The Resurrection of the Body (Apostles’ Creed) (12/13)
This article was first published in French at TPSG.
Why is the resurrection of the body so important that it is included as one of only 12 statements enshrined in the Creed that define the Christian faith to this day? In this article, I attempt to answer this question through the witness of Scripture and of Church History.
The Corinthian Context
Apparently, teaching was circulating in Corinth that there was no physical resurrection for the believer, that the future resurrection would be merely spiritual. Such an idea persisted into the 2nd and 3rd centuries, so that early Church fathers had to write against it. And specifically in the era in which the Creed was composed, Gnostic teaching concerning the body was a great threat to the Church.
Gnosticism and the Resurrection
Gnostics had a wrong view of the material world, which God made and declared good. They believed man to be a noble soul who can excuse his shameful behaviour as the irresistible inclinations of his material shell. But Scripture teaches instead that man is a psycho-physical unit whose moral condition is directly expressed by the choices he makes in his body.[i] Because Gnostics believed that our own bodies were prisons of the soul, their goal was “to return to the heavenly realm as Pure Spirit.” A physical resurrection was thus unthinkable to them.
Jesus and the Resurrection
God sent his Son to earth in a human body. Jesus was not corrupted by inhabiting a physical body. On the contrary, he perfectly obeyed God’s law while accepting the limitations of the incarnation. And had the body itself been undesirable, God would certainly have delivered Jesus from its “prison” at his resurrection. Instead, Jesus Christ ascended and is enthroned at the right hand of the Father in a glorified physical body. One scholar remarked, “The dust of the earth sits on the throne of heaven.” There's a human being sitting at the right hand of God!
Justin Martyr, who wrote in the 2nd century, helps us understand the import of Christ’s full, embodied humanity in the following:
Indeed, God calls even the body to resurrection and promises it everlasting life. When he promises to save the man, he thereby makes his promise to the flesh. What is man but a rational living being composed of soul and body? Is the soul by itself a man? No, it is but the soul of a man. Can the body be called a man? No, it can but be called the body of a man. If, then, neither of these is by itself a man, but that which is composed of the two together is called a man, and if God has called man to life and resurrection, he has called not a part, but the whole, which is the soul and the body” (The Resurrection 8 [A.D. 153]).
I am my Body
A proper understanding of the bodily resurrection is important because, simply put, I am my body. I am not merely my body, but I cannot be separated from my body and be wholly me. The connection between my body and soul is at times indistinguishable. It’s the reason why when I go for a run, I feel good afterwards. Or when I eat too much sugar, I feel terrible. It’s why, when I don’t take care of my body by eating, exercising, and resting properly, my souls suffers. Our souls are intimately tied to our bodies.
Islam and the Resurrection
It’s important to understand the bodily resurrection in light of other philosophies of our age. For example, Islam describes the afterlife as a place of rich, sensual rewards, particularly for men. They await a pleasure party in which they will be surrounded by virgins who will serve them forever. In response to this, Christians living in a Muslim context have rightly taught that our reward and our greatest pleasures will be spiritual and not carnal in nature. But in rejecting Islam’s misguided teaching on life-after-death, the belief has also crept in among some Christians that there is no resurrection of the body. My husband Dan had to go to great lengths to redress this error when he taught systematic theology in Senegal.
Christian Misconceptions of the Resurrection
But there’s another wrong view of the afterlife that this teaching addresses. Many people, including some believers, imagine that in heaven, we’ll be floating around on clouds, playing the harp, and singing all day. This perception of heaven makes it sound quite boring, to be honest. The implication of the resurrection of the body is that we will live and work and serve our great God and King in the new earth in many of the same ways we do today, only free from suffering and sin.
1 Corinthians 15 on the Resurrection
Perhaps the most extensive treatment of the resurrection in Scripture is found in 1 Corinthians 15. In 1 Corinthians 15:12-19, Paul centers his argument on what is at stake if there is no resurrection.
1. Paul presses the claims of the false teachers in Corinth to their logical conclusion: Those who deny the bodily resurrection of believers deny the very resurrection of Christ. Such a denial “tore the heart out of the gospel message and left it lifeless.”[ii]
2. Not only that, but such a denial also made the apostles no better than charlatans for having propagated useless faith in a dead man.
3. Moreover, without the Resurrection, believers could have no assurance that God’s wrath had been appeased and their sins atoned for (Rom. 4:25), leaving them in a state of condemnation.
4. Without the resurrection, unbelievers who lived for the pleasure of the moment would be right and the believers’ efforts to live self-sacrificing lives for Christ would only be a “cruel, self-inflicted joke.”[iii] As Paul goes on to say in v. 32, “If the dead are not raised, ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’”
Christ the First Fruit of the Resurrection
A little bit further down in the chapter, Paul helps us understand the nature of the bodily resurrection that awaits believers. In 1 Corinthians 15:42-49, Paul explains that Christ is the first fruit of an abundant harvest that will come at the end of the Age. From Adam, we inherited our fallen human bodies. We inherited the sin and susceptibility to illness that eventually results in death. But in Christ, the second Adam, we’ve also inherited the promise of glorified heavenly bodies. We will follow our brother Jesus into Eternity in glorified bodies.
J.I. Packer on the Resurrection
J.I. Packer described the bodies that await us this way:
My present body—“brother ass,” as Francis of Assisi would have me call it—is like a student’s old jalopy; care for it as I will, it goes precariously and never very well, and often lets me and my Master down (very frustrating!). But my new body will feel and behave like a Rolls-Royce, and then my service will no longer be spoiled.[iv]
The Timeline of the Resurrection
It might help us to understand the chronology of these events. From 1 Corinthians 15:50-53, we conclude that believers who have died exist in an intermediary state in heaven as disembodied beings. They are absent from the body and present with the Lord (2 Co 5:8). But this is what’s remarkable: Our salvation won’t be complete until Christ returns, when he brings about the resurrection of our glorious new bodies. We will not be fully conformed to the image of Christ until then. A reunion of soul and body will take place.
And for those believers who remain on the earth at Christ’s second coming, their bodies will be instantaneously transformed into glorified bodies. For both, these bodies will be incorruptible, immortal, glorious, powerful, and governed by the Spirit.
Tents vs. Houses
One passage that sheds light on this reality is 2 Corinthians 5:1-2:
1 For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling,
So, Paul describes our current bodies as tents, which are temporary structures. And he contrasts them with a building, a house, a dwelling, which is a permanent structure, and which is made by God. Paul’s words to the Church in Rome echo this point in Romans 8:22-25.
Ligon Duncan on the Resurrection
Ligon Duncan explains well the connection between Christ’s resurrection and our own:
If His cross is for us and if we follow in that way; if His grave is for us and we follow in that way; so also, His going to the skies is for us and we follow Him there. We’re transformed; that's the Christian hope. In our bodies we see God; that's the Christian hope. We see one another in all the transforming power of God's grace.
Here Duncan is alluding to Romans 6:4-5:
4 We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. 5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.
Implications
1. We value human life, from the womb to the tomb. If our physical bodies are a gift from God, if he is the one who breathed life into them, then he should be the one who determines when someone breathes their final breath. This is true concerning abortion, euthanasia, and everything in between.
2. A proper understanding of our bodily resurrection teaches us to care for the bodies God has placed us in in this life. They are not our own. We were bought at a price. We can’t eat garbage, live lazy, sedentary lives, go without sleep, and expect to experience spiritual health and vitality. If you are walking through a season of spiritual drought, of course, consider how you’ve been nourishing your soul through the spiritual disciplines. These are essential. But you may want to also consider how you’ve been nourishing your body. Because what you most need right now may be prayer and Bible study, but it also may be a long walk and an even longer nap!
3. As mentioned earlier, for those who are suffering, the hope of new bodies is a great source of encouragement. If you’re listening today and you suffer from chronic pain or other debilitating health conditions, know that your suffering is momentary and light compared to the length and weight of eternity (2 Co 4:16-18). May this truth help you persevere amid your suffering. And for those of us not yet afflicted with profound physical pain and suffering, may these truths fuel our interactions so that we extend the eternal hope to our brothers and sisters who are.
[i] J. I. Packer, Growing in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), 85.
[ii] David K. Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 543.
[iii] David K. Lowery, “1 Corinthians,” in The Bible Knowledge Commentary: An Exposition of the Scriptures, ed. J. F. Walvoord and R. B. Zuck, vol. 2 (Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1985), 543.
[iv] J. I. Packer, Growing in Christ (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Books, 1994), 84.
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