By comparing the two balancing portions of this chapter together we

shall get further and fuller light upon the whole subject.  The two portions

are balanced in the structure (page 212):

Adam and Christ.  Death destroyed.  'When?'

The first and last Adam.  Death swallowed up.

The differences of every one's 'order' are amplified (15:23 with

The nature and relation of Adam is explained (15:21,22 with

The nature and relation of Christ is explained (15:20-22,28 with

The meaning of the destruction of death is given (15:26 with

The time periods are illuminated (15:24 with 15:54).

These amplifications by the apostle of his own words are worth more

than libraries of other men's thoughts, and give us inspired explanations

which to see is to come under an obligation to accept and hold against all

theories.  Let us briefly notice these Divine amplifications in the order in

which they occur.

In the first passage only one order of the redeemed is indicated, viz.,

'Those that are Christ's at His coming'.  The amplifying verses 37-44 keep

within these bounds and do not add other orders, but rather show the variety

of ranks that will be found among the redeemed at that time.  This

explanation arises out of the answer to the question of verse 35, 'But some

will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?'

Paul's answer is short and pointed.  'Thou fool!'  The question 'How?' is not

always a question of faith or unto edifying.  The Lord has nowhere revealed

'how' the resurrection will take place; He has revealed the fact for our hope

and our faith.  The apostle, for answer, calls the questioner's attention to

a phenomenon of the physical world:

'That which thou sowest is not quickened (made alive) except it die;

and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be,

but bare (naked) grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:

but God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed his

own body' (15:36-38).

There is much food for thought here.  Many Christians wonder how it is

possible for the individual dead body to be raised, and ask many questions

which need never arise.  One might put them a question in this form.  A

certain man 3,000 years ago died, and was buried.  Five hundred years later,

the elements that composed the first man's body became the body of another

man.  He also died, and each 500 years the same elements became the body of

another man.  At the resurrection whose body would it be, for all these men

had it?  The answer would be, 'Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the

power of God'.  First of all, Scripture does not speak of the resurrection of

the body, but of the resurrection of the dead.  The body is given by God at

the resurrection and will be in accord with the believer's rank.  'There are

heavenly bodies, and earthly bodies'.  These words do not refer to the

'heavenly bodies' of astronomy, but to the resurrection bodies of believers.