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Course 10 · Lesson 6.2

The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds

12 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 10 outline

Module 1: Sin and Human Nature

  1. Human beings in the image of God
  2. The fall in Scripture: Genesis 3 and Romans 5
  3. Original sin in Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. Ancestral sin and mortality in the Eastern tradition

Module 2: Grace and Free Will

  1. Pelagius and Augustine
  2. The church responds: semi-Pelagianism and the Council of Orange
  3. Luther and Erasmus on the bondage of the will
  4. Monergism and synergism across the traditions

Module 3: Justification and Sanctification

  1. Justification in Paul and James
  2. Justification by faith alone in the Lutheran and Reformed traditions
  3. The Catholic teaching and the Council of Trent
  4. Sanctification, holiness and theosis
  5. Recent ecumenical discussion of justification

Module 4: Predestination and Election

  1. Election and predestination in Scripture
  2. Augustine, Aquinas and Calvin on predestination
  3. Arminius, Wesley and conditional election
  4. Eastern and Catholic views on election and foreknowledge

Module 5: Atonement, Redemption and Adoption

  1. Atonement and its extent: for whom did Christ die?
  2. Redemption: the images of ransom, freedom and return
  3. Adoption: sons and daughters of God
  4. The order of salvation across the traditions

Module 6: Death, Resurrection and Judgment

  1. Death and the intermediate state
  2. The resurrection of the dead in Scripture and the creeds
  3. The final judgment: Christ the judge
  4. Purgatory, the Orthodox practice of praying for the dead, and the Protestant objection

Module 7: Heaven, Hell and the New Creation

  1. Heaven and the vision of God
  2. Hell: eternal torment, annihilationism and universal hope
  3. The fate of those who have not heard the gospel
  4. The new heavens and the new earth

Module 8: The Millennium and Christian Eschatological Traditions

  1. Revelation and apocalyptic literature
  2. Premillennial views, historic and dispensational
  3. Amillennial and postmillennial views
  4. Preterist, historicist and futurist approaches
  5. What the traditions hold in common about the end

All courses

Program / Course 10: Salvation and Eschatology / Lesson 6.2

What you will learn

  • Trace the hope of resurrection from the Old Testament through Second Temple Judaism to Jesus and Paul.
  • Explain 1 Corinthians 15 and the idea of a spiritual body.
  • State how the creeds phrase the doctrine and what early Christians were denying.
  • Compare how the five traditions understand continuity and change in the risen body.

The big idea

The creeds close with the confession that the dead will rise. This hope grew slowly in the Old Testament, became widespread in Judaism by the first century and was given its center by the resurrection of Jesus. Paul calls Christ the firstfruits of those who sleep and describes the risen body as a spiritual body, raised imperishable. All the major traditions affirm a bodily resurrection of the dead. They differ in some emphases, such as how the earthly body and the risen body are related and what it means for a body to be spiritual.

Key terms

Resurrection
In the Bible, the raising of the dead to a new embodied life, as distinct from the survival of a soul, the resuscitation of a corpse to ordinary life, or reincarnation.
Firstfruits
The first part of a harvest, offered to God as a pledge of the rest. Paul calls Christ the firstfruits of the dead (1 Corinthians 15:20).
Spiritual body (soma pneumatikon)
Paul’s phrase in 1 Corinthians 15:44 for the risen body. It means a body animated and transformed by the Spirit, not a body made of spirit.
Pharisees and Sadducees
Two Jewish groups of Jesus’ day. The Pharisees affirmed resurrection and the Sadducees denied it (Acts 23:8).
Gnosticism
A set of early movements that regarded matter as evil, and so denied the resurrection of the body.
Parousia
The coming or appearing of Christ at the end of the age.
Glorified body
A term used in theology for the transformed body of the resurrection, which is imperishable and shares in Christ’s glory (Philippians 3:21).

Background

For much of the Old Testament, the hope of the faithful is for long life, descendants and the continuing life of the people. Some texts hint at more. Hosea 6:2 speaks of being raised on the third day, probably as a figure of national restoration. Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) uses resurrection as an image of Israel’s renewal. Isaiah 26:19 says, “Thy dead men shall live,” and Daniel 12:2 is the clearest text: “many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.” Job 19:25-27 is read by many Christians as a hope of seeing God in the flesh, though scholars debate its original meaning.

By the time of Jesus, many Jews, especially the Pharisees, believed in a resurrection of the righteous or of all at the end of time. The Sadducees denied it, and Jesus rebuked them, saying that God is not the God of the dead but of the living (Mark 12:27). The early Christians proclaimed that the resurrection had begun in Jesus, a belief which changed the form of the older hope.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: Christ the firstfruits

Paul’s longest treatment is 1 Corinthians 15. He recites the tradition that Christ died, was buried and rose on the third day and appeared to Peter, the twelve, over five hundred, James and Paul himself. He then argues that if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised, and faith is vain (15:13-14). Christ is “the firstfruits of them that slept” (15:20). In him the general resurrection has begun, and it will be completed at his coming.

Some Corinthians denied the resurrection, probably because they believed the body was unimportant or that the resurrection had already occurred spiritually. Paul answers that the body matters and that the resurrection is future.

Step 2: What kind of body

Paul answers the question ‘How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?’ with the image of a seed (15:35-44). What is sown is not what rises. It is sown in corruption and raised in incorruption, sown in dishonor and raised in glory, sown in weakness and raised in power, sown a natural body (soma psychikon) and raised a spiritual body. The Greek phrase does not mean a body made of spirit, since Paul uses the same adjective to describe ‘natural’ as the opposite of ‘spiritual’, meaning animated by soul or by Spirit.

The risen Jesus offers a clue. In the Gospels he can be touched, eats fish and bears the marks of crucifixion (Luke 24:39-43, John 20:27), and yet enters locked rooms and is not always recognized. The tradition has taken this to mean that the risen body is real and continuous with the earthly body, and also transformed beyond ordinary experience.

Step 3: The creeds and the early church

The Apostles’ Creed in its Western form confesses the resurrection of the body, literally ‘of the flesh.’ The Nicene Creed says, “We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.” The words were chosen against groups, especially Gnostics, who said salvation meant escape from matter. Irenaeus and Tertullian defended the resurrection of the flesh. Origen, in the third century, taught a resurrection of a spiritual body not identical with the earthly one, and his views were criticized by Methodius and later condemned in part.

Augustine, in the last book of the City of God, argued that God can restore the body in a perfected form, with defects removed. Thomas Aquinas taught that the soul will be reunited with the same body, perfected. These accounts try to answer old questions, such as what happens to bodies that have decayed, and have been repeated across the traditions.

Step 4: Who is raised

The New Testament speaks of the resurrection of the righteous (Luke 14:14, 1 Corinthians 15:23) and also of all the dead. John 5:28-29 says that those in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth, “they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.” Acts 24:15 speaks of a resurrection “both of the just and unjust.” The traditions have understood the resurrection to be universal, with different destinies.

Step 5: Questions that remain

Questions that Christians have asked include what happens to cremated remains, whether identity requires the same matter, and what the ages of the risen will be. The churches have generally replied that God’s power is not limited and that the exact manner is a mystery. Many have also said that the resurrection is not a mere return to life but a new creation, the beginning of the age to come.

  1. Why might Paul have thought that denying the resurrection destroys the Christian message?
  2. What is the difference between resurrection and the immortality of the soul?
  3. How does the image of a seed help to answer the question about the risen body?
  4. What does the risen body of Jesus show about the continuity between this life and the next?
  5. Why does it matter that the creed says ‘of the body’ or ‘of the dead’ and not only ‘life after death’?
  6. How do you respond to the objection that the doctrine is impossible?

Examples

A seed in the ground

A gardener plants a bulb. What comes up looks quite different, yet it is the same plant. Paul’s image of the seed is used by teachers to illustrate both continuity and change. They add that the image has limits and that Paul himself ends by calling the matter a mystery (1 Corinthians 15:51).

Tombs in the early church

Early Christians buried their dead, instead of cremating them, partly as a witness to belief in the resurrection. They called burial places cemeteries, from a Greek word for dormitory, a place of sleeping. The practice shows how the doctrine shaped daily life.

Different perspectives

Catholic

The Catechism teaches that the dead will rise with their own bodies, transformed into glorious bodies. The resurrection is the work of the Trinity and is linked with the Eucharist as the pledge of immortality. Cremation is permitted if it does not deny the resurrection.

Orthodox

The Orthodox confess the resurrection of the dead as a bodily event and celebrate Pascha as the pledge of it. The risen body is spiritual and incorruptible. The Church’s burial rites express faith in the resurrection, and the Church has traditionally preferred burial.

Lutheran

The Augsburg Confession and the Small Catechism teach that Christ will raise all the dead and give eternal life to believers. Lutherans emphasize that the resurrection is God’s work and promise, secured by Christ’s resurrection, and a comfort at death.

Reformed

The Westminster Confession says that all the dead shall be raised up with the selfsame bodies, though with different qualities. The bodies of the just are raised to honor by Christ’s Spirit and made like his glorious body, and the bodies of the unjust are raised to dishonor.

Arminian and Wesleyan

Wesleyan teaching affirms the bodily resurrection of the just and the unjust. Wesley’s preaching urged hearers to live in light of the coming resurrection and judgment. Wesleyan churches share the creeds’ language about the resurrection of the dead.

Scholarly views

Historians agree that resurrection belief grew in the Second Temple period. Scholars differ on how to describe the nature of the risen body. A number of New Testament scholars argue that Paul’s language points to a transformed physical existence, not an immaterial one, while others stress the discontinuity.

Why it matters

The resurrection of the dead is the Christian answer to death and the ground of hope. It places the body and the material world within God’s purpose for salvation. A student who understands the doctrine can see why Christians have usually buried their dead with honor and why they have resisted views of salvation as escape from the world.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The resurrection means that a soul goes to heaven when a person dies.

Correction: Resurrection, in the Bible and the creeds, is the raising of the body at the end. Many traditions hold that souls are with Christ before then. Those are separate topics.

Misunderstanding: A spiritual body is a body made of spirit.

Correction: The Greek means a body under the control of the Spirit. Most scholars agree that for Paul it is still a body.

Misunderstanding: Cremation denies the resurrection.

Correction: God’s power does not depend on the preservation of remains. Christian traditions differ in what they permit, but most hold that cremation as such does not deny the doctrine.

Misunderstanding: The idea of resurrection came from Greek philosophy.

Correction: Greek philosophy generally taught the immortality of the soul, not the resurrection of the body. Resurrection belief grew from Jewish hopes of God’s justice and creation.

Knowledge check

Which Old Testament texts speak most clearly of resurrection?

Daniel 12:2 is the clearest: many who sleep in the dust will awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame. Isaiah 26:19 says the dead shall live. Ezekiel 37 uses resurrection as an image of Israel’s renewal, and Job 19:25-27 is read by many as a hope of seeing God, though its meaning is debated.

What does Paul mean by calling Christ the firstfruits?

He means that Christ’s resurrection is the first part of the harvest, which guarantees the rest. The general resurrection has begun in him and will be completed at his coming. Therefore Paul argues that to deny the resurrection of the dead is to deny that Christ has been raised.

What does ‘spiritual body’ mean in 1 Corinthians 15?

It means a body animated and transformed by the Spirit, in contrast with the natural body animated by ordinary life. It is not a body made of spirit. Paul says it is raised imperishable, in glory and in power. Its continuity with the earthly body is affirmed, along with its transformation.

Why did early Christians stress the resurrection of the flesh?

They were answering Gnostic groups who taught that matter is evil and that salvation is escape from the body. Irenaeus and Tertullian defended the resurrection of the flesh as belonging to God’s good creation and to the incarnation. The creed’s wording reflects this concern for the goodness of the body.

Think it through

  1. What difference would it make to your view of your body if you believed it would be raised?
  2. Which question about the risen body do you find hardest, and how might the traditions respond?
  3. How is the hope of the resurrection different from the hope that a soul will survive?

Independent assignment

Reading 1 Corinthians 15

In your notebook, write 400 to 600 words. Read 1 Corinthians 15 in full. Divide it into sections (the tradition of the resurrection, the argument, the body, the final victory) and summarize each in one or two sentences. Then write a paragraph on what Paul says about continuity between the earthly and the risen body, and one on how the Nicene Creed’s last lines echo the chapter.

Further study