What does the apostle Paul mean when he says, “There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another” (1 Cor. 15:40)?

The apostle Paul comes back to compare our body made of dust like Adam’s body to the body we shall receive which shall be like the body of Christ risen from the dead. There is no comparison between the glory of the body of dust and the glory of the heavenly spiritual body. In heaven, the body will be glorified, radiant, and perfect. Indeed, even in this world, our body of dust experiences the promise of inner glory and splendor — but on the day of the Lord He will “transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” (Phil. 3:21). And as the Lord Christ promised us, “Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43).

When He speaks here of heavenly bodies, He may not mean the sun, the moon, and the planets, but rather the angels and the ranks of heaven. They are spirits, but in comparison to God who is simple spirit, they are reckoned as having bodies. If we partake with them in the heavenly life, our bodies become spiritual; but they remain different to those of the heavenly

1292 St. Ambrose of Milan, On the Decease of His Brother Satyrus 2.60–61 (NPNF II/10:183) amended.

1293 Translators’ Note: cf. Theodore of Mopsuestia, “Catechetical Homilies,” in MacLeod, Fredrick G., Theodore of Mopsuestia , (Routledge, 2009): p.167.

beings. Perhaps by heavenly bodies He means the body of Christ risen from the dead and the bodies of the saints risen from the dead; and by earthly bodies, He means our bodies here in the temporal life on earth.

The scholar Origen says, “Certain beings are called earthly, and among them, i.e., among men, there is no small difference; for some of them are Barbarians, others Greeks; and of the Barbarians some are savage and fierce, and others of a milder disposition. And certain of them live under laws that have been thoroughly approved; others, again, under laws of a more common or severe kind; while some, again, possess customs of an inhuman and savage character, rather than laws.”¹²⁹⁴