The Cradle Of Christian Truth: Apostles’ Creed (Part 18)—The Resurrection of the Body

by on June 3, 2025 | Comment

In one elementary school science lesson, we were given bug eggs that we were supposed to help get through the various life-cycle stages. However successful I was at that endeavor with those particular bugs, the principle is something I think we all know well.

Butterflies can be some of the most beautiful creatures in nature. Yet, they do not start as magnificently colored, splendidly winged delights. They start as slimy or hairy, green or black blobs, not delicately bobbing through the air, but dragging themselves around. In his goodness, God designed this creature to have these two sorts of bodies at two different stages of existence. He designed this same creature to progress from a lower, less wonderful stage to a higher, glorious body.

The promise of the resurrection is the first everlasting effect the Creed lists in light of our sins being forgiven. Because we have forgiveness of sin, because we have been justified, we are guaranteed resurrection unto glory. We will be changed on the last day to receive new bodies fit for everlasting life.

Since the resurrection is a well-known truth for us, I want to focus less on the fact of the coming resurrection and more on what the biblical rationale for the resurrection is. I want to probe a bit deeper than a mere assertion to consider how resurrection fits into the whole biblical storyline of creation, fall, redemption, and new creation.

1 Corinthians 15 addresses doubt about the resurrection of the body. Verses 1–34 tackled the fact of the resurrection, arguing that the gospel requires our belief in bodily resurrection. Much like our connection between forgiveness and resurrection in the Creed, Christ’s resurrection demonstrated that he overcame our sin, since for him or his people to remain dead entails that our sin is not forgiven. Verses 35–58 explain what the resurrection body is like by thinking about how God made various things in creation, how God made us at creation, and what Christ is like in glory after being raised as our representative.

Paul’s argument about the resurrection clarifies a few things about our Christian life. Glory is not always where we think it is. We need to understand God’s plans and intentions for us to know what is truly glorious. And we ought not let the good things in this life here and now overtake our purview about how God ultimately works. The main point is that Christ has destined us for greater, resurrection glory by freeing us from sin.

The Principle of Glory

Amidst many details, the big picture of 1 Corinthians 15 is clear as the main point is repeated and illustrated throughout. For structure, we have three sections. First, verses 35–41 explain how God made the world so that many creatures naturally have different sorts of bodies. Second, verses 42–49 looks at resurrected humanity’s two sorts of bodies through the lens of Adam and Christ. Finally, verses 50–58 conclude that this transformed body is needed to enter the new creation, being given to us in Christ through the forgiveness of sin.1 That structure reinforces the big picture about what the resurrection body will be like and how it is provided in Christ.

We must remember that the Corinthians were doubting the resurrection. Their big question about the resurrection is in verse 35: “With what kind of body do they come?” The sum is: “Alright Paul, you say the dead will be raised, what kind of body is that? Are we talking zombies? Will we be just like we are now? What’s the deal?” Verse 37 captures the sum of Paul’s answer, although I think we can provide a more easily understood translation: “And what you sow is not the body that it will become, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.”

When you plant a seed, it is supposed to grow into another kind of body. This seed analogy, which is essentially the same illustration hit from different angles throughout verses 36–41, shows how one living thing can have two types of existence. When you plant a tulip seed, that same simple seed develops into a beautiful flower more lush and noble than its seed form. The seed and flower are the same creature but in two different sorts of bodies.

Hence, we started by thinking about butterflies. When a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, it is still the same creature with the same brain and stuff, but it has a new, transformed, more glorious body. Paul’s point is that the same is true for humanity regarding our present bodies and our resurrection bodies. Verse 42 begins his application to believers: “So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.”

Our present body will become a more glorious sort of body at the resurrection. Like a caterpillar to a butterfly, we change from a perishable, corruptible, weak body to an imperishable, incorruptible, powerful body. But Paul left a surprise. This transformation from our present state to a glorified state was always God’s plan for humanity from creation itself: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural 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.” So, like a caterpillar was always intended to become a butterfly by nature, so too humanity was always meant for a more glorious body. The principle of glory is that God always had a more glorious existence in store for his people.

The Road to Glory

Now the question is: What is the origin of this glorious state? The interesting feature here is that Paul cited Genesis 2:7 about how God first created Adam from the dust and breathed life into him, concluding: “If there is a natural body [like Adam had at creation], there is also a spiritual body.” So, our orientation toward this higher glorious state was built directly into how God created us.

This is not as wild as it might sound at first. If there is a caterpillar, then there is a butterfly. The same principle of development from one sort of body to a more glorious body applies to us as well, even in how God made us. So, we must understand that this mundane caterpillar to beautiful butterfly principle is about not merely taking us from a fallen state after our sin to a restored immortal state, but it also concerns God’s very design pre-fall for our existence to go from an initial seed form into a blossoming flower. A better body was always waiting for us.

The two questions are: What mechanism would have transformed Adam and the rest of us from the natural body to the spiritual body even from creation? And why is this higher state called the “spiritual body”?

In Genesis, right after Adam’s creation, attention focuses on the Garden of Eden, specifically on the tree of knowledge of good and evil and God’s command not to eat from it. This focal point of Adam’s progress from caterpillar to butterfly is his temptation with this tree. Genesis 3:21–23 confirms this point: “‘Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil [marking that the failure has to do with this tree]. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever [marking how the failure meant a loss of everlasting life]—’ therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken.” That life Adam lost with the tree of knowledge Paul said would have been the butterfly, Adam’s spiritual body.

Why was it spiritual? Certainly, this glorious body was not disembodied, since 1 Corinthians 15 defends the bodily resurrection by describing Jesus as the second Adam. He is the second Adam because he successfully completed Adam’s task to obey God completely. How does Scripture link Christ’s success to the spiritual body?

We can tie together several passages that we have considered during our series on the Apostles’ Creed. In Romans 1:4, Paul writes that Jesus “was declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead” (emphasis added) Acts 2:33 says: “Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing” (emphasis added). When Jesus obtained his exaltation, which Philippians 2 says was by his obedience, he was rewarded with a glorified body in the resurrection, a glorified body that came from the Holy Spirit who declared him the Son of God in power by raising him from the dead. Connecting this to the caterpillar-butterfly principle, Adam from creation had the prospect of obtaining a glorified body which is spiritual because it is granted by a new experience and presence of the Holy Spirit. The road to glory was obtaining the Holy Spirit by perfect obedience if Adam had passed his temptation, his test, at the tree.

The Application of Glory

God made us with the butterfly principle such that Adam could have advanced all humanity from the natural state to one with a richer experience of the Holy Spirit in a glorified body. Adam failed in the prospects set before him. We should ask why it was so.

Clearly, by trusting the serpent, Adam believed that God would or could not make things better than they were. He doubted the truthfulness and trustworthiness of God’s word and God’s offer. He found the things of this world more glorious than God’s promises. He looked upon that forbidden fruit and decided its taste outweighed God’s offer of spiritual blessings.

Christian, I wonder how often we too decide that what this world offers is more appealing than spiritual blessings. How frequently do the lusts of the flesh seem more appealing than the things of the Spirit? How much do we find ourselves easily motivated for movies, television, and sporting events but it is an effort to drag ourselves to hear God’s Word morning and evening on the Lord’s Day? How often does giving into temptation feel like it would be more satisfying than obeying our Savior?

When we think about the resurrection, even Christians flinch at the thought of everlasting life. Why? Because what if heaven is boring compared to this life? What if we do not like existence in God’s presence as much as we like football and takeout? Likely, too many people conceive of everlasting life as one long praise-music session with Jesus leading the “worship” band, which is not the case. Still, do we find ourselves more enamored with this world or with spiritual blessings?

We need to recover a sense of the value of spiritual life in the everlasting condition, in resurrection life. Glory, power, incorruptibility. All the things that weigh you down and make you feel worn out and worn down will be removed. All the loss you have experienced will be overturned. Every believer that we have seen die and suffer will be restored to incorruptible strength. All the loneliness and lack of acceptance that has ever dropped heavily on your heart will be obliterated as you know the direct presence of God through the Holy Spirit in soul and body.

The question simply is: How do we reach that glory if Adam plunged us into our corrupted state? Verse 50 says that mere flesh and blood cannot enter God’s kingdom. We must be spiritual rather than natural people to enter. At the resurrection, Christ changes us to be like him in his glorified, risen state, so that we are not mere flesh and blood, but live in spiritual bodies. The bottom line is that we can never forget that we are given that glorified state by Jesus: “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 15:56).

We who deserved death because of our sin, because of our violations of the law, have been set free from the sting of death because our sins have been forgiven. The God who should have abandoned you to condemnation has paved your road to glory. Although we are caterpillars—damaged, sinful, corrupted caterpillars at that—we obtain glory by being wrapped in the cocoon of Jesus Christ who washed away all our sin and remakes us into wonderful new creatures.

But unlike butterflies who emerge from their cocoons, we never leave the transforming embrace of Jesus Christ. When we feel broken, beaten down, overwhelmed, wrecked, damaged, natural, we must remember that we are still wrapped in the perfect covering of the Lord Jesus, being infused with his Holy Spirit to equip us for life. We are bound up in the sweet swaddling clothes of Christ’s perfect righteousness, looking forward to sprouting wonderful butterfly wings of resurrection bodies when Jesus returns to pull us from our graves.

“Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain” (1 Cor 15:58). We take heart always, knowing Christ’s closeness, trusting his provision, and waiting on his mercy in all that he gives us to do.

Note

  1. Modified from Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2014), 860.

©Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find the whole series here.

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