1 Corinthians 15:40

40 Further, there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but the beauty of heavenly bodies is one thing, while the beauty of earthly bodies is something else.

1 Corinthians 15:40 Meaning and Commentary

1 Corinthians 15:40

There are also celestial bodies
Or bodies in the heavens, as the sun, moon, and stars:

and bodies terrestrial;
or bodies on earth, animate and inanimate, men, beasts, trees, minerals

But the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the
terrestrial is another:
though both sorts are bodies, yet their qualities differ, and there is a greater glory in the one than in the other. This is another similitude, serving to help our ideas of this doctrine of the resurrection of the body; that though it is the same in substance, yet different in qualities; and does not design any difference between the bodies of good men and bad men, elect and reprobate; as if the one were intended by the celestial bodies, and the other by the terrestrial; and much less degrees of glory in the saints themselves, who, imagine them in as low a form as can be, can never be compared to terrestrial ones; but it shows the difference there will be between the raised bodies and the present ones; which will be as great as that which now is between celestial and terrestrial bodies.

1 Corinthians 15:40 In-Context

38 but God gives it the body he intended for it; and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

39 Not all living matter is the same living matter; on the contrary, there is one kind for human beings, another kind of living matter for animals, another for birds and another for fish.

40 Further, there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; but the beauty of heavenly bodies is one thing, while the beauty of earthly bodies is something else.

41 The sun has one kind of beauty, the moon another, the stars yet another; indeed, each star has its own individual kind of beauty.

42 So it is with the resurrection of the dead. When the body is "sown," it decays; when it is raised, it cannot decay.