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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadCambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges - 1 Corinthians 15:53 - 15:53
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53. δεῖ γὰρ τὸ φθαρτὸν τοῦτο. The Apostle has just said that ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.’ He now explains in what sense these words are to be taken. There is a sense in which the mortal body is not destroyed entirely and created again. ‘Change,’ says Tertullian, ‘must be dissociated from all idea of destruction. For change is one thing, destruction another.’ The body receives an addition of qualities which it did not possess before. It is ‘clothed upon’ with immortality. That which was corruptible is now freed from all liability to corruption (‘sanctified and cleared from all impurity.’ Irenaeus). That which is mortal is swallowed up, and disappears in the vastness of the life which knows no end. That is to say, there is a principle not only of personal, but even of physical identity which is retained, even as our Lord’s Body retained the marks of His crucifixion, but the material particles of the body are in no wise necessary to that identity. See Introduction, p. 22, notes on 1Co 15:37-38; 1Co 15:50, and 2Co 5:4.