First Corinthians 15:35-58
‘How are the dead raised up?… The dead (body)…is sown in corruption. It is raised in incorruption…. It is raised in glory!… The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible!… This mortal must put on immortality!… Death is swallowed up, in victory!’ First Corinthians 15:35-54.
Calvin comments: “‘How will the dead be raised?’… Nobody…except God can convince us that after our bodies which are already subject to corruption have rotted away or been consumed by fire or been torn to pieces by wild animals, will be restored in their wholeness but in a far better nature!… Let us therefore take note that those who are represented as speaking here, are people who
want to mock at belief in the resurrection!…
“‘(The body) is sown in corruption’…. Paul makes himself clear, by setting out the difference between our present state and that which will follow the resurrection…. He says that now our body is…subject to death and dishonour, but then…will be glorious and incorruptible!… Our flesh will share in the glory of God, but only after it has been renewed and restored to life by the Spirit….
“‘With the last trump…, (the trumpet shall sound)!’… In First Thessalonians 4:16, he links the ‘Voice of the Archangel’ with ‘the trump of God’…. Christ will call the dead to Him by His resounding proclamation which will be heard distinctly all over the world…. The whole world is to be summoned to the tribunal of God!… It is not only the living who are to be called together, but the dead are also to be summoned from their graves…. A command will have to be issued to dry bones and dust — so that, recovering their earlier form and getting back their spirit, they may immediately appear as living men in the presence of Christ…. ‘The dead will rise!’…. Everybody will undergo the same change…
“‘For this corruptible (must put on incorruption; and this mortal must put on immortality)!’… Our body as well as our soul will share in the life of the Kingdom of God…. Our nature…, when it has shed its corruption and been clothed with incorruption…, will enter into it…. We shall rise in the very same flesh that we have now…. If he had said, ‘This corruptible ought to be renewed’ — he would not have so clearly and effectively disposed of the error of those fanatics who invent the
notion that men are to be given new bodies! But when he says here that this corruptible is to be clothed in glory, there is no more room left for argument….
“‘(Then shall be brought) to pass (the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory!”)’… What Paul mentions has already begun in us…, also makes daily progress towards completion…. It will not have its proper fulfilment, until the last day!”
Calvin also says in his Psychopannychia: “The elect now, are such as Adam was before his sin…. He was created inexterminable. So now have those become, who have been renewed by Christ…. First Corinthians 15:54…. That which has only been begun in the soul, will be fulfilled both in the soul and the body…. Death…is…to the elect a kind of passage to the highest degree of immortality!” For our bodies will rise again! Do you too so believe?
