1 Corinthians 15:49

1 Corinthians 15:49. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear [1] the heavenly.

[1] Nothing better illustrates the vicious tendency of the early interpreters of the Epistles to give a hortatory turn to statements manifestly affirmative, than the reading “let us bear” in this verse; a reading which is much better supported by external evidence than the affirmative reading “we shall bear.” Critical editors who allow external evidence to overbear the most convincing internal evidence as Lachmann, Tregelles, and Tischendorf adopt this hortatory reading, making the duty of bearing the moral image of Christ to be what the apostle is expressing; and strange to say, Stanley follows them.

Note. So far is the question “with what body do they come?” from being unnatural, that after all the explanation now given, the difficulty will recur in this form: ‘If that which is sown is not that which dies, in what sense is it the resurrection of the dead? ' In other words, ‘what is that in the two states which constitutes their identity? ' The best answer to this question is, that the same difficulty applies to our personal identity through out the present life. From infancy to old age there is a constant flux in the particles of our natural body; insomuch that it is never at any one period in all respects precisely what it was at any other period; yet in every human being, by a law of his nature, there is an irresistible conviction that whether as child, youth, or man, he is the tame individual that he was from the first. Beyond that there is no need to go, nor perhaps shall we ever discover wherein precisely the principle of personal identity consists.