This is my Uncle Pat. He served the Lord faithfully in the Lutheran church from 1967-2020.
My journey into church history and the ancient faith as drawn me closer the Lutheran roots in my family. The one thing that I have contemplated and meditated on since my Uncle Pat’s funeral almost four years ago, is the bodily resurrection. The fact that the pastor who delivered the message spelled out B-O-D-Y more than once impacted me.
I never really gave the bodily resurrection much thought. That seems crazy to even type that but it’s true.
Why was that pastor so emphatic?
I started observing.
The past four years I have been observing, watching and listening to the way Christians talk about death and the dead.
I have heard a few things that I’m not sure are congruent with scripture or the events recorded there.
- That’s not my loved one. That’s just the body.
- I don’t care if I am cremated. I won’t need my body anymore.
- Her spirit is at rest.
- I can’t wait to shed this old body.
- The body is just a spirit container.
- Only the soul will last forever.
I’m going to try to wrap up four years of thought in a tiny blog post, which hopefully will spark the interest in someone else to start observing and digging into the scripture.
Gnosticism was the first heresy that infiltrated the early church. They over emphasized the spiritual while demonizing the physical. It manifested itself in a variety of ways.
Spiritual teaching took precedence over meeting physical needs of others. The body was seen as a prison that locked the greater spiritual self inside. And they generally denied the incarnation of Jesus, which obviously meant they denied the physical resurrection of Jesus.
Is that what’s a play today? Is that why some Christians are heavy on the eternal nature of spirit but not the body? I think it is. Consider this:
Romans 6:5
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.
Like who?
Like Jesus.
We will be united with him in a resurrection like his. Well, what was Jesus’ resurrection like?
John 20:27 & Luke 24:42-43
Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side.
They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.
The risen Christ commanded Thomas to touch his flesh in one instance and sat and ate with disciples in another. That requires a body. Jesus’ spirit was reunited with his body on the third day in an actual physical, bodily resurrection.
And so will we.
I think this is a good time to interject another huge concept from the scripture, whose foundation was laid when God made man in his own image.
The temple of God is flesh.
“Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person; for the temple of God, which you are, is holy. 1 Cor. 3:16-17
This is such a huge deal. The place where the Most High God of the universe lives, is you. You are a body. You are flesh and bones. That is the place where He is.
Does that stop when the spirit departs? Or is it still a temple that is waiting for the moment of the resurrection of the dead?
This body we have has definitely been corrupted. It gets wounded. It gets diseases. It ages and fractures. It is a temple with cracks and fissures.
When the resurrection comes, the temple gets the ultimate remodel. The lowly, susceptible temple, becomes indestructible.
Philippians 3:20-21
…We await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
1 Cor. 15:43
So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
That truth is real. It’s big. It’s comforting.
Have you even dreamed of heaven and just imagined a bunch of disembodied spirits floating around on clouds? Has that ever left you feeling a bit cold inside? It’s not really a beautiful thought. It doesn’t give us much to look forward to. And it’s not true.
The truth is so much better. The truth is invigorating. The truth gives hope and joy and strength.
There will be a resurrection of the dead that is real, that is physical, that is holy.
The earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. Matthew 27:50-52
