particle 8c, which might be merely explanatory, yet the apos- tle really answers, in what follows, both questions, viz.. How it is possible for life to come out of death, and. What is to be the nature of the body after the resurrection. The latter dif- ficulty was the main one, and therefore to that the most of what follows refers. The great objection in the minds of the Corinthians to the doctrine of the resurrection was evidently the same as that of the Sadducees. Both supposed our future bodies are to be hke our present ones. Our Lord's answer to the Sadducees, therefore, is the same as that which Paul gives to the Corinthian objectors. The future body is not to be like the present. To reject a plainly-revealed and most im- portant doctrine on such grounds as these is wicked as well as loolish, and therefore the apostle says in the next verse —
36. (Thou) fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die.
It is not. Thou fool, but simply. Fool ! an exclamation both of disapprobation and contempt. Luke 12, 20. Rom. 1, 22. Eph. 5, 15. It does not, however, necessarily express any bitterness of feeling ; for our blessed Lord said to his doubting disciples, " O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken ! " Luke 24, 25. It was the senseless- ness of the objection that roused the apostle's indignation. The body cannot live again because it dies. Fool ! says Paul, a seed cannot live unless it does die. Disorganization is the necessary condition of reorganization. If the seed remain a seed there is an end of it. But if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit, John 12, 24. The seed is as much disorganized, it as really ceases to be a seed when sown in the ground, as the body when laid in the grave. If the one dies, the other dies. Death is not annihilation, but disorganization ; the pass- ing from one form or mode of existence to another. How then can the disorganization of the body in the grave be an objection to the doctrine of a resurrection ? It may be said that the apostle does not pursue the objection ; that the body is not only disorganized but dispersed ; its elements scattered over the earth, and embraced in new combinations ; whereas in the seed the germ remains, so that there is no interruption of the organic life of the plant. To those who make this ob- jection our Saviour's answer is, that they err, "not knowing