will differ from another. This, no doubt, is true ; but it is not what Paul here says or intimates. His object is simply to show the absurdity of the objection founded on the assumption that the body hereafter must be what it is here. He shows that it may be a body and yet differ as much from what it is now as the light of the sun differs from a piece of clay. He therefore proceeds to show wherein this difference consists. The body is sown in corruption/ it is raised in incorruption. The figure of the seed is again introduced. The bodies of the saints are as seed sown in the ground, not there to be lost or to remain ; but at the appointed time, to rise in a state the very reverse of that in which they were committed to the dust. It is sown in corruption^ i. e. it is now a corruptible body, cdnS^anily tendmg to' decay, subject to disease and death, and destined to entire dissolution. It is raised in in- corruption. Hereafter it will be imperishable ; free from all impurity, and incapable of decay.
^ 43. 44. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory : it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power : it is sown a natural body, it- is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
The apostle contemplates the body as at the moment of interment, and therefore these predicates are to be understood with special reference to its condition at that time. It is the dead body that is sown in dishonour, despoiled of the short- lived attractiveness which it had while living. It is raised in glory, i. e. in that resplendent brightness which diffuses hght and awakens admiration. It is to be fashioned like unto the glorious body of the Son of God, Phil. 3, 21. It is sown i?i weakness. Nothing is more absolutely powerless than a corpse — it can do nothing and it can resist nothing. The weakness which belonged to it in life, is perfected in death. It is raised in power. The future body will be instin'ct with energy, endow- ed, it may be, with faculties of which we have now no concep- tion. It is sown a natural hody, it is raised a spiritual body. This comprehends all that has been said. A natural body, o-co/Att i//vxtKov, is a body of which the ^vyr], or animal life, is the animating principle ; and a spiritual body, o-a>/i,a Tn/cv/xartKov, is a body adapted to the TrvcO/xa, the rational, immortal principle of our nature. We know from experience what a natural body is. It is a body which has essentially the same proper-