The Resurrection Of The Body
Adult study
As We Believe, So We Behave
Living the Apostles' Creed
Object:
"I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body...."
As I began to ponder this affirmation, I asked my dear wife what I could say that would be new and exciting and interesting about "I believe in the resurrection of the body." Her response: "I have no idea; it has never been a burning issue with me." What's that you say? Amen? True enough, this is not a subject upon which we dwell too much. Except in the face of death, we almost never consider it. But when confronted with issues of mortality ... our own or that of those we love ... we become interested.
"I believe in the resurrection of the body." The affirmation is virtually impossible to explain. The best minds in the church have labored for nearly twenty centuries to do so. The language itself is a problem. After all, we know that, following death, our bodies deteriorate: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," as our funeral services say. The most secure burial vault in the world will not prevent the process. We remember the little boy who looks under his bed, sees the dust bunnies, remembers the dust-to-dust language, and yells to Mom, "Come quick and check under this bed. If I'm not mistaken, we got somebody here either comin' or goin'."
Perhaps that is one of the reasons so many folks, when thinking about what life lies beyond this one, use phrases like the "immortality of the soul" rather than "resurrection of the body." Indeed, nowhere in scripture is it said that the soul will survive death in some inevitable and automatic fashion, as though the soul were ultimately independent of the body and had some kind of inherent immortality. That is a Greek idea. Greek philosophers described the soul as a little spark of the divine temporarily imprisoned within a material body (which is inherently evil). The body -- the prison house -- is of this world and will die, but the spirit, the spark, is immortal and is released from the "prison house" upon death. It is this spiritual part of us human beings that will survive death. So said the Greeks. But the Hebrews saw the issue quite differently. A human being is not easily separable into body and soul, but is an integrated, indivisible unit, everything combining to make a person. If there is to be a future life, then somehow God has to re-create the whole person after death, not just this or that part. Understand this: In Christian teaching, eternal life is not due to some property intrinsic to the soul; it is entirely a gift of God.
So saying, the church continues to use the "immortal soul" language without batting a theological eye. As Al Winn suggests, the picture of it is clear in our minds: The body is the cocoon, the soul is the butterfly. The soul flutters away in the sunlight, and no one has any further regard for the dry, decaying, discarded cocoon.1 Then we are jolted by this weekly affirmation concerning belief in the resurrection of the body.
We do have a bit of a love-hate relationship with our bodies, don't we? On the one hand, we try to take care of them. We wash them, shave them, primp them, paint them, nourish them, exercise them, occasionally indulge them, and do all in our power to ease their pains. On the other hand, the result of all that effort is rarely satisfactory: too big, too little, bad hair, no hair, and, as time goes on, everything just sags.
Two elderly residents of a nursing home were sitting in the lounge when suddenly a sweet old lady wandered out of her room and down the hall without any clothes. One said to the other, "Did you see that?" The second responded, "Yeah, but whatever she was wearing sure needed ironing."
Be honest -- do you really want this body, this old cocoon, resurrected? Not me. There is too much about this one that is wrong! First and foremost, there is too much of it. All my life I have had to fight the battle of the bulge, and I am tired of it. My resurrection body will be skinny; after all, scripture says there will be no more tears in heaven, and if I am not skinny, I will cry! Then there are the ears that do not hear properly, eyes that need glasses, the nose that gets clogged during allergy seasons, the blood pressure that wants to make medical history, and, in general, a mind that writes checks that the body cannot cash. Sound familiar? Is this what we want to rise again? Get real!
Week in and week out we say, "I believe in the resurrection of the body." Why? Simple. This is what the Bible teaches.
Check out 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. Questions had been raised in the church in Corinth concerning a Christian understanding of life after death. For the apostle Paul, it came down to one word: resurrection. First, there was the resurrection of Jesus. Then there will be resurrection for us all. What will that entail, these Corinthians ask. After all, they had heard the stories about Jesus' bodily resurrection from the tomb, but their Greek heritage had trained them to discount the body (the "prison house") as evil and something to be gratefully discarded. Resurrection of the body? What kind of body will this be?
This is no foolish question. There are oodles of possibilities. What about the fourteen-year-old girl killed in an automobile accident; will she be perpetually fourteen? Or the lady who succumbed to a long battle with cancer at age 68; will she be 68? What about those who die in infancy or what about aborted fetuses? How about those who have lost arms or legs in accidents? What about the thalidomide babies born with seal flippers? Will we still be male and female with all the appropriate equipment? People have been amused for a good many years (in a gruesome sort of way) by a newspaper account some years ago with the heading, "Who Ate Roger Williams' Bones?" A historical society set out to dig up Roger Williams' bones and bury them in a better place only to discover that an apple tree had grown on his original burial plot, and much of Roger Williams had ended up in apples, and the apples had ended up in a lot of other people.2 What about old Roger?
The apostle Paul answers with an analogy: a seed. The seed is put in the ground and "dies," but in due time it rises again; and does so with a very different kind of body from that with which it was sown. What that says is what we shall be on the other side is somehow contained in who we are on this side, but writ very large. Just as the apple tree comes from the apple seed and the peach tree from the peach seed -- from the very seed that dies, not from some seed-in-general -- so we shall come from the body-mind combination we are now, but far more than anyone could tell by looking at us now.
Speaking of looking at us, the question of recognizability arises. If we go through such an amazing metamorphosis as seed to tree, will anyone be able to tell who we are? Absolutely. What has been our experience up to this point? In our lives, we have gone through major bodily changes -- infancy, childhood, adulthood, and beyond. Science tells us that our bodies go through a 100% cellular change every seven years -- that means if you are 35, you have already gone through five brand new bodies. But you are still you, and your friends and family know you as you -- amazing.
On a deeper level, the answer to the recognizability question must be absolute! Recognizability is the key to our identity. For example, if I suddenly, in a fit of insanity, chose to throw over my life and all that is in it, head off to a new part of the country to establish a new life and a new name, nothing could stop me unless someone recognized me. Our identity, for good or ill, is inextricably tied to being recognized. If, right at this moment, no one recognized David Leininger, I may as well be Joe Blow. If, when I get to the other side, and this fat seed becomes a skinny tree, but no one recognizes me, I'll be Joe Blow all over again. We will know one another or else resurrection is not worth the bother.
"I believe in the resurrection of the body." Yes, the body will be different. Paul says, "The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable" (1 Corinthians 15:42). He knew just as we all do that these earthly bodies of ours deteriorate. On the other side, what a change! Musicians won't go deaf; artists won't go blind; singers won't lose their voices. No more of the physical limitations that keep us from being all that we can be.
Paul says the change involves more than just physical characteristics. He says, "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory" (1 Corinthians 15:43a). For many of us, some of the saddest pages in the history of our lives came because passions got out of hand. We read about the epidemic of AIDS, the madness of child abuse, the insanity of drunken drivers murdering people on the highway. Yes, we dishonor the bodies we have, but our resurrection bodies will have passions we can control. What a blessing that will be!
Paul says the blessings will not stop even there: "It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power" (1 Corinthians 15:43b). Have you ever felt limited by the body you have? Of course! And the older we get, the more frequently we feel it. Nothing to be ashamed of -- it is a fact of life. Quite frankly, many of God's creatures have far more ounce-for-ounce capability than we humans do. The lowly little ant has a life span of all of eight or ten weeks and then passes on into oblivion. Even that insignificant little ant is able to carry burdens that are nineteen times heavier than itself. Can we do that? Not without a truck! Will we be able to do that with our new resurrection bodies? Who knows? Paul does not give us the details. We can be sure that our capacities will be significantly improved.
Then there is one more thing: Paul says, "It is sown a natural (or physical) body, it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:44). That does not mean we will be Casper the Friendly Ghost. We will have a body! But it is going to be different from what we are used to. The simplest way to explain it is to say that our capacity for spiritual things will be enhanced. For those who struggle to worship for even an hour a week, one would certainly hope.
There is one other aspect of the resurrection life that is important to us, which Paul does not discuss in this chapter ... family reunion. Paul did not discuss it, but Jesus did.
If you recall, some folks who did not believe in life after death confronted Jesus one day with a strange scenario (Matthew 22:23-28). They described a childless woman whose husband died. Tradition demanded that her husband's brother marry her, which he did -- then he died. The next brother married her and he died. This first-century Typhoid Mary went through seven brothers before she finally ran out (and I tell you, had I been number six or seven, I would have run out). The question posed to Jesus was, "In the afterlife, whose wife will she be?" Jesus responded, "Don't worry about that. Family relationships are going to be different over there."
Oh, really? Frankly, the idea of an afterlife for me without my wife and children would be hell, not heaven. But if we think about it without emotion getting in the way, we realize that if God says earthly relationships will be changed, the change will be for the better. If God has not chosen to explain just how the changes will be made, perhaps it is because we would not understand the explanation anyway.
My children are grown. David likes women, Erin likes men. This is a bit of a change for them, because I can recall a time not many years ago that neither one cared very much for the opposite sex. I could have told them back then that things would change, but it would not have mattered. I could have explained to them the incredible joy of married love as they will eventually experience it, but what good would that have done? They would not have understood. Only when they began to mature were they able to appreciate anything I might say on that subject. That analogy may explain why God has not chosen to let us in on what kind of relationships are in store for us in heaven. We would not understand anyway.
Again, Paul says:
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory ... Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
-- 1 Corinthians 15:54-57
"I believe in the resurrection of the body!" Remember, as we believe, so we behave. "Therefore, my dear brothers (and sisters)," Paul says, "Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." Yes!
"I believe in the resurrection of the body." Not just any body, either. In the richly descriptive words of John Killinger, "It will be glorious, like the 'Hallelujah Chorus' in the flesh, embodied in a person. Like the sun breaking over the Rocky Mountains in the early morning or settling its colorful petticoats along the Pacific shore at twilight. Like a thousand mockingbirds all whistling and yodeling and singing in unison, or a flock of a million flamingos all taking flight at once!"3 That will be glory!
Yes, I believe. "I believe in the resurrection of the body."
____________
1. Albert Curry Winn, A Christian Primer: The Prayer, The Creed, The Commandments (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 176.
2. Addison Leitch, A Layman's Guide to Presbyterian Beliefs (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 1967), p. 133.
3. John Killinger, You Are What You Believe: The Apostles' Creed for Today (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), p. 115.
Questions For Reflection
1. If the issue of "the resurrection of the body" was never a burning issue for the author's wife, has it ever been for you? Why or why not?
2. What will your resurrection body look like?
3. What would you like to be able to do with your new body that you are not able to do now?
4. What would your life be like if no one were able to recognize you?
5. If family relationships are to be different (and we trust better) in the resurrection, what differences would you like to see?
As I began to ponder this affirmation, I asked my dear wife what I could say that would be new and exciting and interesting about "I believe in the resurrection of the body." Her response: "I have no idea; it has never been a burning issue with me." What's that you say? Amen? True enough, this is not a subject upon which we dwell too much. Except in the face of death, we almost never consider it. But when confronted with issues of mortality ... our own or that of those we love ... we become interested.
"I believe in the resurrection of the body." The affirmation is virtually impossible to explain. The best minds in the church have labored for nearly twenty centuries to do so. The language itself is a problem. After all, we know that, following death, our bodies deteriorate: "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust," as our funeral services say. The most secure burial vault in the world will not prevent the process. We remember the little boy who looks under his bed, sees the dust bunnies, remembers the dust-to-dust language, and yells to Mom, "Come quick and check under this bed. If I'm not mistaken, we got somebody here either comin' or goin'."
Perhaps that is one of the reasons so many folks, when thinking about what life lies beyond this one, use phrases like the "immortality of the soul" rather than "resurrection of the body." Indeed, nowhere in scripture is it said that the soul will survive death in some inevitable and automatic fashion, as though the soul were ultimately independent of the body and had some kind of inherent immortality. That is a Greek idea. Greek philosophers described the soul as a little spark of the divine temporarily imprisoned within a material body (which is inherently evil). The body -- the prison house -- is of this world and will die, but the spirit, the spark, is immortal and is released from the "prison house" upon death. It is this spiritual part of us human beings that will survive death. So said the Greeks. But the Hebrews saw the issue quite differently. A human being is not easily separable into body and soul, but is an integrated, indivisible unit, everything combining to make a person. If there is to be a future life, then somehow God has to re-create the whole person after death, not just this or that part. Understand this: In Christian teaching, eternal life is not due to some property intrinsic to the soul; it is entirely a gift of God.
So saying, the church continues to use the "immortal soul" language without batting a theological eye. As Al Winn suggests, the picture of it is clear in our minds: The body is the cocoon, the soul is the butterfly. The soul flutters away in the sunlight, and no one has any further regard for the dry, decaying, discarded cocoon.1 Then we are jolted by this weekly affirmation concerning belief in the resurrection of the body.
We do have a bit of a love-hate relationship with our bodies, don't we? On the one hand, we try to take care of them. We wash them, shave them, primp them, paint them, nourish them, exercise them, occasionally indulge them, and do all in our power to ease their pains. On the other hand, the result of all that effort is rarely satisfactory: too big, too little, bad hair, no hair, and, as time goes on, everything just sags.
Two elderly residents of a nursing home were sitting in the lounge when suddenly a sweet old lady wandered out of her room and down the hall without any clothes. One said to the other, "Did you see that?" The second responded, "Yeah, but whatever she was wearing sure needed ironing."
Be honest -- do you really want this body, this old cocoon, resurrected? Not me. There is too much about this one that is wrong! First and foremost, there is too much of it. All my life I have had to fight the battle of the bulge, and I am tired of it. My resurrection body will be skinny; after all, scripture says there will be no more tears in heaven, and if I am not skinny, I will cry! Then there are the ears that do not hear properly, eyes that need glasses, the nose that gets clogged during allergy seasons, the blood pressure that wants to make medical history, and, in general, a mind that writes checks that the body cannot cash. Sound familiar? Is this what we want to rise again? Get real!
Week in and week out we say, "I believe in the resurrection of the body." Why? Simple. This is what the Bible teaches.
Check out 1 Corinthians, chapter 15. Questions had been raised in the church in Corinth concerning a Christian understanding of life after death. For the apostle Paul, it came down to one word: resurrection. First, there was the resurrection of Jesus. Then there will be resurrection for us all. What will that entail, these Corinthians ask. After all, they had heard the stories about Jesus' bodily resurrection from the tomb, but their Greek heritage had trained them to discount the body (the "prison house") as evil and something to be gratefully discarded. Resurrection of the body? What kind of body will this be?
This is no foolish question. There are oodles of possibilities. What about the fourteen-year-old girl killed in an automobile accident; will she be perpetually fourteen? Or the lady who succumbed to a long battle with cancer at age 68; will she be 68? What about those who die in infancy or what about aborted fetuses? How about those who have lost arms or legs in accidents? What about the thalidomide babies born with seal flippers? Will we still be male and female with all the appropriate equipment? People have been amused for a good many years (in a gruesome sort of way) by a newspaper account some years ago with the heading, "Who Ate Roger Williams' Bones?" A historical society set out to dig up Roger Williams' bones and bury them in a better place only to discover that an apple tree had grown on his original burial plot, and much of Roger Williams had ended up in apples, and the apples had ended up in a lot of other people.2 What about old Roger?
The apostle Paul answers with an analogy: a seed. The seed is put in the ground and "dies," but in due time it rises again; and does so with a very different kind of body from that with which it was sown. What that says is what we shall be on the other side is somehow contained in who we are on this side, but writ very large. Just as the apple tree comes from the apple seed and the peach tree from the peach seed -- from the very seed that dies, not from some seed-in-general -- so we shall come from the body-mind combination we are now, but far more than anyone could tell by looking at us now.
Speaking of looking at us, the question of recognizability arises. If we go through such an amazing metamorphosis as seed to tree, will anyone be able to tell who we are? Absolutely. What has been our experience up to this point? In our lives, we have gone through major bodily changes -- infancy, childhood, adulthood, and beyond. Science tells us that our bodies go through a 100% cellular change every seven years -- that means if you are 35, you have already gone through five brand new bodies. But you are still you, and your friends and family know you as you -- amazing.
On a deeper level, the answer to the recognizability question must be absolute! Recognizability is the key to our identity. For example, if I suddenly, in a fit of insanity, chose to throw over my life and all that is in it, head off to a new part of the country to establish a new life and a new name, nothing could stop me unless someone recognized me. Our identity, for good or ill, is inextricably tied to being recognized. If, right at this moment, no one recognized David Leininger, I may as well be Joe Blow. If, when I get to the other side, and this fat seed becomes a skinny tree, but no one recognizes me, I'll be Joe Blow all over again. We will know one another or else resurrection is not worth the bother.
"I believe in the resurrection of the body." Yes, the body will be different. Paul says, "The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable" (1 Corinthians 15:42). He knew just as we all do that these earthly bodies of ours deteriorate. On the other side, what a change! Musicians won't go deaf; artists won't go blind; singers won't lose their voices. No more of the physical limitations that keep us from being all that we can be.
Paul says the change involves more than just physical characteristics. He says, "It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory" (1 Corinthians 15:43a). For many of us, some of the saddest pages in the history of our lives came because passions got out of hand. We read about the epidemic of AIDS, the madness of child abuse, the insanity of drunken drivers murdering people on the highway. Yes, we dishonor the bodies we have, but our resurrection bodies will have passions we can control. What a blessing that will be!
Paul says the blessings will not stop even there: "It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power" (1 Corinthians 15:43b). Have you ever felt limited by the body you have? Of course! And the older we get, the more frequently we feel it. Nothing to be ashamed of -- it is a fact of life. Quite frankly, many of God's creatures have far more ounce-for-ounce capability than we humans do. The lowly little ant has a life span of all of eight or ten weeks and then passes on into oblivion. Even that insignificant little ant is able to carry burdens that are nineteen times heavier than itself. Can we do that? Not without a truck! Will we be able to do that with our new resurrection bodies? Who knows? Paul does not give us the details. We can be sure that our capacities will be significantly improved.
Then there is one more thing: Paul says, "It is sown a natural (or physical) body, it is raised a spiritual body" (1 Corinthians 15:44). That does not mean we will be Casper the Friendly Ghost. We will have a body! But it is going to be different from what we are used to. The simplest way to explain it is to say that our capacity for spiritual things will be enhanced. For those who struggle to worship for even an hour a week, one would certainly hope.
There is one other aspect of the resurrection life that is important to us, which Paul does not discuss in this chapter ... family reunion. Paul did not discuss it, but Jesus did.
If you recall, some folks who did not believe in life after death confronted Jesus one day with a strange scenario (Matthew 22:23-28). They described a childless woman whose husband died. Tradition demanded that her husband's brother marry her, which he did -- then he died. The next brother married her and he died. This first-century Typhoid Mary went through seven brothers before she finally ran out (and I tell you, had I been number six or seven, I would have run out). The question posed to Jesus was, "In the afterlife, whose wife will she be?" Jesus responded, "Don't worry about that. Family relationships are going to be different over there."
Oh, really? Frankly, the idea of an afterlife for me without my wife and children would be hell, not heaven. But if we think about it without emotion getting in the way, we realize that if God says earthly relationships will be changed, the change will be for the better. If God has not chosen to explain just how the changes will be made, perhaps it is because we would not understand the explanation anyway.
My children are grown. David likes women, Erin likes men. This is a bit of a change for them, because I can recall a time not many years ago that neither one cared very much for the opposite sex. I could have told them back then that things would change, but it would not have mattered. I could have explained to them the incredible joy of married love as they will eventually experience it, but what good would that have done? They would not have understood. Only when they began to mature were they able to appreciate anything I might say on that subject. That analogy may explain why God has not chosen to let us in on what kind of relationships are in store for us in heaven. We would not understand anyway.
Again, Paul says:
When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: "Death has been swallowed up in victory ... Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
-- 1 Corinthians 15:54-57
"I believe in the resurrection of the body!" Remember, as we believe, so we behave. "Therefore, my dear brothers (and sisters)," Paul says, "Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain." Yes!
"I believe in the resurrection of the body." Not just any body, either. In the richly descriptive words of John Killinger, "It will be glorious, like the 'Hallelujah Chorus' in the flesh, embodied in a person. Like the sun breaking over the Rocky Mountains in the early morning or settling its colorful petticoats along the Pacific shore at twilight. Like a thousand mockingbirds all whistling and yodeling and singing in unison, or a flock of a million flamingos all taking flight at once!"3 That will be glory!
Yes, I believe. "I believe in the resurrection of the body."
____________
1. Albert Curry Winn, A Christian Primer: The Prayer, The Creed, The Commandments (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1990), p. 176.
2. Addison Leitch, A Layman's Guide to Presbyterian Beliefs (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing, 1967), p. 133.
3. John Killinger, You Are What You Believe: The Apostles' Creed for Today (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990), p. 115.
Questions For Reflection
1. If the issue of "the resurrection of the body" was never a burning issue for the author's wife, has it ever been for you? Why or why not?
2. What will your resurrection body look like?
3. What would you like to be able to do with your new body that you are not able to do now?
4. What would your life be like if no one were able to recognize you?
5. If family relationships are to be different (and we trust better) in the resurrection, what differences would you like to see?
