The Resurrection
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 1 Corinthians 15:35 · Berean Standard Bible
Someone will ask the natural question: how exactly does the resurrection work? What kind of body will we have when we rise?
Paul anticipates what his readers are thinking. It's a good question. If we die and decay, how can we be raised with a body? This seems impossible to someone thinking only in earthly terms.
Paul
This launches into one of the most important passages about our future resurrection bodies. Paul is about to explain something that sounds strange—that our resurrected bodies will be both real and transformed.
But here's the objection someone will raise: How are the dead actually raised? What kind of body do they receive?
Paul introduces the next major section of his argument by voicing the objection he anticipates. The Greek phrase tis ereis (who will say) signals a hypothetical questioner — perhaps reflecting actual Corinthian skepticism. The questions 'How are the dead raised?' (pos egeirontai hoi nekroi) and 'With what kind of body?' (poto soma erchotai) reveal the heart of the problem: the Corinthians cannot imagine bodily resurrection. Their bodies decay; how can they be reconstituted? Paul now pivots to natural analogy and theological explanation.
Paul, posing the question that drives the final major section of the chapter
The narrative moves from polemical defense of resurrection to phenomenological explanation — how resurrection actually works.
33Do not be deceived: “Bad company corrupts good character.”
34Sober up as you ought, and stop sinning; for some of you are ignorant of God. I say this to your shame.
35But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?”
36You fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
37And what you sow is not the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else.
Read all of 1 Corinthians 15 — If Christ has not been raised, Paul says, everything falls apart. But He has — and that changes everything.
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