“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
The Basket Case Chronicles #188
“But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body. All flesh is not the same flesh: but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds” (1 Cor. 15:35–39).
The skeptic can make no sense of resurrection. What kind of body could the dead have? The whole thing seems nonsensical. But the existence of a second body is no more marvelous in principle than the first one is. Paul rebukes the folly that cannot see that the human body is seed. First he notes that in order to be fruitful, a seed must die first. The second observation is that the body of the seed and the body of the plant that grows from it are strikingly different. There is continuity between them, obviously, but there is a large measure of visual discontinuity as well. So when the seed goes in the ground we should expect two things from it. One is life from death, and the second is that this life will be astonishingly different.
Paul follows the logic out. There are more kinds of seed than simply the human. Just as God creates wheat and other kinds of grain, so also He has created human-body seeds, and other body seeds. The four kinds of seed he mentions are men, animals, fish, and birds. And so will animals participate in the resurrection? Well . . . are they seed?
“astonishingly different” indeed… and sometimes I can hardly stand the wait.
I certaintly hope so.
Lord how I have loved (and still love) some animals I have had the privilege of caring for.
Lewis wrote of it in one of his books where a woman was accompanied by the menagerie of animals she had loved during her time on this earth.
Thank you for this post.
The sixth day, he opened his eyes,
Already discontent.
Surrounding mortal glories agreed,
Already awaiting the better life.
This flesh, our fleshes, must be changed, they groaned.
We are meant for immortality, incorruptibility.
We beg to bear a heavenly image.
But who will save us from this body of …
I can’t resist:
http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/04/14777/
But Jesus ATE fish after His resurrection!
I hope there is meat, not just nuts and seeds from the Garden.
I wonder to what extent the details given for Christ’s resurrection may apply to us. He was not immediately recognizable but his appearance didn’t appear to be otherwise unique. He still had his wounds but perhaps those were kept for him as badges of honor. He ate.
The bit about eating meat makes me wonder if the lion eating grass and such is metaphorical. If so, this might support a metaphorical use at the beginning of creation as well and thus allow for the fossil record of an old Earth.
Christ eating meat after his resurrection wouldn’t be a problem b/c Christ was still living, moving, and eating in a fallen world under the current corruptible order. Since eating meat is not sin, but merely a by-product of the strife of a fallen world, what he was doing was simply living in that fallen world – as it was at the time. I don’t think the idea is that eating meat somehow “taints” a resurrected body and makes it corruptible again. Remember, Jesus wouldn’t let Mary touch Him b/c He hadn’t yet been to see His Father. Obviously there was… Read more »
Isaiah 65:20 has led to my being pretty open as to what may be figurative language when it comes to beginning or end times.
I omitted the fact that my post above was in response to Barnabas.
Barnabas, I don’t see anything in Isaiah 65:20 that suggests it should be taken figuratively. It seems to be a plain description of a future reality. If God intended to give us such a description, how could He have done it any more clearly?
As for resurrected animals, I think (in The Problem of Pain) Lewis makes a suggestion that believers’ domesticated animals may be raised because of their relationship with those believers. The real answer is that we have no idea one way or the other.
Sometimes when God placed a city “under the ban” and commanded that Israel utterly destroy it, the animals were included. The trees never were, and in fact are specifically excluded as legitimate targets.
And the very end of Jonah (Jonah 4:11) says:
”
And should not I spare Nineveh, that great city, wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle?
”
So it’s clear there’s _some_ covenantal connection between a group of people and “their” animals. How far that goes, I dunno.
Rick Hale, I certainly don’t agree with using Isaiah 65 (or any other passage) to justify a figurative interpretation into the creation account and/or an old earth. But for separate reasons I can see difficulty in deciphering how to understand Isaiah 65:20. That passage speaks of the New Heavens and New Earth, and most of the language surround vs. 20 seems to speak in purely incorruptible terms. But a young man dying at 100 implies death, and a sinner of 100 years being accursed suggests sin. What do we make of this? I suppose that the first is merely a… Read more »
Matt, the timing of OT prophecy fulfillment can be pretty tough to fit together into a whole picture, as prophecies about the Messiah demonstrate (is he a conquering king or a sacrificial lamb?). The NT gives us more help, but even it isn’t always clear. In my opinion, whatever conclusion we come to can’t be arrived at by removing the meaning from clear words. In other words, just because we know from John that the new heavens and new earth describe the eternal state doesn’t mean that the words that follow in Isaiah that mention death and sin must be… Read more »
I agree that the passage is most likely in reference to the new Earth. The best interpretations I’ve read would be a figurative description of a victory over death and a general state of blessedness placed in some easier to understand context. If this were the case then it would not be a large jump the understand a lion eating grass as figurative. It’s difficult to conceive of an herbivorous lion that still retains his nature enough to still be called a lion. If the death of animals is inherently wicked then I would think God would have made some… Read more »
Barnabas.
C.S. Lewis agreed with you about the lion, but I don’t think a lion that doesn’t eat meat is any less a lion. Lion-ness is not defined by what he eats, but by what he is.
Barnabas, Just found this: “From 1946 to 1955, A female African lion, born and raised in America, lived her entire lifetime of nine years without ever eating meat.1 In fact, her owners, Georges and Margaret Westbeau,2 alarmed by scientists’ reports that carnivorous animals cannot live without meat, went to great lengths to try to coax their unusual pet (‘Little Tyke’) to develop a taste for it. They even advertised a cash reward for anyone who could devise a meat-containing formula that the lioness would like. The curator of a New York zoo advised the Westbeaus that putting a few drops… Read more »
What he is meaning large sharp teeth and claws, sinewy body, sharp eyesight and sense of smell, lightning quick reflexes, the regal languor that comes with life at the top of the food chain? Would our grass eating lion have any of these attributes?
As to the idea of particular animals resurrected, it seems to devalue the soul of man his unique position in creation.
Rick Hale –
http://www.isegoria.net/2015/03/herbivores/
Barnabas, that article notwithstanding, I presented you with an example of a non-meateating lion that actually existed. It was still a lion. Besides, if God can create the universe, he can change the eating habits of animals. In fact, according to Genesis 1, there were no meat eating animals originally. So, he has already changed them once.
In Christ’s Kingdom, the last enemy to be defeated is death. This would imply that other enemies have been defeated, and death pushed back significantly, and then finally defeated (general resurrection and the eternal state). New creation language is not reserved for the eternal state. For example God refers to Israel’s origin as a new creation: For I am the LORD your God, who stirs up the sea and its waves roar (the LORD of hosts is His name). I have put My words in your mouth and have covered you with the shadow of My hand, to establish the… Read more »
Also, the article you posted proves my point. Those deer are still deer despite the fact that they were not strictly herbivores.
Raising a veggie lion is an abomination like news stories of parents raising a transgendered child. Freakish exceptions do not show that the lion awaits his more perfect grazing form.
Barnabas, If you had read the section of the article I quoted, you would have seen that the owners tried everything to get the lion to eat meat and IT refused. To compare that state of affairs with raising a transgender child is absurd. Furthermore, why is it a terrible violation of nature for a carnivore not to eat meat but it isn’t a terrible violation of nature for herbivores to eat meat, as they are described doing in the article you posted? Your commitment to the notion that God can’t change the eating habits of lions without making them… Read more »