Kinds of Bodies

How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.  When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.                                          I Corinthians 15:36-41

 

There is a scene in the movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves  where Morgan Freeman’s character is asked by a little girl why God painted him black. He responded, “Because [God] loves diversity.” The creative genius of our Heavenly Father is beyond our understanding. The vastness and complexity of His creation is more developed than we will ever know. His attention to detail is unmatched.

 

In this passage, Paul scratches the surface of the wonders of God’s creation. He discusses the bafflement that comes when we ponder how God creates life out of death, fits the genetics of large bodies into tiny seeds, and gives even the stars unique attributes and identities. We wonder why He went to such lengths to make every star different or every snowflake its own design. Perhaps it is because He likes it that way. Perhaps it reflects how deeply He cares about every atom and cell. Assuredly, it lends evidence of intelligent design for our planet.

 

How unchanging God is in the consistency of His creation. Apple seeds only produce apple trees. A deer only gives birth to fawns. Only heavenly bodies can create the splendor of other heavenly bodies. We can bend the lines of God’s creation with cross-breeding and hybridization, but God only allows the rules to be bent so far. A hybrid plant cannot reproduce itself, giving only smaller, sterile seeds or producing a plant that flashes back to one of the original varieties. A hybrid animal, such as a mule, cannot produce offspring.

 

Man can manipulate God’s gift of life, but we cannot create life from that which is dead. That power is in God’s hands alone. In fact, He has imbedded it into the very fabric of nature itself so that a seed must die before it can bring forth fruit. Jesus also had to die to give us eternal life.