Observations placeholder
1 Corinthians 15
Identifier
029068
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
1 Corinthians 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. This chapter is divided into 58 verses.
It is authored by Paul the Apostle and Sosthenes in Ephesus. The first eleven verses contain the earliest account of the post-resurrection appearances of Jesus in the New Testament. The rest of the chapter stresses the primacy of the resurrection for Christianity.
The original text was written in Koine Greek, which might indicate that Sosthenes was heavily involved in its creation, perhaps more so than Paul.
"Paul describes himself as a Pharisee, a student of the Torah. This would require that he knew Hebrew, and probably Aramaic (the language in which the Talmud was ultimately written down). He seemed to be able to travel around Jerusalem and Judea with ease, so he probably knew the languages spoken there, namely Hebrew and Aramaic. For most of the 20th century it was usually thought that Hebrew in the 1st century CE was a dormant language used mainly in Jewish liturgies and rabbinical disputes, but more recent scholarship (largely based on the evolution of Hebrew in the Dead Sea Scrolls) suggests that it was actually a living spoken language at the time."
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Here it is very plain that the Higher Spirit is viewed symbolically as a 'seed'. Perhaps more intriguing is the idea that each Higher spirit has its own type of body, and heavenly bodies, animate and apparently inanimate bodies can have a body. In effect 'angels' have a type of body and the planets have a type of body, - "to each kind of seed he gives its own body".
Furthermore the nature of 'resurrection' is clearly stated - "it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body". Thus anyone expecting to come back from the dead on some sort of judgement day are going to be disappointed, one is given a different type of 'body' altogether.
Dust is also symbolic. For dust read atoms. In fact the sentence is quite exciting because the implication is that the body we get after we 'die' and resurrect is what scientists today call 'dark matter' - 'The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven'
Clothes are also symbolic, they mean the visible flesh and blood body that is used by the Higher spirit and mortal soul to complete its destiny, thus one dons symbolic clothes - 'a body' on earth- to effect one's destiny. Once one has died 'the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable'
A description of the experience
1 Corinthians 15
The Resurrection Body
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?”
36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.
39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another.
40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.
41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;
43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven.
48 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.
49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.
51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.
54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
55 “Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”