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The Resurrection of the Body (Apostles’ Creed)

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Our beliefs ultimately lead to our values and our hopes. Therefore, the Apostles’ Creed guides us — not just in what we should know, but also in how we should feel and what we hope for. Therefore, the Creed discusses the resurrection of the body not just as something to believe in but as something that gives us hope — which is why the later Nicene Creed (which in many ways expands the Apostles’ Creed) puts it this way: “I look forward to the resurrection of the body.” 

The Heidelberg Catechism highlights that this phrase should give us comfort as it asks in Q & A 57: “How does ‘the resurrection of the body’ comfort you?”  Followed by the answer: “Not only will my soul be taken immediately after this life to Christ its head, but also my very flesh will be raised by the power of Christ, reunited with my soul, and made like Christ’s glorious body.” We need to explore more about the nature of this belief, why we believe it, what we know about it, and how it means we should live now as we await this hope.

The Nature of our Hope: The Intermediate State and Final State

This answer highlights a difference between the intermediate and final state of a person. We see in the Bible that when a Christian dies, they are in the presence of God (Phil 1:23). However, this is not the complete person, as it is only their soul since the body remains on earth; we are present with the Lord at this point but absent from the body (2 Corinthians 5:8). Both the Old and New Testaments (Daniel 12:2, John 5:28-29) point to another hope in terms of our bodies and souls being reunited in a resurrected body). Interestingly, we see in these passages (as well as in Acts 24:15) that there is a resurrection of both the just and the unjust, with the righteous being raised to everlasting life and the unrighteous raised to death (see Matthew 10:28). This is a reminder that we are not just souls, but body and soul as we will spend eternity.

Therefore, our hope is not simply being a soul with God in heaven, but in a new heaven and a new earth (Isaiah 65-66 and Revelation 21-22) in which righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13). We will have new, resurrected bodies in the new heavens and the new earth; the goal of the Christian faith is not escape from our bodies or this earth, but the renewal and the re-creation of this world (see Matthew 19:28; Acts 3:21) which includes the redemption of our bodies (Romans 8:23) in our resurrection.

The Ground of Our Hope: Resurrected Like Jesus

A key reason we believe in the resurrection of the body is because we believe in the resurrection of Jesus. The Apostle Paul links Jesus’s resurrection with our hope, noting that if we believe Jesus rose from the dead, then we need to believe the dead will also be raised to life (1 Corinthians 15:12), and if we deny the resurrection of the dead (and thus the resurrection of the body), we actually deny the resurrection of Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:13). Jesus’s resurrection is the grounds for our hope both because he stands as the first one whose body was raised to life (1 Corinthians 15:20-21) and because the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead will give life to our mortal bodies (Romans 8:11, 1 Corinthians 6:14). Our hope is ultimately that we will be resurrected like Jesus and that our bodies will be transformed like his (Philippians 3:20-21). 

The Details of Our Hope: The Resurrected Body

A question we might have is exactly what the resurrected body will be like. We can look to Jesus’s resurrection appearances to give us a hint, but we also have to keep in mind that Jesus did things in his non-resurrected body that the average person cannot do. While we see Jesus be able to go through locked door (see John 20:19-23) and make random appearances (Luke 24:31, 36), these may be tied to the fact that he is God in the flesh, not just resurrected flesh. It is wise to pay attention to the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:35-58. He warns us in terms of not being too precise in what this all means (1 Corinthians 15:35-36), but also points to the key principle that our present body is like the seed and our resurrected body is like the plant that grows. Therefore, there is some continuity and similarity between the non-resurrected and resurrected flesh (1 Corinthians 15:37-49). To be able to live in the new earth, transformation must happen occur (1 Corinthians 15:50), and there is a significant change that happens in the resurrection of our body. We do well to affirm when the Bible says not to go further into speculative details about what this looks like (with the topic of what the resurrected body of unbelievers will be like is not really discussed). There is a mystery that needs to be retained, and what we do know should give us hope in the present and affect how we live.

The Implications of our Hope: Life Today Comfort in Action

Our belief in the resurrection allows us to experience hardships in this life (1 Corinthians 15:30-34), as we know that this world is not all there is, and we are awaiting something even greater (2 Corinthians 4:6-8). Like Job, we can say our bodies may be destroyed, but in our flesh we will see God because of our Redeemer (Job 19:25-27). Our belief in the resurrection allows us not to grieve the death of fellow believers with hope (1 Thessalonians 4:13). It prompts us to live lives of godliness and righteousness now (2 Peter 3:11-12). We truly look forward to the resurrection of the body.

Questions about the Bible or theology? Email them to Pastor Brian at Theology@WeAreFaith.org. You can also request to receive weekly emails with our blog posts by filling out the information on the right side.

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