1 Corinthians 15:42 It is the same with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. 15:43 It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 15:44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

Paul’s teaching here has led some to interpret the resurrection appearances of vv5-8 as non-physical, amounting to something like subjective visions.  Robert M. Price, for example, contrasts this early view of the resurrection as ‘spiritual’ (i.e. non-material) with that of the (later) Gospels, where it has become physical.

A similar misunderstanding allowed David Jenkins to claim that he believed in the resurrection ‘in exactly the same sense as St Paul believed in [it]’, and then to call it ‘not an event, but a series of experiences’ (quoted by Stott in The Contemporary Christian, p76f).

A little more recently, the then Dean of Perth, John Shepherd, had this to say in his 2008 Easter Message:

‘The Resurrection of Jesus ought not to be seen in physical terms, but as a new spiritual reality. It is important for Christians to be set free from the idea that the Resurrection was an extraordinary physical event which restored to life Jesus’ original earthly body.
…
‘Jesus’ early followers felt His presence after His death as strongly as if it were a physical presence and incorporated this sense of a resurrection experience into their gospel accounts. But they’re not historical records as we understand them. They are symbolic images of the breaking through of the resurrection spirit into human lives.
…
‘Jesus lived … as a transformed spiritual reality.’

For Mark Edward, the question is not whether Paul thought the body of Jesus had been buried.  It is, rather whether Paul thought the body that had been buried had been resurrected:

‘The question is whether Paul had any awareness that Jesus was buried in a tomb which was then found empty. This would require that Jesus’ resurrection body was the same body which had been buried in the first place, a mortal body restored to life and transformed to be immortal. This does not seem to reflect what Paul thought resurrection was. In his discourse on the nature of the resurrection, the only bodies Paul describes as being ‘transformed’ or ‘changed’ are those still alive when the eschaton arrives (1 Cor 15.50–57). Otherwise, ‘the resurrection of the dead’ consists of earthly, soulish bodies being traded for heavenly, spiritual bodies (1 Cor 15.42–49). He elsewhere compares the resurrection to an old tent being replaced with a new one, or old clothes replaced with new clothes (2 Cor 4.1–4). These analogies do not suggest a mortal body becoming immortal, but the person ‘inside’ the mortal body leaving it behind and later receiving an immortal body. The question of what happened to Jesus’ earthly body, whether it was buried in a mass grave or a tomb, whether it remained on earth or disappeared, may simply not have mattered to Paul. The person ‘inside’ the dead body buried in the earth below was translated into a living body in heaven above,46 which then appeared before his followers through visionary experiences. With Paul as our representative for how the first generation of Jesus-followers seem to have understood their Messiah’s resurrection (however widely we may apply Paul’s view to his contemporaries), the possibility should be explored if the ‘empty tomb’ concept originated with Mark’s author.’

Helen Bond remarks:

‘It is often pointed out that Paul never mentions an empty tomb, even though he carefully notes Jesus’ burial (1 Cor 15:4). His clear separation of “physical bodies” from “raised spiritual bodies” in 1 Corinthians 15:42–50 also seems to reduce the need for an empty grave.’

(The Historical Jesus: A Guide For The Perplexed.  Bond adds, rather weakly: ‘Yet, the story of the empty grave has its defenders.’)

See also this, by atheist Jonathan Pearce.

But even if we leave aside for the time being the witness of the Gospels and of Acts, that of 1 Cor 15 itself will not allow this.  For Paul, the resurrection was an objective, historical event: it occurred ‘on the third day’.  It was a physical event: the four verbs (died, was buried, was raised, appeared) all refer to Christ as a historical, physical person.  Since it was his body that was buried, it must have been his body (albeit transfigured) that was raised.

Paul’s very reference to a ‘spiritual body’ counts decisively against the notion that he thought of the resurrection as involving the spirit only.  An immaterial body would be a contradiction in terms.

The contrast in this verse is not between ‘physical’ and ‘non-physical’, but between ‘natural’ and ‘spiritual’.  And ‘spiritual body’ does not mean ‘ethereal body’, but rather

‘the new body, animated by the Spirit of God, with which the same man will be clothed and equipped in the age to come, which he reaches (supposing him to die before the parousia) by way of resurrection.’ (Barrett)

Murray Harris: ‘sōma pneumatikon means not “a body composed of spirit,” but “a body animated by the spirit” or “a body controlled by the spirit.”’ (Navigating Tough Texts)

Harris identifies the following characteristics of the resurrection body.  It is:

• imperishable (1 Cor 15:42, 53–54), free from any form of decay or sickness;
• glorious (1 Cor 15:43a), free of physical indignity (“dishonor”) and beautiful in form and appearance;
• powerful (1 Cor 15:43b), with limitless energy and perfect health; and
• angel-like (Luke 20:35–36), not because the resurrection body is sexless (sexual identity, an essential element in personality, is retained in the resurrection) but because it is deathless (Luke 20:35–36) and without sexual passions and procreative powers (Matt 22:30; Mark 12:25).  (Emphasis added)

So why does the apostle refer to it as a ‘spiritual’ body?  Vang writes:

‘The present body shall be changed into a body fit for its new reality in God’s restored order. Paul’s aim is not to contrast body and spirit, or to say that “body” is transformed into spirit. Rather, he explains that the resurrected body will have none of the weaknesses of the natural body and therefore be fit for God’s eternal kingdom (Rom. 8:21–23).’

A note in the Apologetics Study Bible asks:

‘Are the spiritual bodies believers will have at the coming resurrection nonmaterial bodies? If so, it would imply that Christ’s risen body was nonmaterial. This, however, was not what Paul meant. Rather, descendants of fallen Adam cannot enter God’s kingdom unchanged. The “spiritual body” is a true body—a material body—but a transformed body. The two bodies being contrasted are not “physical” vs. “spiritual” but rather “soul-oriented [psychikon]” vs. “Spirit-oriented [pneumatikon].” (see 1 Cor 2:14–15, where Paul speaks of the ‘spiritual man’, contrasting the psychikos person, or the natural/this-worldly-oriented person, with the pneumatikos, or the believer, who has God’s Spirit.)’ (Apologetics Study Bible)

Wayne Grudem:

‘By “spiritual body” Paul does not mean “immaterial,” but rather “suited to and responsive to the guidance of the Spirit.” In the Pauline epistles, the word “spiritual” (Gk. πνευματικός) seldom means “nonphysical” but rather “consistent with the character and activity of the Holy Spirit” (see, e.g., Rom. 1:11; 7:14; 1 Cor. 2:13, 15; 3:1; 14:37; Gal. 6:1 [“you who are spiritual; Eph. 5:19). The RSV translation, “It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body,” is very misleading, because Paul does not use the word that was available to him if he had meant to speak of a physical body (Gk. σωματικός), but rather uses the word ψυχικός, which means, in this context, “natural” (so NIV, NASB), that is, a body that is living in its own life and strength and in the characteristics of this present age but is not fully subject to and conforming to the character and will of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, a clearer paraphrase would be, “It is sown a natural body subject to the characteristics and desires of this age, and governed by its own sinful will, but it is raised a spiritual body, completely subject to the will of the Holy Spirit and responsive to the Holy Spirit’s guidance.” Such a body is not at all “nonphysical,” but it is a physical body raised to the degree of perfection for which God originally intended it.’ (Grudem, Systematic Theology, 609)

C.S.Lewis writes about the resurrection body:

‘The picture is not what we expected. … It is not the picture of an escape from any and every kind of Nature into some unconditioned and utterly transcendent life. It is the picture of a new human nature, and a new Nature in general, being brought into existence. … That is the picture—not of unmaking but of remaking. The old field of space, time, matter and the senses is to be weeded, dug, and sown for a new crop. We may be tired of that old field; God is not. … A new Nature is being not merely made but made out of an old one. We live amid all the anomalies, inconveniences, hopes, and excitements of a house that is being rebuilt. Something is being pulled down and something is going up in its place.’ (Miracles)

Richard Baxter writes:

‘If a skilful workman can turn a little earth and ashes into such curious transparent glasses as we daily see, and if a little seed that beats no show of such a thing can produce the more beautiful flowers of the earth, and if a little acorn can bring forth the greatest oak; why should we once doubt whether the seed of everlasting life and glory, which is now in the blessed souls with Christ, can by Him communicate a perfection to the flesh that is dissolved into its elements?’

Tom Wright agrees that Paul does not mean to imply immateriality by his description of the resurrection body as ‘spiritual’.  The point is that our resurrection bodies, while being physical (just as Jesus’ resurrection body is physical) will be animated by God’s Spirit and therefore imperishable and immortal.

Martin Davie concludes that (again, just as in Jesus’ case) the physicality of the resurrection body implies maleness or femaleness.  We shall be men and women for eternity.  Marriage, however, will have no place in heaven:

‘Marriage, and sexual intercourse within marriage leading to procreation, are necessary features of life in this world in order to fulfil the divine mandate to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ given in Genesis 1:28. However, when God lowers the curtain on this world and raises it on the world to come that mandate will have been fulfilled. The number of people God wills to inhabit his eternal kingdom will have been brought into existence and because there will be no death their number will not diminish. Hence there will be no need for procreative sex, hence there will be no more need for one flesh unions, and hence there will be no more marriage.’

Lest we suppose that the absence of marriage and sexual intercourse will somehow diminish the blessedness of heaven, let us ask what will one day exclude such desires:

‘The answer is ‘marriage.’ In the next world another form of marriage will replace and fulfil marriage and sexual activity as we experience them in this world.  We are told this in the Bible. In the Old Testament human marriages are repeatedly used as pictures of God’s relationship with his people (e.g., Isaiah 54:6, Ezekiel 16:8, Hosea 2:19-20). Then, in the New Testament, Jesus’ relationship with his Church is compared to that of a bridegroom and his bride (e.g., John 3:27-30, 2 Corinthians 11:2, Ephesians 5:21-33). Finally, we are told to expect the ‘marriage of the Lamb’ at the end of time, that is, the marriage between God and humanity that will endure for eternity (Revelation 19:6-9, 21:2 & 9). This eternal marriage is the ‘fullness’ to which marriage and sexual activity in this world point.’