Became or Not Became - Interpreting 1Cor 15:45

[OBW]

Originally Posted by awareness

Let's move on to another part of the verse:

"And so it is written ..."

Where was it written? Was it lost to us?

Not really. Genesis 2:7

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

God formed man and gave him His breath, making him (man) a living being/soul. Of course, the discussion is not really about the contents of the body, but the body itself. It is not about the soul that dwells in the body, but the body itself. Then as a result of death and resurrection, that body rises differently, consistent with what was seen in Jesus. The raised body is spiritual. That is the only comment Paul makes on the change in the body. You then have to consider what it is that the written accounts tell us about the resurrected body. Solid (at least at times) since Jesus had to tell Mary not to cling to him, and he later told Thomas to reach out and touch the scars. But also like what we classify as a ghost or specter. It could not be there, then just be there. The once again disappear. And it simply rose from the ground into the heavens. It was not obedient to the laws of physics that we humans are stuck with in this life.

Were there more descriptions of the body of the resurrected Jesus than were recorded in the scriptures we now have? Probably. Did the Corinthians hear some of this? Unknown. But they heard some of it. And probably at least what we now have. And Paul drew upon that to answer the question “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” (v 35). Yes, this little discussion is quite long. It starts in v 35 and is still going when Paul says "He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" in verse 57. Then the chapter ends with v 58 in which Paul turns them from speculations about the future to the present as the grounds for the future when he says "stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain."

And this is the reason that an eight word, half-verse declaration about the nature of the Trinity (Christ became the Holy Spirit) seems so out of place.

BTW. I say that "became" is implied because, thought I did not consult the Greek, it is seldom that the translators leave out a word. But they sometimes fill-in words that are implied. Here, the word "became" is stated with respect to Adam becoming a living soul/being. But it is not stated with respect to the last Adam. It says "the last Adam, a life-giving (or quickening) spirit." But "became" is fully implied by the parallelism of the two fragments. There is really no other way to understand it. So it might as well have been stated because that is clearly what is meant.