Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of Christ, part 28.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

Paul believes that the resurrection body will be radically different than this earthly body. It will be an

immortal, glorious, powerful, spiritual, that is a supernaturally endowed body, and that

therefore it will be radically different from this present earthly body and the Corinthians should not therefore object to it.

Now, in verse 45 of 1 Corinthians 15, he goes on to make a comparison between the first atom

and the second atom, that is to say, Christ.

He says in verse 45, thus it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being.

The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

But it is not the spiritual which is first, but the physical and then the spiritual. The first man was

from the earth, a man of dust. The second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so

are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image

of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. Now here you might think

that what Paul is describing is the transformation of our bodies into some sort of a spirit because

he says that the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But again what you need to look

at is the contrast between Christ and Adam here. When he says Adam became a living being in the RSV translation, the word in the Greek, once again, is

Psyche.

That is to say, Adam became a living soul.

And obviously, Adam was not a disembodied soul.

He was a physical, extended, tangible material person.

But the word soul here is used as a sort of synonym for a person. We often will do this, even in English.

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