It Is Sown; It Is Raised
By John R. Gavazzoni

It is an immutable principle in the eonian administration of God: The new arises out of old; all newness is by way of renewal; that which sprouts forth from the planted seed was within that seed before it was planted. Life comes forth out of death, as light does out of darkness. The New Man arises out from within the planted/sown old man.

The glory of the Father that raised Jesus from the dead was not sent into His body in the tomb from some far-away heaven in the sky. The glory was within that entombed body. The old man/humanity, crucified and buried with Christ, but transformed, is the New Man/Humanity that came forth out of the tomb in newness of Life. God didn't replace the dead body of Jesus with another body. He raised up that very body immortalized to an ascension of glorification. Brethren, the doctrine of the BODILY resurrection of Christ is an important doctrine, for if not, the material creation would be left in its bondage to decay. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the manifestation of the sons of God.

If we were to think anthropomorphically of God's thinking, i.e., sequentially, one thought following another, then God's thought-process for what He planned for His forming of the ages began with a plan for resurrection, for which purpose He instigated the entrance of death by sin into the world, followed by that death being passed upon all men. God desired a destiny for creation that could only be fully realized by life passing through death to glory.

The point at which Jesus will finish making all things new will be the point when the death passed on to all men from Adam reaches its critical mass, and out from within the midst of that ghastly mass will spring forth the radiance of God's glory intensified beyond all soulish imagination.

This is what Paul explained in 1 Cor. Chapter 15, with a special focus on verses 42 thru 49, interpreted within the context of the whole chapter, especially going back to his explanation of the nature of glory as it is found in resurrection:

From the KJV, in verses 42-49, the apostle explains the nature of resurrection. When he begins with, "it is," the "it" refers to back to resurrection, and goes on to explain that what is sown, is what is raised, repeating with each factor, "it." Same "it" sown and raised:

Paul is emphatically clear: the "it" that is sown, is the "it" that is raised; raised, to be sure, transformed from earthy to heavenly, because, as it is so of any seed sown; any seed planted, what sprouts comes forth out from within that which is planted/sown. When God created the first man, Adam, within Him was the last Man, Adam. The first man of the earth was created with the second Man from heaven within the depths of his humanness.

Our dear brother, J. Preston Eby saw it, writing of "the Seed of Christ in every man." That Seed is the Seed of the being that we have in the Being of God: "in Him, we live, and move, and have our being." In Romans, chapter 8, Paul wrote of God sending the Spirit of His Son into our hearts. From whence does He send the Spirit of Christ? Why, again, Paul is emphatically clear: He sends the Spirit of His Son into our hearts from within us, as earthy.

I am going to challenge the serious Bible students among my readers with this proposition: the self-emptying of Christ (in the Greek, His kenosis), began when the eternally-begotten Son of God descended to take up habitation in Adamic earthen-form. His self-emptying was completed when, on the cross, "He poured out His soul unto death."

There is only one humanity.

We must not think of there being two different, separate humanities. In its first appearance as the first man, Adam, the divine Seed within Him was hidden even from him. In the Second Man/Last Adam, the fullness of the Godhead bodily was manifest in Him, and known by Him; confirmed to Him by the voice from heaven at His baptism by John: "this is My beloved Son, in Whom I am well pleased."

The dust of the ground from which God formed Adam was not made out of nothing. That dust of the ground was glory dust, for "the whole earth is full of His glory." "Full" there refers to the constituting essence of the container, as the content and the container are of one substance. The glory of God is the essence of the Adamic container. The container was made of the content it contained. The Coke in the bottle of Coke, is of a different substance than the bottle, versus that which our humanity contains is its essence. This is why Paul could write, "for the man is the image and glory of God."

BUT, that creaturehood of Adam, with all creation, was made subject to vanity, futility, frustration, being caused to suffer a disconnect from its divine Origin. To return to the beginning of our article: it is sown in corruption, it (same "it") is raised in incorruption" etc., because the incorruption was within the corruption, awaiting when, "in the fullness of time, God sent forth His Son born of a woman...." who conceived by the Holy Spirit. He came, not from a far-away in the sky heaven, but from within the earthen womb and through the birth canal of Mary.

For a complementary perspective on this subject, the reader might want to check out our article, "Despising the Man of God."