It is sown in corruption.— "The body which has now in it such manifest principles of mortality and corruption, which consists now of such brittle and tender parts, that the least disease disturbs, and unfits them for their operations; which is now subject to so many casualties, and has its continuance depending upon the fit disposition of so many little and easily-disordered parts, that it is a greater wonder how we continue to live a day, than why we die after so few years' space;—this body shall, at the resurrection, be perfectly refined and purged from all the seeds of mortality and corruption. In a word, in respect to the faithful saints of God, this corruptible body shall spring up into an incorruptible and immortal substance, which shall be fitted to endure in perfect glory, as long as the soul to which it is united, even to all eternity. Further, that body which at death seems so base and abject, so vile and contemptible, shall at the resurrection be transformed into a bright, a beautiful, and glorious body;which, in comparison of the animal frame, may with sufficient propriety be called a spiritual body, as being an infinitely more pure and refined vehicle for the soul." The phrase Σωμα ψυχικον, 1 Corinthians 15:44, which we render a natural body, should be rendered, more suitably to the Greek, and more conformably to the Apostle's meaning, an animal body; for St. Paul is shewing here, that as we have animal bodies now, which we derive from Adam, endowed with an animal life, which, unless supported by a constant supply of food and air, will fail and perish; and at last, do what we can, will dissolve and come to an end: so at the resurrection, we shall have from Christ, the second Adam, spiritual bodies, which shall have an essential and naturallyinseparablelifeinthem,continuingandsubsistingperpetuallyofitself,without the help of meat, or drink, or air, or any such foreign support; without decay, or any tendency to a dissolution. Of which our Saviour speaking, says, That they who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, cannot die any more, for they are equal to the angels: and surely in this view, there can be no impropriety or absurdity, as some have urged, in the Apostle's calling this future nature and constitution, whatever it may be, a spiritual body, or a spiritualized frame.
Mr. Locke justly observes, that the time of man's being in this world is his being sown, and not when, being dead, he is put into the grave; because dead things are not sown; seeds are sown being alive, and die not till after they are sown: and this, I apprehend, best agrees with the Apostle's calling the body a natural or animal body, 1 Corinthians 15:44. But yet, as laying and burying the body in the earth, bears some resemblance to the sowing of seed; and as the body is much more remarkable for its corruption, weakness, and dishonour, after, than before it dies, I would not exclude a consideration of its state and condition when it dies and is laid in the grave.
See commentary on 1 Corinthians 15:41