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This doctrine has presented the greatest difficulties to many minds. Here faith has frequently found one of its severest tests.

I. BUT WE OUGHT NOT TO BE STAGGERED BY ANY FACT WHICH IS THE SUBJECT OF DIVINE REVELATION. God will assuredly justify himself and fulfil all his promises. Though we do not see how he will do so, he does. He sits higher than we do. When Ezekiel was asked, "Can these bones live?" he did not reply, "It is utterly preposterous and absurd," but "O Lord God, thou knowest;" and when God asserted that they could and should, Ezekiel obediently prophesied upon and unto them (Ezekiel 37:3). Our Lord's words should ever ring in our ears, "With God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).

II. CONSIDER THE IMPERFECTION OF OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE. HOW very little we know! Our knowledge is extremely superficial; we know no one thing thoroughly. Our knowledge is extensive in this sense, that we know a very little about a great many things. How ignorant we are of the nature of matter, spirit, life! How unfit to dogmatize! yet how ever ready to do so! Like children, we say, "It can't be;" and we speak with infinite confidence because we cannot understand how it can be. The theory cannot be made up out of our superficial information. The mountain won't go into our bucket!

III. THE LIMITATION OF OUR FACULTIES. Our powers are very great viewed in one aspect, very little indeed viewed in another. As long as we possess only our present faculties we shall do well to guard against the flippant use of "impossible."

IV. HOW SOME DIFFICULTIES CONNECTED WITH THE RESURRECTION OF THE BODY MAY BE REMOVED. We have two indicated in this passage.

1. How can the dead live? If our bodies die, are placed in the grave, dissolve, mix up with surrounding earth, is it not incredible that they should live again? "How can these things be?" The apostle has a very pertinent retort. He directs the objector to a very familiar operation and result. Seed is sown in the ground, a living plant springs up. The seed placed in the ground apparently perishes. As placed in the earth it is seen above it no more. Much of its substance decays and unites with the ground in which it lies. And yet there is the plant of the same nature, and called by the same name. There is here death and then life. In fact, only as the seed is sown, only as it seems utterly to perish, decompose, and be hopelessly lost - only thus is the beautiful result attained. So the death of this body may be necessary (speaking after the manner of men) to the beauty and glory of the resurrection body. That which seems to be a difficulty may be an essential link in the chain - essential, that is, unless a special miracle is wrought, as may be in the case of those alive at the coming of Christ (ver. 52). They will be "changed" suddenly - we know not how, through what process. Christ's body, which saw no corruption, was evidently changed. Paul does not assert that sowing seed and its result are parallel in all points to the death and resurrection of the body. He uses it as a helpful illustration. If our experience did not cover the sowing of the seed and the upspringing of the plant, perhaps our faith would be as greatly tried, if we were called upon to believe in its possibility, as we are now in the case of the resurrection of the body.

2. "With what body do they come?" One common form of this difficulty is - how is it possible for us to have at the resurrection the same particles in our body which we now have? Apart from the dissipation of these particles in the earth or sea, they may actually belong to the bodies of a great many different people! Amongst cannibals, for example. And amongst civilized people as well; for animals and plants receive in various ways particles which once helped to constitute human bodies, and these animals and vegetables being eaten, the particles in question become constituents of other human bodies. How can this apparently insuperable difficulty be met? Simply by saying that it is a difficulty originated by the objector, and has no basis in Divine revelation. We are not told that the earthly body and the resurrection body shall consist of the same particles. In fact, the apostle seems expressly to combat such a notion; for he says," Thou sowest not that body which shall be" (ver. 37), and in ver. 50, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." But then, if not the same particles, what particles? what form? The apostle meets this by reference to the Divine power as now seen in creation: "All flesh is not the same flesh." There are celestial bodies - the organisms of angels - bodies, yet greatly differing from the terrestrial bodies. The light of the "lamps of the firmament" greatly varies in glory and beauty. So there will be great contrast between the body now and then. God by what he has done shows what he can do, and so this part of the difficulty vanishes. But the greater part remains. If the resurrection body has not the same particles now possessed, how can it be the same, and how can there be any fitness in speaking of the resurrection of the body? Our experience supplies a sufficient answer. Sameness of particles is not essential to identity. The particles in our present body are in constant flux. At no two moments do we possess precisely the same: we are always throwing off some and taking on others; and, separated only by the interval of a few years, science leads us to conclude that the body has lost all the old particles and is constituted entirely of fresh ones. Yet bodily identity does not disappear. The resurrection body will be identified with our present body. As with the seed, to each a "body of its own" (ver. 38). Identity is in this life a great mystery to us; we cannot tell now what is necessary to it. But there is nothing in our partial knowledge of it which should lead us to doubt the doctrine of the resurrection of the body. With larger knowledge apparent difficulties doubtless would disappear. The resurrection body will be very different to the present whilst identified with it. God will give a body as it shall please him (ver. 38). Note: It is no mark of wisdom to deny the resurrection of the body. The inspired apostle addresses the denier as "Thou fool." Many priding themselves in wisdom tumble into the morass of folly. - H.

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KJV: But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?

WEB: But someone will say, "How are the dead raised?" and, "With what kind of body do they come?"