Spiritual Body ≠ Non-Fleshly Body

A Response to Hyper-Preterist Misreadings of 1 Corinthians 15

I recently encountered a hyper-preterist who confidently declared, “Also I have read 1 Corinthians 15 several times and not once does it say a physical body but a spiritual body.” It’s a common refrain from those who deny a future bodily resurrection, and at first glance, it might sound plausible. After all, Paul does speak of a “spiritual body,” doesn’t he?

Yes, he does. But the conclusion that this excludes physicality is a category error of the highest order and one that not only twists Paul’s words but undermines the gospel itself.

The Whole Point of 1 Corinthians 15: Bodily Resurrection

Let’s begin with Paul’s purpose in this chapter. The Corinthians weren’t confused about covenantal transitions or metaphorical resurrections. Some were struggling with a denial of bodily resurrection. That’s why Paul asks in verse 12:

Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

He doesn’t say, “How can you say the Old Covenant hasn’t transitioned?” or “How can you deny the fulfillment of Israel’s corporate destiny?” He says: “How can you say there is no resurrection of the dead?”

And not only that—the whole force of Paul’s argument is that if the dead aren’t bodily raised, then Christ wasn’t raised either, and if Christ wasn’t raised, then “your faith is futile” and “you are still in your sins” (v. 17). This is not theoretical. This is soteriological.

So, if hyper-preterists want to say there’s no future bodily resurrection, then by Paul’s logic, they must also say: Christ is still in the grave.

That is not a position any Christian can take.

What Does “Spiritual Body” Mean?

Much is made of Paul’s phrase in verse 44: “It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” Hyper-preterists jump on this and say, “See! Not physical. Spiritual.”

But Paul is not contrasting material versus immaterial. He’s contrasting natural versus Spirit-transformed.

Think about how Paul uses the word “spiritual” (πνευματικός) elsewhere:

• 1 Corinthians 2:15 — “The spiritual (πνευματικός) person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.”

• Galatians 6:1 — “Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual (πνευματικός) should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you too be tempted.”

In neither case is “spiritual” a synonym for “invisible” or “non-physical.” The “spiritual person” is a real, embodied human being indwelt and governed by the Holy Spirit. In Paul’s vocabulary, “spiritual” refers to a condition or quality produced by the Spirit—not something immaterial or disembodied.

The same applies in 1 Corinthians 15. The “natural body” (sōma psychikon) is the perishable, Adamic body. The “spiritual body” (sōma pneumatikon) is the same body, glorified and made immortal by the power of the Holy Spirit.

That’s why Paul goes on to say:

This perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (v. 53)

He doesn’t say, “The body is discarded and replaced.” He says: This body—the one subject to death—must be transformed. Paul is not denying the body’s physicality; he is emphasizing its transformation from corruptibility to glory. The reason Paul does not belabor the body’s physical substance is because its physicality is assumed, not in question. What is at issue is not whether the body will exist, but in what condition it will be raised. The contrast is not between physical and non-physical, but between mortal and immortal, dishonorable and glorious, natural and spiritual—that is, a body fitted for this age versus a body fitted for the age to come.

In Paul’s Theology in Context: Creation, Incarnation, Covenant, and Kingdom, James Ware notes:

Central to the belief that 1 Corinthians 15 excludes the resurrection of the flesh is the assumption that the “spiritual body” (sōma pneumatikon) in 15:44 refers to a body composed of spirit, distinct from the body of flesh laid in the tomb. However, this assumption is based on a misunderstanding of the actual lexical meaning of the key terms in question. The adjective Paul contrasts with pneumatikos (spiritual) is not sarkinos (fleshly), cognate with sarx (flesh), and thus referring to the flesh, but psychikos (literally “soulish”), cognate with psyche (soul), thus referring to the soul. This adjective is used in ancient Greek, without exception, with reference to the properties or activities of the soul (e.g., 4 Maccabees 1:32; Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 3.10.2; Epictetus, Discourses 3.7.5–7; Ps.-Plutarch, On the Opinions of the Philosophers 1.8). Modifying “body” (sōma), as here, with reference to the present body, the adjective describes this body as given life or activity by the soul. The adjective has nothing to do with the body’s composition, but denotes the source of the body’s life and activity.

The meaning of the adjective psychikos in 15:44 is extremely significant, for it reveals that the understanding of Paul’s term “spiritual body” as denoting a body composed of spirit involves a misreading of the passage. For if the sōma pneumatikon (“spiritual body”) in this context describes the composition of the future body, as a body composed solely of spirit, its correlate, sōma psychikon, would necessarily describe the composition of the present body, as a body composed only of soul. Paul would assert the absence of flesh and bones, not only from the risen body, but also from the present mortal body! The impossibility that psychikos here refers to the body’s composition rules out the notion that its correlated adjective pneumatikos refers to the body’s composition. Contrasted with psychikos, the adjective pneumatikos (spiritual) must similarly refer to the source of the body’s life and activity, describing the risen body as given life by the Spirit. The mode of existence here described by the adjective “spiritual” (pneumatikos) is further clarified by the larger context of the letter. For elsewhere in 1 Corinthians this adjective is uniformly used with reference to physical persons or material things enlivened, empowered, or transformed by the Spirit of God: flesh and blood human beings (2:15; 3:1; 14:37), palpable manna and water (10:3–4), and a very tangible rock (10:4). Used with “body” (sōma) in 15:44, the adjective pneumatikos (spiritual) indicates that the risen body will be given life and will be empowered by God’s Spirit.

Both contextual evidence and lexical evidence thus indicate that the phrase sōma pneumatikon, or “spiritual body,” in 1 Corinthians 15:44 does not refer to a body composed of spirit, but to the fleshly body endowed with imperishable life by the power of the Spirit. Although the expression “spiritual body” (sōma pneumatikon) is unique here in Paul, the concept of the Spirit as the giver of resurrection life is a major theme within Paul’s theology (Rom 8:9–11, 23; 2 Cor 5:4–5; Gal 5:25; 6:7–8). Within this theology, the work of the Spirit in those who belong to Christ will culminate in the resurrection, when “the One who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who indwells you” (Rom 8:11). This theme forms a common thread uniting Romans 8; 2 Corinthians 5; Galatians 5–6, and 1 Corinthians 15. The “spiritual body” of 1 Corinthians 15 is the body of flesh and bones given imperishable life by the power of the Spirit.¹

Imagine a master violinist who plays a century-old violin. Over time, the instrument begins to wear down—its strings fray, the wood loses resonance, and the varnish fades. Then one day, the violin is restored by a skilled luthier. The structure is the same. The wood, the frame, the form—it all remains. But now the strings are new, the soundboard rebalanced, the varnish renewed, and the resonance perfected. It is, in every way, the same violin, but gloriously transformed to fulfill its true purpose.

Now, imagine someone insisting that since the violin was described as “restored” or “refined,” that it must no longer be physical. That would miss the entire point. The material was never the issue; the condition was.

The Seed and the Body: Identity Through Transformation

Paul uses an agricultural metaphor: a seed is sown, and something more glorious grows out of it (vv. 36–38). But it’s not a different entity—it’s the same organism, now matured and glorified.

Christ’s own resurrection is the paradigm. His tomb was empty. He was raised bodily—yet glorified, no longer subject to death or decay. That’s the kind of resurrection Paul is describing. Not a mystical metaphor. Not a corporate covenant transition. A real, bodily resurrection like Christ’s.

But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. (v. 20)

You cannot have “firstfruits” without a corresponding harvest of the same kind.

The Real Danger

Hyper-preterists like to spiritualize the text until there’s no flesh left on it. They turn Paul’s glorious, future hope into a first-century abstraction. But if the resurrection is already past—or redefined, as Gary DeMar does—then death has not truly been defeated. The grave still wins. Christ is not the firstfruits of anything. And we are, as Paul says, of all people most to be pitied (v. 19).

The gospel hope is not that we’re raised symbolically or covenantally. The gospel hope is that:

He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. (Romans 8:11)

That’s not metaphor. That’s not ecclesiology. That’s resurrection.

1 Corinthians 15 teaches a bodily resurrection—plain and simple. “Spiritual body” does not mean non-physical. It means the same physical body, glorified and Spirit-empowered, never to die again.

To deny this is not just to misread Paul. It is to undermine the gospel itself, and to rob Christians of the very hope that has sustained the church for 2,000 years.

I’ll stick with Paul. And the empty tomb. And the future hope.

1. Ware, James P. 2019. Paul’s Theology in Context: Creation, Incarnation, Covenant, and Kingdom. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, pp. 165-167