Hope in the Resurrection: A Christian Perspective

As I mentioned in our last lecture on the intermediate state, it has been the affirmation of the church from the first century, through the Apostles' Creed to say that among other things we affirm, we believe in the resurrection of the body -- 'resurrectionis carnis' is the Latin phrase there -- and that is not simply an affirmation of the physical or bodily resurrection of Christ, but it is an affirmation of the bodily resurrection of His people. [00:01:22]

But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Now there's a little ambiguity here in this text, and some have looked at this text and say that all that the New Testament is teaching with respect to resurrection is the renewal or regeneration of our inner man, of our transformation from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light, of being raised from spiritual death to spiritual life. [00:02:38]

As death came into the world through the first Adam, so then the triumph over death comes about as a result of the fruit of the ministry of the second Adam, and again, Paul sees this as the direct consequences of the reality of Christ's own resurrection from the dead -- namely that Christ's resurrection from the dead -- His physical resurrection from the dead -- is not viewed by the New Testament as an isolated event in the New Testament but as an event that is the first of many that are to come. [00:03:49]

The resurrection of which Christ experienced in His own body was more than simply a coming back to life, but there was involved in this process a significant transformation of the body that was placed in the tomb. Now, that also causes a host of controversy and speculation, but the two things that we have to remember with respect to Jesus' resurrection is that 1) there is continuity between the body that was laid to rest in the tomb and the body that came forth out of the tomb, so that we can say it was the same body that was buried that was also raised from the dead. [00:05:35]

He's addressing those who are skeptical about resurrection in general, who are saying there is no resurrection from the dead; and Paul argues with them in a classic method of argumentation that was perfected among the Greek philosophers, which was called 'ad hominem' argumentation -- not the fallacious ad hominem abusive approach where you attack the opponent rather than the opponent's argument, but the method made popular by Zeno of antiquity in the so-called reductio ad absurdum mode where you take the premise of your opponent and take that premise to its logically necessary conclusion and show that if they are consistent with their premises that logic demands that they come to a conclusion that is absolutely absurd. [00:08:15]

He's trying to demonstrate that the concept of resurrection is absolutely central and essential to the whole of the apostolic faith, and I say that for a reason, parenthetically. We live in a time where a host of theologians have come to the conclusion that we can have a vibrant Christianity without all this supernatural business that attends it, such as death and resurrection of Christ, and so on. Rudolf Bultmann, for example, who remarkably gives one of the most precise and insightful exegesis of 1 Corinthians 15 that I've ever seen -- I mean it's impeccable in its grammatical treatment, and he sets forth clearly what the Apostle says; and then when he's finished with his analysis, he says, "This is what Paul teaches here, but of course Paul's wrong." [00:10:13]

But then again, our main concern today is not so much with Christ's resurrection but what are the implications of His resurrection for ours, and Paul again says that because Christ has been raised and given a glorified body, He is raised as the firstborn, or the firstfruits here -- the firstborn of many brothers -- and what God has done for Him He promises to do for all who are Christ's. And so it is in 1 Corinthians 15 that Paul then gives his most expansive treatment of this concept of our resurrection. [00:13:30]

In other words, what are our resurrected bodies going to look like? I'm sure you've thought about that. What will the saints in heaven, in the final resurrection, appear to be? Will I be overweight? Will I be old? Will I be bald? Will I be what I looked like at the age I died? What about infants that die in infancy and go to heaven? Will they look like babies forever? What are they going to look like? What kind of bodies will they have? Well, listen to how Paul answers this question. [00:14:37]

He applies to nature for an analogy, and it's interesting because it's the same argument that Plato makes in his dialogue, putting it in the lips and the mouth of Socrates for life after death, where Plato argued the analogy of the seed -- that just as in the natural world when if you want to grow flowers or vegetables you have to plant the seed. And before the seed can bring forth its life, it has to undergo a certain decay and corruption. It has to rot, and as it were, die before it can bring forth the living fruit. [00:15:45]

This body that goes to the grave is like the seed. We have to die, but when this body dies and is changed and transformed, there will be continuity, just as there is continuity between the seed and the flower, but there will also be significant discontinuity between the seed of our bodies and the final body that we will have in heaven. Now, all I can tell you about that final body in heaven is that it will be human. It will be in some kind of human form. It will be recognizable. [00:17:01]

But the basic difference is that the new body will not be capable of corruption or of dying. Now, here we have to be careful because Paul is going to say here in a minute that we are sown mortal bodies; we are raised immortal. Careful -- that we will be immortal in heaven is not because we will be inherently or intrinsically immortal. That's a Greek concept that is applied to the soul -- that souls are eternal. They're incapable of destruction. Nothing can make them fall apart; where we believe that the soul is created. [00:19:01]

And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the heavenly man. That's the hope of the Christian of the final resurrection -- that we will be like Him, for He will grant to us the same glory of resurrection that He received in His own body. [00:22:50]