New Testament · Letter

1 Corinthians 15:42

The Resurrection

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable. 1 Corinthians 15:42 · Berean Standard Bible

What It Means

1 Corinthians 15:42, in plain English

What you plant in the ground decays and dies, but what comes up from that seed is alive and lasting. Paul is saying your resurrection body won't be a ghostly repeat of your earthly one—it'll be fundamentally transformed and eternal.

Why it's here

The Corinthians needed assurance that resurrection wasn't just resuscitation—bringing back a corpse. They were afraid it meant returning to the same weakness and decay they experience now. Paul is saying no: death and decay are left behind entirely in resurrection.

Who's speaking

Paul

Where it sits in the story

This echoes Jesus's teaching in John 12 about a seed that falls to the ground and dies, then produces much fruit. It's the pattern God built into creation itself—death leading to new life, but a transformed life, not merely a restored one.

A Closer Look

The scholar's commentary

The body planted in death—subject to decay and corruption—will be raised in an incorruptible, enduring form that transcends physical deterioration.

Language and setting

The agricultural metaphor of 'sown' and 'raised' (Greek sperō and egeirō) was familiar to agrarian Corinthians and would have resonated emotionally: just as a seed appears to die yet produces new life, so the body's apparent defeat in death yields resurrection. This addresses the visceral anxiety many felt about the decomposition of corpses—a real concern in a culture where bodily integrity was paramount to identity. Paul insists that resurrection is not resuscitation of the decaying flesh but transformation into something qualitatively new.

Voice

Paul, drawing on the logic of natural processes to illuminate supernatural transformation.

Significance

Paul constructs a three-fold comparison structure (perishable/imperishable, dishonor/glory, weakness/power) that mirrors the pattern established by Christ's own resurrection—the paradigmatic act that redefines what bodies can become. This is Pauline soteriology in its most robust form.

In context

1 Corinthians 15:40–44

40There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies. But the splendor of the heavenly bodies is of one degree, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is of another.

41The sun has one degree of splendor, the moon another, and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

42So will it be with the resurrection of the dead: What is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable.

43It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.

44It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Read all of 1 Corinthians 15 — If Christ has not been raised, Paul says, everything falls apart. But He has — and that changes everything.

Understand every verse, not just this one

This page covers one. BibleKey does all 31,102 — tap any verse for its meaning, any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, and keep reading without leaving the chapter.

Get BibleKey

In the App

What's in the app that isn't here.

Seven translations

NIV, NLT, NKJV, KJV and the Berean — plus the Catholic NLT-CE and Douay-Rheims, with the full deuterocanon in the reading order.

Every verse, as you read

Tap any of the 31,102 for what it means, and any word for its Hebrew or Greek root, without leaving the chapter.

Selah

Start recording at church and put your phone away. You get the transcript, the key moments, and every verse referenced.

Prayer Maker

Say what's sitting on your heart and hear it back as a real prayer, in a warm voice. Keep the ones that land.

Every Word

The whole Bible in a year — five chapters a day, five days a week, weekends off. Built to be finished.

Today's Light

A verse each morning with its meaning, how it lands today, something to sit with, and a prayer to close it.

Understand every verse.

Not just the famous ones. BibleKey is free on iPhone and iPad.

Download on the App Store

Free on iPhone & iPad