First Corinthians 15:50 is often assumed to be obvious evidence of Paul’s exclusion from the resurrection of all that is fleshly, physical, and material. Adela Yarbro Collins, for instance, writes: “The remark in verse 50, ‘flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable,’ implies that the resurrection ‘body’ is not material in the same way that the earthly body is.”1 According to Fredriksen, Christ arose “in a spiritual body, Paul insists, and definitely not in a body of flesh and blood (1 Cor 15:44, 50).”2 But as we have now seen, Paul’s larger argument in the chapter precludes such a reading of this verse. What, then, is Paul’s specific point here in 15:50, in the context of that larger argument?
The answer lies in the relation of 15:50 to the revelation of the mystery (“Behold, I tell you a mystery”) that follows in 15:51–54. As we saw above, this is a hinge point within the structure of Paul’s argument. Within this structure, 15:50 expresses the dilemma, to which Paul’s exposition of the mystery in 15:51–54 functions as the solution. This dilemma is expressed by means of two parallel clauses:
flesh and blood (sarx kai haima) cannot inherit the kingdom of God
what is corruptible (phora) does not inherit what is incorruptible (apharsia)
In correlating “flesh and blood” (sarx kai haima) and “what is corruptible” (phora), Paul’s synonymous parallelism (in which each clause serves to define and delimit the other) functions to identify a single subject of the two clauses: the perishable, mortal body. “Flesh and blood” in this context therefore does not refer to humanity’s material makeup, the substance of flesh, but rather refers to the frail, transitory nature of the mortal body in its perishability and corruptibility.
This is also evident in the contrasting function in antiquity of the phrases “flesh and bones” and “flesh and blood.” In ancient usage, the phrase “flesh and bones” connotes the body’s materiality (e.g., Luke 24:39, “Touch me and see, because a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see that I have”). The phrase “flesh and blood,” by contrast, focuses not on the body’s materiality but on its weakness and perishability (e.g., Sirach 14:18, “So is the generation of flesh and blood, one dies and another is born”). In 1 Corinthians 15:50, Paul chooses the term “flesh and blood,” not the term “flesh and bones.” The plight envisioned in 15:50 is therefore not humanity’s embodiment in flesh, but that flesh’s need of redemption from its bondage to corruption.
To grasp the dilemma precisely, it is important to note that Paul in 15:50 does not affirm that the corruptible body cannot be raised, but that it cannot inherit the kingdom of God. As the foregoing verses have stressed, it is precisely the mortal, corruptible body that will be made alive (15:36, 45) and raised by God (15:42–44). But to inherit the imperishable kingdom, the perishable body must not be raised merely to die again, but must also be transformed so as to share Christ’s indestructible life. And this transformation is precisely the divine solution to the dilemma Paul now unveils through the revelation of the mystery: “we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed” (15:51). Whether the faithful are living or dead at the time of Christ’s second coming, their bodies must be transformed so as to be made incorruptible (15:52–54). The sequence of thought is as follows:
Human Dilemma
(50) perishable flesh cannot inherit the imperishable kingdom
Divine Answer
(51) we shall all be changed
(52) the dead will be raised imperishable
(53) this perishable body must be clothed with imperishability (cf. 54)
(cf. 42) the body is sown in decay, it is raised in imperishability
Clearly, the plight envisioned in 15:50, as made evident by the solution provided in 15:51–54, is not the physical or fleshly nature of the body, but the mortal body’s perishability and slavery to decay. Flesh and blood in its present perishable state cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And the answer provided in the revelation of the mystery (15:51) is not the destruction of the mortal flesh, but its transformation to imperishability (15:51–58). Mortal flesh, far from being excluded from this divine, saving action, is the object of that action. Flesh and blood are not annihilated, but “raised” (15:52), “transformed” (15:51–52), and “clothed” with imperishability and immortality (15:53–54), and thus fitted to inherit the imperishable kingdom.
Ware, James P. 2019. Paul’s Theology in Context: Creation, Incarnation, Covenant, and Kingdom. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 167-169.
Adela Yarbro Collins, “The Empty Tomb in the Gospel according to Mark,” in Hermes and Athena: Biblical Exegesis and Philosophical Theology, ed. Eleonore Stump and Thomas P. Flint (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1993), 113. See in the same vein Martin, The Corinthian Body, 126; Fredriksen, “Vile Bodies,” 81–82.
Fredriksen, Paul, 4.