You foolish person!  What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

1 Corinthians 15:36

The apostle has been correcting the error taught by some within the church at Corinth that promulgated the falsehood that the dead would not be resurrected on the last day (15:12ff; cf. John 5:28-29).  In doing so, he anticipates that the Corinthians would want information on the logistics behind that great event.  He writes, “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised?  With what kind of body do they come?’” (15:35).

In verse 36, Paul starts to answer the question in a forceful manner, as shown above.  It’s understandable to wonder why he answers the question by calling the questioner, “You foolish person!”  However, further contemplation does show that it is indeed foolish to limit or question the power of God (cf. Job 38:1-3ff).  Perhaps the reason the Spirit inspired the apostle to respond to this question so strongly is because God omnisciently recognized that this question might have been asked as a challenge rather than out of sincerity.

Regardless, Paul points out a fact with which many of his readers, having experience in working their farms and vineyards, would have familiarity:  “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.  And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.  But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body” (15:36b-38).  The seeds planted annually by many of the Corinthians “die” in the sense that they cease to be seeds of wheat or corn; they are then “resurrected” in a new form (a new plant that grows out of the ground) which is far different from the seed which had been planted, even though it is still wheat or corn.

He then points out how the different facets of God’s creation are physically different from each other (15:39-41).  Humans are different physically from mammals, which in turn are physically different from birds, which are likewise physically different from aquatic creatures like fish.  The glory and beauty of God’s creation as specifically seen in planet Earth is different from the glory and beauty that we see in the heavens of the universe.  The sun’s glory is different from the moon’s, and each star is unique in its own beauty and brightness.

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead,” writes the apostle.  “What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.  It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory.  It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.  It is sown a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (15:42-44).  Our physical bodies die when our spirits leave them and start the long, terrible process of decomposition and decay (James 2:26a; Eccl. 3:20; 12:7; Job 34:15).  Yet on the wonderful and terrible day that Christ comes again, the physical body that had perished due to its weakness and likely had long since decayed to dust, that body that had no honor inherently within it when it was buried, will be resurrected as something – someone – who is quite different from what he or she used to be, yet still the same person (cf. 1 Thess. 4:13-18).

— Jon