1 Corinthians 15:36-38 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Thou fool Greek, αφρον, without mind, or understanding. Or, thou inconsiderate and thoughtless creature, who thinkest a matter impossible, of the possibility of which thou hast an example in the very seed thou sowest. Macknight thinks the apostle here addresses the false teacher at Corinth, “giving him the appellation of fool in the same sense, and for the same reason, that our Lord himself called the Pharisees fools, namely, on account of their ignorance and wickedness, Matthew 22:17.” What thou sowest is not quickened except it die “To illustrate the possibility of the resurrection, the apostle appeals to a thing which men every day behold, and which is little less wonderful than the resurrection itself, the reproduction of grain from seed sown, which does not grow unless it be rotted in the ground. But after its body is destroyed something springs out of it, which, by a wonderful process, the effect of the power of God, ends in the reproduction of the same kind of grain, not bare as it was sown, but richly adorned with blades, stalk, and ear.” Thomas Paine, in his “Age of Reason,” and some other modern infidels, have maintained, against the apostle, “that the seed does not die in vegetation, because the germe lives and expands itself, and only the extraneous matter corrupts. But in fact the seed, as such, doth die: it ceases to be a grain of corn; though a part of it springs, as it were, into new life, by a process which we can no more comprehend than we can the manner of the resurrection. Even Lucretius, the Epicurean atheist, says, ‘Whatever change transfers a body into a new class of beings, may be justly called the death of the original substance: for what is changed from what it was, that dies.'” Scott. And that which thou sowest is not the body that shall be Produced from the seed committed to the ground; but bare, naked, grain Widely different from that which will afterward rise out of the earth. But God Not thou, O man, nor the grain itself; giveth it a body In the course of his natural operations, by certain laws of vegetation, with which thou art entirely unacquainted; as it hath pleased him With such a variety of parts as he hath thought fit to determine for that particular species; and to each of the seeds Not only of the fruits and plants, but animals also, to which the apostle rises in the following verse; its own body Not only a body of the same sort, but that which, by virtue of some connection it had with this or that individual grain, may properly be called its own, though in its form much different, and much more beautiful. It is justly observed by Dr. Macknight here, that, “having such an example of the divine power before our eyes, we cannot think the reproduction of the body impossible, though its parts be utterly dissipated. And although the very numerical body be not raised, which the apostle intimates when he affirms that the grain produced from the seed sown is not the very body which is sown, yet the body is truly raised; because what is raised being united to the soul, there will arise in the man, thus completed, a consciousness of identity, by which he will be sensible of the justice of the retribution which is made to him for his deeds. Besides, this new body will more than supply the place of the old, by serving every purpose necessary to the perfection and happiness of the man in his new state. According to this view of the subject, the objection taken from the scattering of the particles of the body that die, has no place, because it does not seem necessary that the body to be raised should be composed of them; for the Scripture nowhere affirms that the same numerical body is to be raised. In the opinion of some, indeed, the example of the grain which first dies, and then revives, is mentioned to intimate, that in the human body there is a seminal principle, which is not destroyed by death; and which, at the appointed season, will reproduce the body in a more excellent form than before, through the quickening influence of his power. But is a seminal principle any thing different from that power? What occasion then have we to carry our thoughts in this matter beyond God's power? Besides, as there is no inextinguishable principle in plants, the analogy doth not hold. I therefore suppose this wonderful, though common instance, is mentioned, to show that the resurrection of the body is not beyond the power of God to accomplish; and that it may certainly be expected according to Christ's promise.”