JESUS CHRIST: GOD-MAN - Vital Christianity

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"Creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the
Glorious liberty of the children of God" (Ro 8:21).
This new redeemed order of life lies "beyond history." It will embody a quality of life
such as history has never seen, and which is difficult to imagine—life no longer determined by
the so-called laws of nature, struggle for survival, and the rule of decay and death.
In addressing this immortal existence Paul says a great deal about individual existence.
He describes this in terms of the resurrection of the body. His teaching about resurrection had
been challenged in Corinth, and this leads him to devote considerable space (a whole chapter) to
the nature of the resurrection.
One view that Paul may be opposing is represented by those who could not conceive of
any kind of life after death. It is also possible that he was confronted by certain teachers who
held that the resurrection had already occurred, in which case it would be a "spiritual" and not
bodily resurrection (as in the case of those he was referring to in writing to Timothy—2 Ti
2:18). The most likely teaching that Paul was combating was that of Greek dualism which
accepted the immortality of the spirit after the death of the body but rejecting any resurrection
of the body.
The Resurrection of Jesus as a Paradigm of our Resurrection
Paul addresses such a false teaching by linking together inseparably the resurrection of
Christ and the resurrection of believers at the end of the age. The two primary points he makes
about the resurrection of believers is that their resurrection is bodily and it is a resurrection of a
transformed body. In facing the question, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do
they come?" we should keep in mind that there were certain Jewish teachings which held either
that the resurrection body will be identical to that of the mortal earthly body (2 Macc. 14:46) or
that the same earthly body would be raised and only later transformed (Apoc. Bar. 50:2).
Paul's first point is that the resurrection will be a resurrection of the body. Although
there are no perfect analogies for supernatural truth in the realm of nature, nevertheless Paul
uses a metaphor of sowing a naked seed which dies but from which comes forth a new body
(1 Co 15:35-38). The analogy is imperfect, in that, in the field of agriculture, the bare kernel
planted in the ground carries within itself the power of germination so that death is not the final
word, rather life is perpetuated. The resurrection, after all, is an act of God, not a process of
nature.
To the observer, it is still a great mystery how a dried-up, dead-looking seed of corn is
buried in the ground only to have a beautiful green blade spring forth. And Jesus used the parable
of seeds of grain (Mk 26:29) to teach the contrast between the present and future aspects of the
Kingdom which is entirely God's deed, not a process of nature. The point is that while one body
is buried in the ground, another body springs forth: