My photo at home
A Lot of Joy from God!

Oleksandr Zhabenko

Glory be to Jesus Christ! 🌞

Dedicated to Emma Kok.

(1 Corinthians 15:29-38)

1 Corinthians 15:30 – ‘ημεις’ – ‘emeis’ - ‘we’.

1 Corinthians 15:31 – ‘ημεραν’ – ‘emeran’ – ‘day’. ‘ημων’ – ‘emon’ - ‘our’.

1 Corinthians 15:37 – ‘κοκκον’ – ‘kokkon’ – ‘grain’.

A continuation of yesterday’s reading on the general resurrection of the dead, which I wrote about here:
07082023.html

The parallel passage, which relates to the conclusion of today’s reading, is discussed here:
12042023.html

Paul here rejects the argument against belief in the general resurrection, which is based on purely material ideas, by analogy with inanimate nature – inanimate nature does not often (not necessarily) form highly organised (very ordered) complexes, but the resurrection of the dead concerns God’s power and the people who are alive in the resurrection. Thus, the argument that God cannot create new bodies properly is rejected as false.

Moreover, he shows where unbelief in the general resurrection of the dead can (and, therefore, in many cases does, as the experience of many people and entire nations shows) lead to – to a wrong attitude to life, in particular to its bodily manifestations.

Further argumentation and explanation is based on the visibility of the death of a seed in the ground. When it gets there, it hides from people’s sight, sprouts, but it looks as if it has disappeared, died, and then the result of its falling into the ground appears. This disappearance of the grain from the field of view symbolises human death in the apostle’s explanation (and in a parallel place in the Gospel, see the link above). At the same time, the idea that the grain remains alive is also present in the Scriptures – in particular, Jesus Christ says that For God all people are alive.

We can say that the state of a grain changes in the ground – it disappears from people’s sight, but it sprouts and bears fruit. So also do death and then resurrection – a person does not disappear completely, but is alive for God, and then at the time of resurrection rises from the dead in a new body.

This new body has two characteristics – according to what God gives and according to what the human being personally is (the latter means that it bears the imprint of the human’s personality, character and peculiarities). We can say that from God a person receives the divine characteristics of the resurrected body, such as its indestructibility and eternity, but this body also reflects what a person is personally (and this mostly depends on him or her).

(This paragraph was added on 09.08.2023.)
It should be noted that the resurrected human body will not have all of its characteristics, but only those that have meaning. For example, the wounds of Jesus Christ have significance for us even after His Resurrection, at least until the Second Coming. That is why they remained. Yes, we can think that at the very Last General Judgement (also called the Dread Judgement in the Orthodox tradition), bodies will also have those meaningful characteristics that will show the state of a person during his or her earthly life. But after the Judgement, only those characteristics will be preserved that will be important for the whole of eternity – as the Lord says: then the righteous will shine like the sun in the Kingdom of God, meaning that if they did not shine like the sun before then, they will shine afterwards, after the Judgement. It is also possible to think that the wounds of Christ and the martyrs will disappear in the Kingdom of God, since salvation has already been accomplished.

See also important explanations at this link:
https://oleksandr-zhabenko.github.io/en/DialogueOnWordsChristFear.html

(Matthew XXI, 23-27)

Matthew XXI, 25 – ‘ημιν’ – ‘emin’ – (to) ‘us’.

Jesus is showing that the Jews should have realised the error of their position towards Him, His work and teaching.

But they do not want to think about it, even though they have every reason to realise it, but their sinful passions prevail over them.

See also the following links for more detailed considerations:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/

https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/

To the Venerable Moses Ugryn, of the Kyiv Cave Monastery:
(Galatians V, 22 – VI, 2; Luke VI, 17-23)
For frequent reading from the Apostle, see the link:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/

For the frequent reading from the Gospel, see here:
22052023.html

Glory be to Thee, our God, glory be to Thee!

Source:
https://www.facebook.com/Oleksandr.S.Zhabenko/

List of Used Sources