In Paul’s day, just as now, there were some who denied the resurrection, and were ready to ass sneeringly, “How are the dead raised? and with what body do they come?”
Why should it be considered impossible that the dead should be raised? Are not all things possible to God? If God could create out of nothing, the sun and the moon and the stare; and if He could form the human body from the dust of the ground, and give it life, why should anyone deny His power to raise the dead? It is indeed very foolish for anyone to do so.
Perhaps some of you have put some grains of corn or wheat in the ground; and after a while you have seen them spring up, and grow into corn or wheat above the ground; or you have planted flower seeds, and these have sprung up and produced flowers. How is this? Whose power made these grow? Is it not the power of God? Those seeds which you put in the ground, decayed, and could no more be found; but out of them sprang up the new crop of grain or flowers. Is not this just as wonderful as the resurrection? We put the dead bodies of the saints in the ground, and by and by in resurrection, we shall see them formed again into new and glorious bodies. This will be by the same power that makes the grain or wheat grow. It is the power of God.
Then again, when you sow wheat in the ground, and it springs up, you do not expect to get a crop of oats or corn. Every seed produces its own kind, wheat produces wheat; corn produces corn. And just so in the resurrection, every man will have his own body. Abraham will not have the body of Moses, nor Moses the body of Abraham. Each one will have his own. Even though the body may have been burnt to ashes, and the ashes strewn upon the waters and carried to the sea, God will reproduce that body again. People may not believe, but it is simply a question of the power of God.
But the resurrection bodies of God’s people will not be in the same condition they were before death. Everyone will indeed have his own body, but it will be a changed body. It is no use for the infidel to sneer and ask with what body they will come. God can give a body as it pleases Him. He has made a great many different kinds of bodies—different kinds of flesh—flesh of men—flesh of beasts—flesh of fishes—flesh of birds. And He can make the resurrection body as it pleases Him.
In our resurrection bodies we are going to dwell in heaven, and God will give us bodies suited to that place. When He made creatures to live on the earth, such as men and beasts, He gave them bodies suited to the earth; when He made fishes to live in the water, He gave them bodies suited to the water; and when He made birds to fly in the air, He gave them bodies suited to the air; and so when He takes us to heaven in resurrection glory, He will give us bodies suited to heaven. We shall each one have his own body, but it will be changed, and suited to the place where we are going to dwell.
When we consider the power of God, there is no difficulty about this. Even now our bodies are changing all the time. A little child’s body is complete in itself, but it grows and changes, and yet continues to be the same body.
We are constantly taking in food into our bodies, and new particles are thus added, while waste is still going on, so that our bodies are constantly changing. There may be none of the same particles in our bodies now that were in them seven years ago, and yet, while this changing is going on, each one retains his own body, and this the same body as that possessed in infancy. Just so in resurrection, whatever changes of particles there may be, we shall each have his own body, the identical body that was ours before we died. And there is nothing more wonderful in this than there is in what is going on around us every day, according to the power and laws of God.
May God enable us all to see and believe His wonderful power, and then we shall have no difficulty about the resurrection.
ML 11/22/1903