The Resurrection Of The Dead...Continued from page 5

John A. Huffman, Jr.

Ours is not the first generation to doubt the resurrection. At the time of Jesus, there were two very prominent Jewish groups.

One was called the Pharisees. You've heard a lot about them. The best that can be said about them is that they were conservative Jews who were endeavoring to be faithful to the Old Testament Scriptures. The worst is that they added to those Scriptures legalistic codes that had a way of making one's religious experience extremely complex, difficult and discouraging, without bringing the person to a joyful experience of God's grace. The Pharisees held with great tenacity to the authority of the Scriptures. They believed in the resurrection of the body.

There was another group called the Sadducees. The best that can be said about them was that they lived liberated from some of the negativism that marked the lives of the Pharisees. However, the Sadducees also denied some of the strong teachings of the Old Testament Scriptures. They were todays equivalent of theological liberals who want to hold on to certain spiritual teachings while denying the miraculous. Granted, Old Testament teaching was not nearly as specific as is New Testament teaching about life after death.

It was clear in Jesus' interaction with the Sadducees and the Pharisees that He held strongly to the resurrection of the body and the life after this life. The believers at Corinth had the influence of those with Sadducee backgrounds, plus the general mindset of the Greeks that divided between the spiritual and the physical. Great questions were being raised about the resurrection of the body. Some believers had died. Jesus had not yet returned. Some were saying these people were gone, never to be seen again. Paul emphatically held that if there was no resurrection of the body, he was wasting his time making all the sacrifices he was to travel and tell people about Jesus. If the dead are not raised, why not just eat, drink and be merry? You are going to die anyway. It's all going to be over. Why waste one's time in empty religious activity?

Just what kind of body will we have in the resurrection?

That's a difficult question. I can't answer it with precision. In verses 35-50, Paul makes fascinating references to our new bodies. He urges us not to be discouraged because we see t

he physical body die. Again, he makes the reference to agriculture. It is as a piece of grain which appears dead, is buried, that new life comes in a different form. He looks to the animal world and describes the difference between the bodies of an animal, a bird or a fish. He looks to the solar system, noting the celestial bodies and how they differ from terrestrial bodies. The glory of the celestial is of one sort and the glory of the terrestrial is of another. Sun, moon and stars differ. He writes in 1 Corinthians 15:42-45, "So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living being'; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit."