1 Corinthians 15:44 - Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Bible Comments

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.

A natural body - literally, 'an animal х psuchikon (G5591)] body;' a bodily organism of "flesh and blood" (1 Corinthians 15:50), to suit the animal soul, which predominates in it. The Holy Spirit in the spirit of believers is an earnest of a superior state (Romans 8:11): meanwhile in the body the animal soul preponderates; hereafter the Spirit shall predominate, and the animal soul be subordinate.

Spiritual body - a body moulded by the Spirit, and its organism not conformed to the lower and animal (Luke 20:35-36), but to the higher and spiritual life (cf. 1 Corinthians 2:14; 1 Thessalonians 5:23).

There is ... 'Aleph (') A B C Delta G f, Vulgate, 'IF there is a natural (or, animal-souled) body, there is also a spiritual body.' It is no more wonderful that there should be a body fitted to man's future life, in which the spirit preponderates, than that there is (as we all see) one fitted to his present life, in which the animal soul preponderates. Man, standing on the limits of earth and heaven, has a twofold corporeality.

1 Corinthians 15:44

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.