The Resurrection of the Body

Second Wednesday after Pentecost

First, thanks to Chris for the kind and comforting comment and to Ed for his personal email to me. It turns out that Ed is an academic grandson of Nathan Scott, whom I wrote about yesterday. As an undergraduate at Wake Forest, Ed studied under Ralph Wood. Ralph Wood got his Ph.D. at U.Va; Nathan Scott was his supervisor. 

Today we continue our examination of difficult things for some to believe in the Apostles' Creed. "I believe in the resurrection of the body." I fear that many who recite the creed think that "the body" here means the body of Jesus. The creed is actually talking about our bodies, all bodies. The belief is that at the time of the return of Christ, all who have lived will be bodily resurrected for the final judgment. Those judged for heaven (and I think that's just about everybody) will live eternally and bodily in what Paul calls "the spiritual body." I'll get to the meaning of "spiritual body" in a moment.

I think most Christians don't really believe this. Most believe that at the point of death the soul leaves the body and goes to heaven to be with God. The body remains on earth. The two are thereafter forever separate. To this view I want to say in the strongest possible terms that nowhere in the Bible does it say that the soul leaves the body and goes to heaven. The consistent New Testament concept is that of the bodily resurrection. 

Although the bodily resurrection is referenced in numerous places in the New Testament, the most thorough explanation of it comes from Paul in 1 Corinthians 15. In verses 35-41 Paul gives the analogy of a seed being planted, then a plant springing forth from the seed. Our physical bodies are planted on, and eventually in the earth (if we are buried). As the flower springs from the seed, so will our spiritual bodies spring from our physical bodies. Paul then writes,

"So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in glory. It is sown a physical body, it is raise a spiritual body." In verses 50-55 Paul explains the differences between the physical body and the spiritual body. The physical body dies. The spiritual body lives forever. The physical body is perishable; the spiritual, imperishable. The physical body is limited by time and space; the spiritual body can go anywhere at anytime. Like the physical body, the spiritual body is tangible. It can touch and be touched, see and be seen, hear and be heard. It is no a disembodied soul or spirit.

Our one example of a spiritual body on earth is the resurrected body of Jesus. The resurrection accounts in the gospels all show Jesus in bodily form: seen, heard, and touched, yet not confined by the physical strictures of time and space. He can appear into a closed and locked upper room room without going through the door. He can eat with the couple on the road to Emmaus, then disappear from their sight. Thomas will touch him. 

Paul calls the resurrected Jesus the first fruits of the resurrection. We will be in the rest of the resurrection. From death to resurrection will happen, as Paul says, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. We sleep from death to resurrection, but with no sense of time loss for either us or those who have gone before us or those who come after us. 

I want to stress again that it is a bodily resurrection. The idea of disembodied soul derives not from the Bible but from Greek philosophy going all the way back to Hesiod in the 7th century BC. The idea was popularized by Plato in the late fifth and early fourth centuries BC. It came into Christianity in the second century through the writings of Platonist Christians, most specifically Justin Martyr and Origen. It has remained in Christianity ever since. It may be right, but it isn't Biblical. Read 1 Corinthians 15 for yourself.

I believe in the resurrection of the body.

Faithfully,

Christian