1Cor 15:42-44 | Abbott | STEP | These statements of the apostle coincide fully with obvious philosophical considerations to forbid our harboring narrow views in our conceptions of the resurrection, in respect to the physical resemblance and identity of the body that shall rise, compared with that which is deposited in the ground. That stratum of animal and vegetable mould which covers the earth, and out of which all generations of men, of animals, and of plants, are successively formed, has an average of only a few inches in depth, and it remains from age to age the same. The animal and vegetable bodies which come from it, after their brief period of organized existence, return to it a gain, and are resolved once more to the original elements out of which they were formed,—elements which are soon reconstructed into new combinations. Hence there is no accumulation of the deposits of death and decay. In the oldest countries on the globe, where two hundred generations of men, and five hundred of domestic animals, have lived, died, and been dissolved, there is no accumulation. Even the materials of those bodies of the dead which are deposited, by mourning survivors, deep below the surface, or in tombs, are not preserved. They are gradually resolved into gaseous constituents, which rise through the intervening obstructions, and regain the soil and the atmosphere, thus entering again into that vast storehouse of materials, from which the whole face of nature receives its perpetual renovation. Thus the bodies of men and of animals, the trees and the fruits, the flowers and the foliage, now enjoying life upon the earth's surface, are composed of the same materials with those of the generation contemporary with Abraham. All this teaches us not to form gross and carnal ideas of the resurrection; and it gives great force and emphasis to the apostle's declarations, "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;" and in , "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."

1 Corinthians 15:42-44

These statements of the apostle coincide fully with obvious philosophical considerations to forbid our harboring narrow views in our conceptions of the resurrection, in respect to the physical resemblance and identity of the body that shall rise, compared with that which is deposited in the ground. That stratum of animal and vegetable mould which covers the earth, and out of which all generations of men, of animals, and of plants, are successively formed, has an average of only a few inches in depth, and it remains from age to age the same. The animal and vegetable bodies which come from it, after their brief period of organized existence, return to it a gain, and are resolved once more to the original elements out of which they were formed,—elements which are soon reconstructed into new combinations. Hence there is no accumulation of the deposits of death and decay. In the oldest countries on the globe, where two hundred generations of men, and five hundred of domestic animals, have lived, died, and been dissolved, there is no accumulation. Even the materials of those bodies of the dead which are deposited, by mourning survivors, deep below the surface, or in tombs, are not preserved. They are gradually resolved into gaseous constituents, which rise through the intervening obstructions, and regain the soil and the atmosphere, thus entering again into that vast storehouse of materials, from which the whole face of nature receives its perpetual renovation. Thus the bodies of men and of animals, the trees and the fruits, the flowers and the foliage, now enjoying life upon the earth's surface, are composed of the same materials with those of the generation contemporary with Abraham. All this teaches us not to form gross and carnal ideas of the resurrection; and it gives great force and emphasis to the apostle's declarations, "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body;" and in v. 50, "Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God."