But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body.
God gives each seed its own body as it has pleased Him, giving every kind its own fitting form. As planting illustrates, the grain decays and a new kernel comes forth without raising the original material as it was, with the human agent planting the seed and God watering it and giving sunshine until the blade springs up. The mortal body's particles do not have to become the immortal body's particles, for identity lies in organization rather than particles; the resurrected body is a new creation of finer material that preserves identity and individuality.
The image of a seed buried like in a tomb and rising in deathless bloom teaches that the dead will be raised to life beyond the grave, so the verse belongs to the teaching that the body will be raised. The whole person sleeps in the grave until the resurrection, making resurrection of the body essential, and God gives the righteous dead a body that pleases Him. Growth in the earth is meant to teach spiritual things about how God gives life, including the resurrection of the body and the renewing of the heart, and the death and renewal of flowers teaches that God gives new life after death so that all who love God will bloom again in the Eden above. As shown by a kernel of corn whose sprouting part is gone but whose body remains, outward religion can keep its body or form while losing its inner life and then bear no fruit and cannot save; a mere theory of faith is that dead form, and what is needed is vital godliness with the life and power of religion in the soul.
God gives each seed its own body as it has pleased Him, giving every kind its own fitting form. As planting illustrates, the grain decays and a new kernel comes forth without raising the original material as it was, with the human agent planting the seed and God watering it and giving sunshine until the blade springs up. The mortal body's particles do not have to become the immortal body's particles, for identity lies in organization rather than particles; the resurrected body is a new creation of finer material that preserves identity and individuality.
The image of a seed buried like in a tomb and rising in deathless bloom teaches that the dead will be raised to life beyond the grave, so the verse belongs to the teaching that the body will be raised. The whole person sleeps in the grave until the resurrection, making resurrection of the body essential, and God gives the righteous dead a body that pleases Him. Growth in the earth is meant to teach spiritual things about how God gives life, including the resurrection of the body and the renewing of the heart, and the death and renewal of flowers teaches that God gives new life after death so that all who love God will bloom again in the Eden above. As shown by a kernel of corn whose sprouting part is gone but whose body remains, outward religion can keep its body or form while losing its inner life and then bear no fruit and cannot save; a mere theory of faith is that dead form, and what is needed is vital godliness with the life and power of religion in the soul.