I believe in the Resurrection of the Body.

by Thomas M. Winger

Like many in my generation, I spent a lot of time in childhood watching classic cartoons like Tom & Jerry and Bugs Bunny. Their violence was sanitised compared to today’s offerings, and when characters were flattened by a falling piano their souls arose from their bodies to receive a heavenly reward. Semi-transparent, decked with a halo, they would float on a cloud with a peaceful smile and a harp in hand. It’s an image that arose in a broadly Christian culture, but does it express the genuine biblical faith?

Of course, it’s a great comfort to know that when our faithful loved ones die after a hard life or a long illness they’re immediately freed from pain and have rest. As in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus (Luke 16:25), we know that the souls of departed Christians are carried by the angels to God’s presence. The thief who trusted in Christ was promised paradise with Him “today” (Luke 23:43). Those souls gathered around God’s throne praise Him with all the heavenly hosts and pray for us who are still on our earthly pilgrimage (Revelation 7:9). But they also cry out to God, “how long?” (Revelation 6:10), as they ache for God’s judgement on their persecutors and long for the day when their bodies would be reunited with their souls.

From the moment God first formed Adam from clay and breathed life into his body (Genesis 2:7), God has intended us to be creatures composed of both flesh and spirit. That’s why the intermediate hope that our souls will rest with God is simply not enough. When Lazarus, Martha’s brother, died before Jesus arrived, He directed her to this ultimate gift: “Your brother will rise again” (John 11:23). This is the great Christian hope of the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.

The resurrection of the dead was a confession that set Christianity apart from all other religions, and even divided sects within Judaism. The Sadducees tried to trap and ridicule Jesus with a silly story they thought proved the foolishness of resurrection (Matthew 22:23-33). At the Areopagus in Athens, Paul’s audience lost interest when he preached the resurrection, because their Greek (Gnostic) philosophy aimed at ridding the soul of the body, not keeping it (Acts 17:18, 32). When brought before the Jewish council, Paul went so far as to say that he was on trial for the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6)—it was that central to the Christian message. In fact, to be an apostle was to be a witness to the resurrection (Acts 1:22; 4:33).

The Thessalonian Christians were troubled when some in their midst were dying before the expected appearance of Jesus in glory. Like Jesus, Paul doesn’t point to the rest their souls were now enjoying, but instead proclaims the fact of the coming resurrection. As Jesus died and rose again, so also will those who fell asleep in Him rise on the Last Day to meet Him when He appears and they will be always with the Lord. Paul’s final words are critical: “comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18 RSV). This, the message of resurrection on the Last Day, is the fundamental Christian comfort in the face of death.

The resurrection of the dead was a confession that set Christianity apart from all other religions, and even divided sects within Judaism.

In Paul’s lengthiest teaching on the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), he warns that if we lose our hope in the resurrection of our own bodies, we risk losing the true confession of Jesus. The equation runs in both directions. If we are not going to be raised from the dead bodily, then Jesus didn’t rise bodily. If He didn’t rise bodily, then it is impossible that we will rise bodily. And without these twin realities, the Christian faith is simply worthless (1 Corinthians 15:12-14).

Paul connects our bodily resurrection to Christ’s in two ways. First, he draws an image from Old Testament sacrifices in which Israelites brought a tithe of grain to the tabernacle as a thank-offering representing the fullness of the harvest still to come. So also Christ rose as the “firstfruits” of the full harvest that would be gathered in by the angels at the resurrection of all flesh on the Last Day (1 Corinthians 15:23; Matthew 24:31). Because He is the firstfruits of our harvest, our resurrected bodies will be just like His—“spiritual” in the sense of incorruptible and glorious (1 Corinthians 15:42-44), but physical and “fleshly” in the way that our bodies are now, just as Jesus by eating and drinking showed that He wasn’t a ghost (Luke 24:39).

Secondly, Paul teaches that we are joined to Christ’s death and resurrection in Holy Baptism. In a very real, though hidden way, we died with Him when we were washed or drowned in the font, as if we entered into His tomb with Him (Romans 6:4). Having died to sin in Baptism, we’re given the promise of new life with Him. In fact, Paul can even say that we have already risen with Him sacramentally (Colossians 2:12). So, then, in a real but spiritual way we can already enjoy eternal life here and now (John 5:24).

But the life we enjoy now is itself a kind of firstfruits, a deposit of the greater and final gift of the resurrection of the flesh when Christ returns. That final gift, leading to the blessed eternal life we will enjoy in God’s presence, is the special work of the Holy Spirit. While we might think of resurrection as part of the doctrine of Christ, the Third Article of the Apostles’ Creed places it at the conclusion of the Spirit’s work in the holy Christian Church. How does the Spirit make us “holy”, that is, fit to be in God’s eternal presence? Through the forgiveness of sins, that is, Holy Baptism and the absolutions that return us to it, and through the final resurrection of the body. For just as Baptism cleanses our souls from sin and corruption, so by the resurrection will the Spirit make our bodies holy and pure.

We confess the link between Baptism and resurrection through the traditional use of the Paschal candle in our churches. Representing Christ’s resurrected life, this special candle is lit for the season of Easter, and then again at Baptisms and funerals. Visually it reminds us that the body that was once washed at the font will rise again on the Last Day, just as truly as Christ rose from the dead at Easter.

Funerals are, then, a continuation of Baptism pointing us to the sacrament’s fulfilment at the resurrection. Because we believe that our bodies are a precious gift of God for this life and the next, we treat them as sacred. We’re not done with them yet, and neither is God! We cover the coffin with a white pall to remind us of the robe of Christ’s righteousness bestowed in Baptism (Galatians 3:27), of the linen shroud placed around Jesus’ precious body (Matthew 27:59), and of the white robes of the saints before God’s throne (Revelation 7:13-14)—where we came from and where we’re going. And then we lay the body gently in the ground in a cemetery—from the Greek word for “sleeping place”—to await the trumpet call to arise at Christ’s return. And so, on the Last Day our baptismal union with Christ’s death and resurrection reaches its goal.

As Paul has said, “comfort one another with these words.”

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Rev. Dr. Thomas M. Winger is president of Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary in St. Catharines, Ontario.

The photos in this article were originally captured by Rev. Dr. Thomas M. Winger and were modified for use in The Canadian Lutheran with permission. The photos feature the seminary’s paschal candle from 2013, which was donated by Rev. Dr. Wilhelm Torgerson and his sisters, Susan and Anneliese, in memory of their parents, Anneliese and Ralph Torgerson.

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