Paul now returned to his analogy between Adam and Christ (cf. vv. 21-22) to reinforce his argument, which he had brought to a head in verse 44.
15:45 The natural body is physical, the product of Adam who received life from God (Gen. 2:7). That life resides in a body characterized as "soulish"(i.e., alive with material and immaterial components). It eventually dies. However the resurrection body is spiritual, the product of Jesus Christ, the second Adam, who gives new life. That life will inhabit a body that will never die. Paul called it spiritual because it is ready for the spiritual rather than the physical realm. Moreover it comes to us from a spirit being, Jesus Christ, rather than a physical being, Adam. One can assume full "spiritual"existence, including a spiritual body, only as Christ did, namely by resurrection.389
15:46 Even though God breathed life into Adam at Creation, that gift constituted Adam a natural person fitted for the present order. The breathing of new life into believers at resurrection, so to speak, will make us spiritual persons fitted for the eschaton. We have the physical body until the eschaton, not before it begins.
Paul may have included this word of clarification to refute the Platonic idea that the ideal precedes the real. Plato taught that the ultimate realities are spiritual, and physical things only represent them. This is probably a view that some in Corinth held. Paul said the physical body precedes the spiritual body, which is the ultimate body.
15:47-48 God formed Adam out of dust to live on this planet (Gen. 2:7). Jesus Christ had a heavenly origin. However, Paul seems to have meant more than this since he compared two human beings, "the first Adam"and "the last Adam."His emphasis seems to have been that the first Adam was fitted for life in this age with natural life whereas the last Adam was fitted for life in the age to come with spiritual life. God equipped both to live in the realm that they would occupy. Similarly the bodies we inherit from Adam are for earthly existence. The bodies we will receive from Christ at our resurrection will be for living in the spiritual realm. Paul was not speaking of heavenly existence as distinct from life in hell but as spiritual in contrast with earthly.
"Each race has the attributes of its Head. As a consequence of this law . . ., we who once wore the likeness of the earthly Adam shall hereafter wear that of the glorified Christ. What Adam was, made of dust to be dissolved into dust again, such are all who share his life; and what Christ is, risen and eternally glorified, such will be all those who share His life."390
15:49 Those born only of the first Adam, whom God equipped to live in the natural world, likewise exist in that world. However those born also of the last Adam, whom God equipped to live in the supernatural world by resurrection, also will exist in that world. Paul concluded this pericope by reminding them that their bearing the image of the heavenly Adam was still future, and it is certain.
God's intent to make man in His own image (Gen. 1:26) will finally reach fulfillment when believers eventually receive bodies that enable us to live in the spiritual sphere as He does. God's forming man out of the dust of the ground and breathing into his nostrils the breath of life was only the first step toward God's realization of His goal. His creation of resurrection bodies for us will be the second and final step.
"The problem is that the Corinthians believed that they had already assumed the heavenly existence that was to be, an existence in the Spirit that discounted earthly existence both in its physical and in its behavioral expressions. What Paul appears to be doing once again is refuting both notions. They have indeed borne--and still bear--the likeness of the man of earth. Because of that they are destined to die. But in Christ's resurrection and their being in him' they have also begun to bear the likeness of the man of heaven. The urgency is that they truly do so now as they await the consummation when they shall do so fully."391
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