1 Corinthians 15:44b-49 (NIV)
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
Just as the small, dried seed that is sown in the earth produces a plant that far exceeds it, so the spiritual body that is produced from our lives will far exceed the physical limitations of our earthly bodies. That is because the very nature of the two bodies is vastly different, the one physical, made of the stuff of the earth, and the other spiritual, made of the stuff of the heavenly realms.
Paul then points out that there is a necessary order to things. Just as Adam the man from the earth came first, then Jesus, the second Adam from heaven, so the physical, earthly body comes first, to be supplanted by the spiritual body when this life is over.
The beginnings of a heavenly body are sown with the new birth. As Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.” (John 3:6 NIV). If one does not have a new birth from above, then there is no life in their spiritual nature, and their spiritual body will remain lifeless, separated from God and doomed to an eternity in hell. But, when a person trusts in Jesus and His sacrifice for eternal life, there is a new birth; The spirit within them rises up to new life that will continue into all eternity in a new body that will be fit to live in God’s presence forever.
Paul’s terminology about image must not be overlooked. When God created Adam from the dust of the earth, even though he was made of physical stuff, he was created in the divine image, so that God’s glory suffused his physical form. Then, when Adam rebelled, that divine image was twisted and distorted within him, until it became nearly invisible because it was overshadowed so powerfully by his earthly nature.
But when Jesus came, He came bearing God’s full nature and His glory shone through Him once more, clearly illustrating what God had created mankind to be. When a person comes to God through faith in Jesus, they are reborn and recreated as a new and whole being, through which God’s glory can shine again, as it did in Jesus. And that glory is the first fruits of the spiritual body made wholly in God’s image and likeness that is to come.
Father, so often we overestimate the power and the value of the material dimension, and severely underestimate and undervalue the power of the spiritual dimension. We consider the material world to be that which is truly real, and the spiritual we see as more “aspirational”, something that gives us a dim hope for the future, but that has very limited importance or functionality in the “real-world”. But, Lord, as Jesus showed us, and as the apostles after Him clearly demonstrated, the spiritual is the most real dimension, and has the power to transform lives and destinies in the real world. I appreciate the truth that our transformation from being born again is the first fruits of the resurrection, not merely giving hope, but shining forth the reality of what we will become in You in the world to come. Amen.