Verse 45
The natural body is physical, the product of Adam who received life from God (Genesis 2:7). That life resides in a body characterized as "soulish" (i.e., alive with material and immaterial components). It eventually dies. However, the resurrection body is spiritual, the product of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who gives new life. That life will inhabit a body that will never die. Paul called it spiritual because it is ready for the spiritual rather than the physical realm. Moreover it comes to us from a spirit being, Jesus Christ, rather than a physical being, Adam. One can assume full "spiritual" existence, including a spiritual body, only as Christ did, namely, by resurrection. [Note: See Richard B. Gaffin Jr., "’Life-Giving Spirit’: Probing the Center of Paul’s Pneumatology," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 41:4 (December 1998):573-89.]
Be the first to react on this!
