Text Arcana: Paul on the Resurrection

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It was an uphill climb for Paul to be accepted by the Jerusalem church, not least because of two things: (1) As a representative of the Jewish authorities, he had persecuted the church; and (2) he had not seen the risen Lord during the 40-day period the early reports say that Jesus appeared not only to his disciples, but also to nondisciples, such as his brother James and apparently other family members (see Acts 1:14). Furthermore, his claim to have seen the risen Lord on his way to Damascus in some sort of vision, which completely changed his views on Jesus and his followers, could not be independently verified by the Jerusalem church. But perhaps Paul’s changed behavior and professions of faith were the proof.

For this and other reasons, there were and still are many questions as to what one should make of what Paul says about resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, a passage that is chronologically the earliest discussion of Jesus’s resurrection in the New Testament. As such it is crucial to understanding how early Jewish Christians understood the matter.

First, we know that Pharisees—including Paul, as a former Pharisee—did indeed believe in bodily resurrection as the form of future afterlife.^a This was based in part on a certain understanding of Daniel 12:1-3 and the development of thought that ensued from reflection on that text in subsequent centuries. It should be noted, however, that Daniel 12 is about a collective resurrection of the righteous (and, separately, the 063 unrighteous) and not about the resurrection of an individual, much less the resurrection of the messiah, which early Jews were not anticipating. They did not read the prophets as foreseeing that particular event.

Second, and importantly, there is the issue of Paul’s Greek phrase pneumatikon soma, which parallels the phrase psychikon soma in 1 Corinthians 15:44. The NRSV translation of that verse reads, “It is sown a physical body [psychikon soma], it is raised a spiritual body [pneumatikon soma]. If there is a physical body [psychikon soma], there is also a spiritual body [pneumatikon soma].”

Is pneumatikon soma rightly translated “a spiritual body”? But what would that mean—a nonmaterial body? That would seem to be an oxymoron for a former Pharisee like Paul. And if that were the right rendering, that would mean that psychikon soma means “a soulish body.” But translators have realized that simply can’t be the meaning. Paul is contrasting the making of the first human, Adam, by God breathing life into him, with the condition of the last Adam, Jesus, who was raised from the dead (the phrase in the Greek is even more graphic—“raised from out of the dead ones,” not merely “raised from death”).

And here is where Greek grammar and vocabulary matter. Paul is saying that Adam’s body was animated by life-breath (psyche meaning “life-breath,” the animating principle, not “soul”). He contrasts this with how the risen body of Jesus was animated by the Spirit. In other words, the phrase pneumatikon soma does not mean, and indeed cannot mean, a body made out of nonmaterial stuff (whatever that would be). No, he means a body totally energized, empowered, and given life by God’s Spirit. This is precisely why he says that the merely mortal body must be replaced by one that will endure forever, a body permanently alive and energized by God’s Spirit—immune to disease, decay, and death, so death can have no more victory over it. This is also why Paul says that flesh and blood, in its merely mortal state, cannot inherit God’s kingdom. Everyone must experience bodily change to enter that kingdom.

Finally, Paul is not talking about life without a body in heaven in this passage (see 2 Corinthians 5:1-10). He sees that as a temporary expedient until Jesus returns: “to be absent from the body and present with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). For Paul, the final form of afterlife involves life right here on earth in resurrected bodies when the kingdom comes and God’s will is finally done in the new creation on earth, as it is in heaven. Then the perishable will be swallowed up by the imperishable, and what Paul calls the new Jerusalem will come on earth with the return of Jesus, through a corporate merger of heaven and earth (see Galatians 4:26).

This is quite a vision of the future, such that Easter is not seen as a one-off event in human history. No, Paul views Jesus’s history as the Christian’s destiny, or as he puts it—Jesus is just the firstfruits of the resurrection. It is the harbinger of a bumper crop later.¹

It was an uphill climb for Paul to be accepted by the Jerusalem church, not least because of two things: (1) As a representative of the Jewish authorities, he had persecuted the church; and (2) he had not seen the risen Lord during the 40-day period the early reports say that Jesus appeared not only to his disciples, but also to nondisciples, such as his brother James and apparently other family members (see Acts 1:14). Furthermore, his claim to have seen the risen Lord on his way to Damascus in some sort of vision, which completely changed his views […]