Prayer of Thanksgiving: Thank God that the leaders of our church, led by the Holy Spirit, see the importance of having two worship services on the Lord’s Day and having a mid-week fellowship meal and classes for adults and children.

Prayer of Supplication: Ask God to continue to give the congregation the heart to serve using the gifts that has given to each member of this body and for the continued support of the missionaries we support.

Bible reading and commentary:

Read: 1 Corinthians 15:35-49

In this section, the Apostle Paul anticipates objections from the Corinthians by explaining how material bodies subject to weakness, sin, disease, death, and decay can be raised incorruptible, immortal, and sinless. Reformation commentators endorse with enthusiasm Paul’s use of illustrations drawn from everyday life, such as germinating seeds and the splendor of heavenly bodies to demonstrate the reality of the resurrection of the body. Even as God gives life to tiny dry seeds that, after being “buried” in the earth, spring to life to produce an abundant harvest, so too God will resurrect the Christian dead from the grave and confer on them new and glorious bodies.

This raises difficult questions, however, about the nature of resurrection bodies and how they differ from earthly bodies. For the magisterial reformers, the substance of humans’ bodily existence will not change in the future resurrection: men and women will still be clothed in bodies. But whereas the earthly body is animated by the human soul, is subject to corruption and death, and is dependent on food, drink, clothing, and sleep for its existence, the heavenly or spiritual body will be empowered by the Holy Spirit and therefore be immortal, incorruptible, glorious, and strong.

Following Paul’s argument, commentators conclude this section by showing that Christian hope in a future resurrection is predicated on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the second Adam or the Second Man, who having reversed the curse of the first Adam, remains the source and author of resurrection life. Paul’s description of Christ as the ‘second man from heaven’ repudiates the heretical doctrine of the celestial flesh of Christ, which was held by Anabaptists and Menno Simons, which stated that Jesus Christ’s human body came from heaven rather than from the womb of the Virgin Mary. To deny the resurrection is to deny Christ.

Calvin on 1 Corinthians 15:45 – (Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.) Lest it appear that what he said about the natural body was a newly invented idea, Paul quotes Scripture, which states “Adam became a living soul,” meaning that his body was quickened by the soul, so that he became a living human being. It is asked what the meaning of the word “soul” is here. It is well known that the Hebrew word, nepes [soul], which Moses employs, has a variety of meanings. But in this present passage, it means either the life principle or the very essence of life itself. The second of these senses I greatly prefer. I observe that the same thing is said about the animals, that they became a living soul, but while soul of every living thing ought to be judged according to its kind, there is nothing to prevent a soul – that is to say, the life principle from being common to all of them. And yet there remains something peculiar and distinct to the human soul, namely, that which is essentially immortal, such as the light of intelligence and reason.