1 Corinthians 15:44

εἰ אABCDFG Vetus Lat. Vulg. Rec. om. with E and Peshito. Rec. adds σῶμα before πνευματικόν with Peshito. Text אABCDEFG Vetus Lat. Vulg.

44. ψυχικόν. See ch. 1 Corinthians 2:14. The σῶμα ψυχικόν is the body accommodated to, and limited by, the needs of the animal life of man. Man possesses a spiritual life through union with Jesus Christ, but his present body is not adapted to the requirements of such a life. It is called a ‘body of death,’ Romans 7:24 (in the A.V. ‘the body of this death’). ‘The corruptible body (Wis 9:15) presseth down the soul,’ and we groan under its weight, and look earnestly forward to its redemption (Romans 8:23; 2 Corinthians 5:2; 2 Corinthians 5:4). But the spiritual body will not only be a body in which the spiritual principle dominates the whole organism (Theodoret), but it will be adapted to the needs of that principle, and therefore will be possessed of powers hitherto unknown. So Chrysostom. See also last note and 2 Corinthians 5:1, ‘we have in the heavens a house not made with hands.’ ‘The earthly and celestial body are not identical, but not absolutely different; the elements of the former are employed in the formation of the latter, the operation of Christ in believers gradually transforms the one into the other.’ Olshausen. This remark, however, leaves out of sight the fact that however gradual the transformation of the natural man into the spiritual man in this life, it is completed by a process which is not gradual, namely, the Resurrection.

εἰ ἔστιν αῶμα ψυχικόν. The rec. reading (see Critical Note) is the more easy to understand, but perhaps it is for that very reason that it has been substituted for the other. If it be accepted the passage is a simple assertion of the existence of a spiritual as well as of a natural body. If we prefer the text, it affirms that the life spiritual of necessity demands a proper vehicle as much as the life natural; that if the latter has—and we see that this is so—a body corresponding to its demands, it follows that the life spiritual will have one also.