell, or the grave, and the sea; for none but the same bodies that are laid in the grave, or cast into the sea, can be said to come forth out of them, or be delivered up; by them: and from the subject of the resurrection, the bodies of men, their vile and mortal bodies, which can be no other than their present ones; and from the end of the resurrection, which is that some may come to life, and others to damnation; and from the justice of God, which requires that the same bodies Christ has purchased, find who have served and suffered for him, should be glorified; and the same that have done evil against him, and abused themselves and his people, be punished: this might be argued from the translations of Enoch and Elijah in their bodies to heaven, in which they were on earth; and from the resurrection of the bodies of the saints at Christ’s resurrection, and the change that will be on the bodies of living saints at the coming of Christ; for it is not reasonable to suppose, that some of the saints shall have their own bodies, and others none at all, or not the same they lived in here: this may be further confirmed, from the resurrection of Christ’s body, which was the same he had before; it was not changed into a spirit, but consisted of flesh and bones, as it had done; and had on it the very print of the nails, and spear in his hands, feet, and side; and to this the bodies of the saints are to be fashioned: add to all this, if it is not a resurrection of the same body, but new ones are created, to which the soul will be united, it will not be a resurrection, but a transmigration of souls into other bodies; but as every seed has its own body, so will every soul have its own body, though greatly different as to its qualities, and much improved for the better, as in seed sown: and this is the sense of the ancient Jews q,
“says R. Chijah, , “that that selfsame body that was shall rise”, is clear from what is written, thy dead men shall live, Isa 26:19 and it is not written, shall be created; from whence it is evident that they shall not be created, but shall be quickened:”
and again r,
“in the time to come, the holy blessed God will quicken the dead, and raise them , “out of their own dust”, that they may not be a building of dust, as they were at first, when they were created out of dust itself, a thing which is not stable, according to Ge 2:7 and at that time they shall be raised out of the dust, out of that building, and shall stand in a stable building, that they may have stability, or duration.”
So on those words, “I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal”, De 32:39 they observe s, that
“as wounding and healing are , “in one”, (and the same body,) so death and life are , “in one and” the same.”
q Zohar in Exod. fol. 12. 3. r Midrash Hannealam in Zohar in Gen. fol. 81. 1. s T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 91. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
A body of its own ( ). Even under the microscope the life cells or germ plasm may seem almost identical, but the plant is quite distinct. On , seed, old word from , to sow, see on Mt 13:24f.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
As it hath pleased [ ] . Lit., even as He willed; at the creation, when He fixed the different types of grain, so that each should permanently assume a form according to its distinctive type – a body of its own : that wheat should always be wheat, barley barley, etc. Compare Gen 1:11, 12.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
1) “But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him,” (ho de theos didosin auto soma kathos etheiesin) “Yet, God gives to it (each seed) a body as he willed or purposed.” Not “as he wills” (present tense), but “as he willed” (decreed in creation), for plant life and man’s continued, renewed, everlasting existence, Gen 1:11; Act 26:8.
2) “And to every seed his own body.” (kai hekasto ton spermaton idion soma) “And to each of the seeds its own body.” The corn seed bears a corn stalk; the wheat, a wheat plant; and the cotton its own stalk; each differs, validating the divine decree of order and continuity of “everything after its own kind,” accounted for not merely on natural, but supernatural grounds. So also the resurrection.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
38. But God giveth it And it was just because the Gnostical objector had a semi-pagan ignorance of God, (note on 1Co 15:34,) that he could not realize that God can reorganize old matter in new glory.
Pleased him For the laws of the resurrection, like the laws of nature, are a mode of the divine volition. The new body is produced by God’s power, and just as he wills.
To every (kind of) seed his own body And so God may modify the resurrection body so as to destroy the objector’s supposition that the same body means a corrupt body.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
1Co 15:38. To every seed his own body. The Apostle seems more directly to speak of that as its proper body, which is peculiar to that species of grain; yet undoubtedly each ear has a peculiar reference to one individual, as its proper seed, in such a manner, as another of the same species has not: and what follows plainly suits such a view. God is said to give it this body as it pleases him, because we know not how it is produced; and the Apostle’s leading thought is, that it is absurd to argue against a resurrection, on a principle which is so palpably false as that must be, which supposes us to understand the whole progress of the divine works.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
1Co 15:38 . ] setting over against the , 1Co 15:36 , what is done on God’s part with the seed which on man’s part is sowe.
.] has willed . It denotes the (already at the creation) completed act of the divine volition as embodied in the laws of natur.
] and indeed , as 1Co 3:5 .
The diversity of the (peculiar, ) organisms , which God bestows upon i.e. causes to spring forth out of the different seeds sown, while preserving the identity of the kinds, exposes all the more the folly of the question: , in so far as it was meant to support the denial of the resurrection. As if God, who gives such varied plant-bodies to the sown grains, each according to its kind, could not also give new resurrection-bodies to the buried dead! How foolish to think that the same body which is buried (as e.g. the Pharisees conceived of the matter) must come forth again, if there is a resurrection! Every stalk of wheat, etc., refutes thee!
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
38 But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
Ver. 38. But God giveth it a body ] Deus naturae vires et vices ita moderatur, &c., saith one. God so orders all, that nothing is done without him. The same Hebrew word that signifieth an ear of grain, doth also signify a word; because every field of grain is a book of God’s praise, every land a sheaf, every sheaf a verse, every ear a word, every corn of wheat a letter to express the power and goodness of God.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
38. ] , willed , viz. at the creation: the aor. setting forth the one act of the divine Will giving to the particular seed the particular development at first, which the species retains: whereas would imply a fresh act of the divine Will giving to every individual seed (not , but , or rather ) his own body. But the whole gift to the species being God’s, to continue or withhold, the pres. still holds good.
. .] to each of the (kinds of) seed ; see above: is generic.
] a body of its own . Such then being the case with all seeds, why should it be thought necessary that the same body should rise as was sown , or that God cannot give to each a resurrection-body, as in nature?
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
as it hath, &c. = even as He purposed. App-102. Compare 1Co 12:18.
every seed = each of the seeds. In verses: 1Co 15:36-38 the apostle shows that as we know not how the seeds come to life and grow up (Mar 4:27), much less do we know how the resurrection change is effected.
his = its.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
38.] , willed, viz. at the creation: the aor. setting forth the one act of the divine Will giving to the particular seed the particular development at first, which the species retains: whereas would imply a fresh act of the divine Will giving to every individual seed (not , but , or rather ) his own body. But the whole gift to the species being Gods, to continue or withhold, the pres. still holds good.
. .] to each of the (kinds of) seed; see above: is generic.
] a body of its own. Such then being the case with all seeds, why should it be thought necessary that the same body should rise as was sown, or that God cannot give to each a resurrection-body, as in nature?
Fuente: The Greek Testament
1Co 15:38. , but God) Not thou, O man; not the grain itself.-, to it) to the grain.-, He hath willed) The preterite in respect of creation, Gen 1:11 : or at least because willing is before giving,-, to every one) not only to the seed of fruits, but also to that of animals. A gradation to the following verse.-, its own) suitable to the species, peculiar to the individual, produced from the substance of the seed. This peculiarity is further explained in the following verse.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
1Co 15:38
1Co 15:38
but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own.-Neither the seed itself, nor the sower, provides the new body; but it is God who gives it a body as it pleases him. He does not deal with each case separately, just as he pleases at the moment, but according to fixed laws, just as it pleased him when the world was created and regulated. (Gen 1:11-12). [The development of any plant from a seed is a deep mystery, and still more mysterious is that uniform action of God, by which each seed develops not into any plant, but into the plant which God has appointed from the first; so that, as far as we can see, not only is there an infinite variety of seeds, but an infinite variety of principles of life. There is a particular character of life in the grain of wheat, and a different one in the grain of barley, and they never interchange. This is introduced because he meant not merely life out of the dead seed, but a particular form of life from each seed. Therefore to every human being God will give a proper resurrection body. There shall be a fitness or appropriateness of the new body of the character of him who is raised.]
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
1Co 3:7, Gen 1:11, Gen 1:12, Psa 104:14, Isa 61:11, Mar 4:26-29
Reciprocal: Mar 4:27 – and grow 1Co 12:18 – as it 1Co 15:35 – with
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
1Co 15:38. The stock with its roots, leaves and fruit, is the new body that God is pleased to give to the original grain. Likewise, He will give to the body of the dead in Christ another form, that will be like the immortal body of his Son, possessed with the new harvest of eternal glory.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
1Co 15:38. but God giveth it a body even as it hath pleased himat its original creation,and to each seed a body of its own. In the vegetable world the Creator has shown inexhaustible resources in point of variety; how easy then to give to the body at its resurrection other properties than those of its mortal state, without destroying its essential identity?
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Vv. 38. With this bareness of the grain deposited in the earth, the apostle contrasts God’s creative power, which quickly invests the seed with the covering, the body assigned to its kind, by making the plant sprout which is to serve as its organ. By saying: as it hath pleased Him, and not: as it pleases Him, Paul certainly refers to the law of vegetation established by God for every plant at the time of creation. This Divine volition remains in the bosom of changing nature; it controls beforehand the result of the sower’s action. It is obvious how false it is to allege that Scripture knows nothing of the constancy of the laws of nature. The author who wrote, Gen 1:11, in speaking of plants of all sorts: bearing fruit after their kind, already understood this fundamental fact.
Thus the hundred thousand species of plants of which the vegetable kingdom is composed are all organized in such a way that to this infinite variety of seeds there corresponds an exactly similar variety of vegetable organisms. The article , the, before is to be rejected. In these last words: A body of its own, there is implicitly contained the answer to the second question of 1Co 15:35 : With what body? The God who took care at the creation to furnish every seed with a body of its own, will know how to give to the energy hidden in our terrestrial body the new organ it will need when this vital principle shall be set free by death from the temporary wrapping in which it is now hidden. And to satisfy the inquirer who put the questions of 1Co 15:35, on the subject of the new organ which is to replace our earthly body, and to prevent his imagining that God might be at a loss to produce a body entirely different from the present, the apostle invites him to cast a glance over the infinite diversity of the organisms which form the visible universe: 1Co 15:39-41. The variety of vegetable organisms bears on form only, not on substance; it would not therefore of itself authorize the conclusion which the apostle wishes to establish, namely, the possibility of a new body, substantially different from our present body. Hence it is that he instances in the totality of nature differences still more profound than he had pointed out between the various kinds of plants.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
but God giveth it a body even as it pleased him [guided by his sense of fitness and propriety], and to each seed a body of its own. [In this paragraph Paul answers the first question of 1Co 15:35 . The Corinthians, like all materialists, made the resurrection a puzzling problem. They wondered how God could restore a body which returned to the dust, passed thence into vegetation, and thence into the bodies of animals and other men. Paul calls the man who thus puzzles himself a foolish one, because he denies that the all-powerful God can do with a human body that which he himself practically does annually with the bodies (grains) of wheat, etc., by merely availing himself of the common course of nature. When he sows a grain of wheat he does not expect it to come up a naked grain as he sowed it, but he knows that it will die, and in its death produce another body, consisting of stalk, blade, head and other grains similar to the one sown. He knows that though the body thus produced bear small outward resemblance to the single grain planted, yet it is the product of the grain’s germinal life, and on examination can be absolutely demonstrated to be such. Moreover, by doing this same thing with corn, oats and other grain he finds that each produces a body of its own kind, adapted by the wisdom of God to its needs. With all this before him, how foolish in man to deny that God can cause the dead body to rise in a higher and nobler form, and that he can also cause each man to have a resurrected body true to his individuality, so that Smith shall no more rise in the likeness of Jones than corn come up after the similitude of oats. But the analogy taught by nature is true in another respect; i. e., the body produced by the seed is greater and more excellent than the seed. Paul enlarges and applies this thought.]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Verse 38
To every seed his own body. Each seed gives origin to its own proper plant.
1 Corinthians 15:39-41. The meaning is, that this great and obvious variety among the works of God should enlarge our conceptions of the greatness of the change to be expected in the resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:42-44. These statements of the apostle coincide fully with obvious philosophical considerations to forbid our harboring narrow views in our conceptions of the resurrection, in respect to the physical resemblance and identity of the body that shall rise, compared with that which is deposited in the ground. That stratum of animal and vegetable mould which covers the earth, and out of which all generations of men, of animals, and of plants, are successively formed, has an average of only a few inches in depth, and it remains from age to age the same. The animal and vegetable bodies which come from it, after their brief period of organized existence, return to it a gain, and are resolved once more to the original elements out of which they were formed,–elements which are soon reconstructed into new combinations. Hence there is no accumulation of the deposits of death and decay. In the oldest countries on the globe, where two hundred generations of men, and five hundred of domestic animals, have lived, died, and been dissolved, there is no accumulation. Even the materials of those bodies of the dead which are deposited, by mourning survivors, deep below the surface, or in tombs, are not preserved. They are gradually resolved into gaseous constituents, which rise through the intervening obstructions, and regain the soil and the atmosphere, thus entering again into that vast storehouse of materials, from which the whole face of nature receives its perpetual renovation. Thus the bodies of men and of animals, the trees and the fruits, the flowers and the foliage, now enjoying life upon the earth’s surface, are composed of the same materials with those of the generation contemporary with Abraham. All this teaches us not to form gross and carnal ideas of the resurrection; and it gives great force and emphasis to the apostle’s declarations, “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;” and in 1 Corinthians 15:50, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
15:38 {22} But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
(22) We see a diversity both in one and the self same thing which has now one form and then another, and yet keeps its own type: as it is evident in a grain which is sown bare, but springs up far after another sort: and also in different types of one self same sort, as among beasts: and also among things of different sorts, as the heavenly bodies and the earthly bodies; which also differ very much one from another. Therefore there is no reason why we should reject either the resurrection of the bodies, or the changing of them into a better state, as a thing impossible, or strange.