In this post-Easter-season episode of In Light of the Cross, we continue reflecting on Jesus’ resurrection and what it means for those in Christ, focusing on 1 Corinthians 15:35–58 and Paul’s “seed to plant” imagery.

We consider Paul’s point that the resurrection body won’t be identical to our current body: there is continuity, but also profound difference, like an acorn compared to an oak tree. We also look at hints from the Gospels about Jesus’ resurrected body—people not recognizing him at first, his ability to appear and vanish or enter locked rooms—while still being physically touchable, bearing scars, and even eating fish.

We conclude by thanking God for the good gift of bodily existence, trusting he will perfect it, and praying the Lord’s Prayer together.

00:00 Easter Resurrection Hope

00:53 Prayer And Scripture Introduction

01:50 Reading First Corinthians 15

04:31 Seed And Oak Metaphor

05:53 Jesus Resurrected Body Clues

09:33 Physical Resurrection Matters

10:46 Gratitude For Our Body

12:06 Closing Lords Prayer

welcome back to In Light of the Cross.

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We are in the Easter season and

reflecting on not just the cross,

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but now the resurrection of

Jesus and what that means for us.

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And yesterday we talked a little bit

about how those who are in Christ

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will also receive resurrection.

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And what a, what a beautiful

and glorious truth that is.

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Daniel Jepsen: It is very mysterious.

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A little bit too,

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Nathan Beasley: yeah.

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Very mysterious and, and, uh, talked

about with a lot of metaphor and word

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pictures and that kind of thing, so.

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We want to continue that and, and dive

into that mystery a little bit and see

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what one Corinthians says about it,

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Daniel Jepsen: right?

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I think a natural question is,

what's it gonna look like to live a

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resurrected life in a resurrected body?

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And the best passage of that, the

one that talks about most fully,

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is one Corinthians 1515, and we're

gonna be reading verses 35 on.

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as we do, let's prepare ourselves.

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just stop, have a word of prayer, ask

God to open to your mind and heart,

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whatever he wants you to reveal

from this passage or this podcast.

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I,

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Nathan Beasley: I am gonna read one

Corinthians 15 and, it's a little

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bit long, but close your eyes and

listen and try to hear the flow

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of what Paul is talking about.

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He gives this imagery a body

being like a seed that is sown.

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he's gonna talk about the first man and

the second man being Adam and Jesus.

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And he's gonna be talking about

flesh and blood as our, humanity

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and Adam, and then, the spiritual

life that we receive from Jesus.

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So just close your eyes and listen,

it's gonna be a couple minutes, but

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here's the beauty of Paul's words.

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Here's one Corinthians

15, starting in verse 35.

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Some will ask, how are the dead raised?

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With what kind of body will they come?

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How foolish.

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What you sow does not come

to life unless it dies.

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When you sow, you do not plant the body.

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That will be but just a seed.

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Perhaps of wheat or something else,

but God gives it a body that he

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has determined and to each kind

of seed, he gives its own body.

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So it will be with the

resurrection of the dead.

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The body that is sewn is perishable,

but it is raised imperishable.

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It is sewn in dishonor,

but it is raised in glory.

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It is sewn in weakness,

but it is raised in power.

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It is sewn a natural body.

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It is raised a spiritual body.

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If there is a natural body,

there is also a spiritual body.

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So it is written, the first man,

Adam, became a living, being the

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last Adam, a life-giving spirit.

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The spiritual did not come

first, but the natural.

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And after that, the spiritual, the

first man was of the dust of the earth.

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The second man is of heaven,

, as was the earthly man.

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So are those who are of the

earth and as is the heavenly man.

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So are those who are of heaven.

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And just as we have born the image

of the earthly man, so shall we

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bear the image of the heavenly man.

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I declare to you brothers and sisters

that flesh and blood cannot inherit

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the kingdom of God, nor does the

perishable inherit the imperishable.

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Listen, I tell you a mystery.

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We will not all sleep, but we will

all be changed in a flash in the

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twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet.

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For the trumpet will sound the dead

will be raised imperishable and we

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will be changed for the perishable must

clothe itself with the imperishable

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and the mortal with immortality.

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When the perishable has been closed

with the imperishable and the mortal

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with immortality, then the saying

that is written will come true.

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Death has been swallowed up in victory.

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Where?

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Oh, death is your victory.

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Where, oh, death is your sting.

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The sting of death is sin, and

the power of sin is the law.

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But thanks be to God.

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He gives us the victory

through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Therefore, my brothers and sisters

stand firm, let nothing move.

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You always give yourselves fully to the

work of the Lord because you know that

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your labor in the Lord is not in vain.

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Amen.

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Daniel Jepsen: Amen.

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There is a lot here.

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much more than we could talk about,

but we want to focus on one particular

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question and that is, what is Paul

saying about the resurrection body?

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And the first thing is obviously

saying is, Hey, don't be dumb.

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It's not gonna be like

the body you have now.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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How foolish.

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Daniel Jepsen: How foolish.

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You know, he says, look, if you want to.

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get an oak tree, what do you do?

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Well, you don't go out with a

backhoe and bury a full grown

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oak tree in your backyard.

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You bury acorns.

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And the idea being that if God wants

to give us resurrection bodies,

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he doesn't just bury this body

and give us the exact same thing.

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This body is more like a seed, so

there's a continuity between the acorn

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and the oak, but there's also a heck

of a lot of discontinuity, right?

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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And that's, that's about the closest

he gets to a, a metaphor for what

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the resurrected body is like.

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Daniel Jepsen: Yes, it is.

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Nathan Beasley: But that's

a beautiful metaphor

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Daniel Jepsen: too.

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Yeah.

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I love it.

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Nathan Beasley: I mean, my goodness,

the difference between like planting

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a plant and planting a seed, it's

very significantly different.

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Daniel Jepsen: Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And that should tip us off here.

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Our resurrection body will have

some continuity with the body

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that we have now, but it will

also be fundamentally different.

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that's the first thing that

we need to, keep in mind.

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Nathan Beasley: can I ask a

question about that real fast?

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Daniel Jepsen: Yeah, go ahead.

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Nathan Beasley: And you've mentioned

that some of this difference we

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actually see in Jesus' resurrected body.

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Daniel Jepsen: Yeah.

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Nathan Beasley: So what, what is

different about Jesus' resurrected body?

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What did the gospels tell us, is

different about his resurrected body?

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Daniel Jepsen: Well, you know, I

think there's so much that's hidden,

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but it just gives us a few hints.

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what do we see about, well.

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First of all, people didn't really

recognize him until a certain point,

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until he made the effort to do so.

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Like you remember, Mary at the tomb did

not recognize him, even though she was

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standing right there, he said Mary, and

then says her eyes were open and she saw

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Nathan Beasley: him.

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Hmm.

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Daniel Jepsen: And uh, same thing with

the disciples on the road to Emmaus.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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Daniel Jepsen: They were walking with him.

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He was talking with him for hours,

but they did not see him until he

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broke bread and then they understood.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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That's interesting.

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And then he like vanished, didn't he?

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Daniel Jepsen: Yeah, exactly.

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So he vanished.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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Which he hadn't done before.

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Right.

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Obviously he had all kinds of power

even before the resurrection, but his

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body seems to be working differently.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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And then, The disciples are eating right?

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Is that an ax, early acts and he

appears among them or maybe in a

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Daniel Jepsen: different No, it's

in the last couple chapters of

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John right up to the resurrection,

but they don't know it yet.

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And it says that night they're sitting

together in a room and it says the

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doors are locked for fear of the Jews

because, you know, they came after Jesus.

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They're gonna come after us too.

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And it says, though the doors were locked,

Jesus came in and stood among them.

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So it's a, it's a way of saying that

he somehow appeared, he walked through

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the walls or just manifested himself

like he was already there, but now

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all of a sudden they could see him.

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I think that's probably

more likely what happened.

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In other words, he could be in a

place without being visible or his

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appearance could change somehow.

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Nathan Beasley: So he's, somehow

able to conceal the way he looks

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or maybe just people's eyes are

closed to his resurrected form, he's

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also able to appear and disappear.

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So he is just some kind of like

spiritual, uh, reality, right?

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Daniel Jepsen: Well, no,

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Nathan Beasley: he is, but

not exclusively spiritual.

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Daniel Jepsen: We understand.

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Yeah.

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Not just, not just, he is not someone

who doesn't have a physical fleshly body.

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The whole point of the

resurrection is that he arose.

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Bodily.

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He has a body, a physical body

made of physical elements.

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Nathan Beasley: So how do you know that?

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Daniel Jepsen: Well, in the first

place, he told Thomas and the others

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come and feel the scars in my hand.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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Daniel Jepsen: So his body was.

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physical enough that they could not only

see it, but they could actually touch it.

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Nathan Beasley: Wow.

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Daniel Jepsen: But then you have this

incident on the last chapter of John

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where Jesus is sitting with the fire

and he is made breakfast, and then he

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actually eats fish in front of them.

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ghosts don't eat fish.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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Those are like some details that seem

to be there pretty intentionally.

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Daniel Jepsen: I believe so

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Nathan Beasley: they touched his hands.

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Daniel Jepsen: Mm-hmm.

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Nathan Beasley: The doors were locked.

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Daniel Jepsen: Yeah.

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Nathan Beasley: For fear of the

Jews, he eats fish with them.

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So

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Yeah.

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In fact, Jesus says, in Luke 24 39,

he says, look at my hands and my feet.

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It is.

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I myself, touch me and see a ghost does

not have flesh and bones as you see.

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I have.

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Daniel Jepsen: Yeah.

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So it's pretty clear that

Jesus' body is flesh and bones.

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It's physical.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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Daniel Jepsen: And yet it operates

within this physical world and a

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different way than it did before

or that any of us have experienced.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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That truth right there

has so many implications.

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Daniel Jepsen: It does.

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Nathan Beasley: In fact, John's epistles

first, second, or third John are

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written to audiences, his audience in

order to convince them of the physical

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resurrection and the implications for what

that means for the followers of Jesus.

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Daniel Jepsen: Right?

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Nathan Beasley: Like

your physicality matters.

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Daniel Jepsen: Mm-hmm.

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Nathan Beasley: And, my goodness it's

got all kinds of implications for how

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we think about all kinds of stuff today.

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But just that for now, it's enough

to probably say like, yeah, what

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happens in the body is so significant

because it doesn't just go away.

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And we don't just become spiritual

entities, There will be continuity

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between how we are living in our

body now and the resurrection,

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Daniel Jepsen: right?

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Nathan Beasley: Resurrected bodies, just

like Jesus carried his scars with him.

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post-resurrection.

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Daniel Jepsen: Yeah.

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Our physical bodies are good.

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God created them.

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Our infl.

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The fact that we have physical

bodies as a fundamental part of

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our humanity is not a mistake.

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Contra Plato.

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It's a good creation

and a good idea of God.

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So he's not going back on that.

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He's going to perfect it.

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Nathan Beasley: Mm-hmm.

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Daniel Jepsen: That's the idea.

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Nathan Beasley: Yeah.

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Daniel Jepsen: And that's

a beautiful thought.

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We're gonna develop this a little bit

more tomorrow, but today I wonder if it

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would be good just to spend some time

thanking God for giving you a bodily

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existence and for not doing away with

that good thing, but in his own time

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and way, choosing to perfect that.

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Your body is not an obstacle

or a barrier to God.

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Yes, our flesh can be entwined with sin,

but that's different than the body itself.

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So if you haven't thought about just

thanking God for the good gift of your

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body, spend a few minutes just doing

that right now and thank you even more.

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That he will not just throw away the

concept, but will perfect it in time

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because of the grace and the power

of Jesus Christ in his resurrection.

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And let's end with the prayer

that our Lord taught us to pray.

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Our father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

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Your kingdom come, your will be

done on earth as it is in heaven.

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Give us today our daily bread

and forgive us our deaths as we

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also have forgiven our debtors.

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And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from the evil one.