On the Resurrection of the Flesh

Contents

Reading pages: 1–13 · 14–23 · 24–34 · 35–45 · 46–52 · 53–63

1. 1Christians hope in the resurrection of the dead; pagans mock it yet feed their dead, and even the philosophers who teach transmigration half-glimpse it.
2. 2Heretics who deny another God than the Creator attack the resurrection of the flesh first; Tertullian, having written against Marcion and on Christ's flesh, now defends the flesh's resurrection itself.
3. 3Common human notions may support the truth, but heretics who borrow the pagans' denial of life after death should be made to argue from Scripture alone.
4. 4Heretics and pagans alike scorn the flesh as vile and ask mockingly whether a body devoured and dissolved, with all its needs and defects, could ever return.
5. 5Even on heretical views the flesh owes its being to some divine will, but in truth God himself formed man by his own hand and gave the flesh the very name of man.
6. 6The flesh is honoured by the hands of God who shaped it with Christ, the Word to become flesh, in view; its lowly origin in clay no more disgraces it than earth disgraces gold.
7. 7The clay became flesh when God breathed into it, and the soul is so joined to the flesh that it does everything through it; the flesh is therefore the soul's partner and co-heir.
8. 8In the Christian life the flesh is washed, anointed, signed, receives the laying on of hands and the body and blood of Christ, fasts, keeps chastity, and suffers martyrdom, so it shares in salvation.
9. 9God will not abandon the flesh he made, adorned, and loves; its very weakness, sin, and condemnation are what his mercy came to heal.
10. 10Scripture both humbles and honours the flesh, and Paul, who speaks against the flesh, also calls the body God's temple and Christ's members.
11. 11Those who deny the resurrection live most carnally; God, who made the world out of nothing (or even from matter), can surely remake the flesh.
12. 12Nature teaches resurrection before Scripture does: day and night, the seasons, and seeds all die and return, so the flesh for whose sake they exist will not perish.
13. 13The phoenix, which dies in fire and rises again, is a living example of resurrection, and Scripture itself says the righteous will flourish like the phoenix.
14. 14The cause of the resurrection is God's judgment: since the whole man, body and soul, lived and acted, the whole man must be raised to be judged.
15. 15Flesh and soul act together even in thought, so God, as a just judge, must reward or punish the flesh along with the soul.
16. 16The flesh is not a mere tool like a cup or a sword but the soul's partner from the womb, which Paul calls both a vessel and the outer man; it therefore shares in judgment and reward.
17. 17Though the soul is itself corporeal and already suffers or is comforted in the underworld, it must be judged with the flesh, through which it performed its deeds.
18. 18The phrase “resurrection of the dead” itself points to the flesh: only what falls can rise, and it is the body, not the soul, that falls in death and is buried.
19. 19Some heretics turn the resurrection into a figure for coming to knowledge or escaping the body, and deceive believers by saying one must “rise in this flesh.”
20. 20The prophets did not speak only in figures: Christ's birth, passion, and miracles, and the fates of nations, were foretold plainly and fulfilled literally.
21. 21The resurrection cannot be merely figurative, because the plain texts must govern the obscure and a hope on which faith and martyrdom depend must have been announced clearly.
22. 22Christ's discourse on the last things shows that the resurrection comes at his return, after the signs of the end, not now in the knowledge of the truth or at death.
23. 23Paul speaks of a spiritual rising with Christ in baptism, but he and John and Peter place the real resurrection in the future, at Christ's appearing.
24. 24Paul's letters to the Thessalonians place the resurrection at the Lord's coming, after the removal of the Roman state and the revealing of the antichrist.
25. 25Revelation sets the resurrection at the end of the age; a spiritual rising at conversion may be granted, but only because the bodily one is promised at the end.
26. 26Prophetic promises and threats addressed to “the earth” may be read of the flesh, taken from the earth; so figurative speech itself supports the resurrection of the body.
27. 27Scriptural garments can signify the flesh, and Isaiah's “storerooms” in which God's people hide until his wrath passes are the tombs from which bodies will come forth.
28. 28Moses' signs, God's promise to require the blood of the slain, and the word “I will kill and make alive” all point to the raising of the flesh.
29. 29Ezekiel's vision of the dry bones, clothed with sinews, flesh, and skin and brought to life, names the bodily substances explicitly.
30. 30Even if Ezekiel's vision figures Israel's restoration, a figure drawn from bones implies that bones will really rise, and God's testing of the prophet shows that the bodily resurrection is meant.
31. 31Israel doubted a bodily resurrection, not its political fortunes, and the prophets promise the rising of the dead to all nations, not to Israel alone.
32. 32God will restore even bodies devoured by beasts and fish, as Jonah shows; if what Scripture says of the soul is taken literally, so must be what it says of the body.
33. 33Christ did not speak only in parables, and even his parables are explained; his plain statements about judgment, the kingdom, and resurrection must be taken literally.
34. 34Christ came to save the whole man who was lost, and he promised to lose nothing the Father gave him but to raise it on the last day; so the flesh too will be saved.
35. 35Christ's warning about God who can destroy body and soul in Gehenna, the numbered hairs, the gnashing of teeth, and the wedding feast all presuppose a bodily resurrection.
36. 36Christ's answer to the Sadducees about the woman with seven husbands confirms a real resurrection of the flesh, which will then be changed and made like the angels.
37. 37“The flesh profits nothing” in John 6 refers to giving life, which belongs to the Spirit and the Word; the same Gospel says that all in the tombs will hear the Son's voice and come forth.
38. 38The dead whom Christ raised were a foretaste and pledge of the bodily resurrection, though they were raised only to die again, not to glory.
39. 39The apostles preached the same bodily resurrection the Pharisees believed and the Sadducees denied, and the Athenians mocked Paul precisely because he preached a bodily one.
40. 40Paul's “outer man” that is being corrupted means the flesh worn down by persecution in this life, not flesh destined to perish; flesh and soul that suffer together will be glorified together.
41. 41Paul's promise of a heavenly house when the earthly tent is dissolved rewards the flesh that suffers; the wish to be “clothed over” belongs to those alive at Christ's coming, who will be changed without dying.
42. 42The change Paul promises, in which the mortal is swallowed up by life, requires that the flesh be present; the dead will receive their flesh back and then, like the living, be clothed with immortality.
43. 43Paul's longing to be away from the body and at home with the Lord speaks of a temporary absence, and the judgment of all “through the body” implies a bodily resurrection.
44. 44The treasure of Christ's life carried in earthen vessels, and the life of Jesus to be manifested in our mortal body after death, show that the flesh will be raised like Christ's.
45. 45The “old man” and “new man” are not flesh and soul but the former and the renewed way of life; Paul condemns sinful works, not the body.
46. 46In Romans 8 Paul condemns the works and mind of the flesh, not the flesh itself, and promises that God will raise our mortal bodies through his indwelling Spirit.
47. 47The old man crucified with Christ is sinful conduct, not the body; Paul promises the members of the body sanctification and eternal life, and baptism in the flesh points to its resurrection.
48. 48Before turning to “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom,” Tertullian shows that 1 Corinthians 15 models our resurrection on Christ's bodily resurrection and assumes that bodies will rise.
49. 49In the context of 1 Corinthians 15, “flesh and blood” that cannot inherit the kingdom means the earthly way of life of the old Adam, not the substance of the body.
50. 50Even taken literally, “flesh and blood” are denied the kingdom only on their own; all flesh will rise, and in the saved it will be changed and clothed with immortality so that it can inherit the kingdom.
51. 51Christ sits in heaven in the flesh as a pledge that ours will follow; Paul's “this corruptible” and “this mortal” point to the very flesh that must put on incorruption and immortality.
52. 52Paul's image of the seed shows that the same flesh that is sown in death rises, clothed by God with a new glory, just as grain rises as the same kind of plant, fuller and adorned.
53. 53The “animal body” that is sown and raised a “spiritual body” is the flesh, not the soul, as the examples of Lazarus and of the first and last Adam show.
54. 54Paul’s “swallowed up by life” means that the mortal flesh is taken into and clothed with immortality, not destroyed; it is death that is swallowed up for destruction.
55. 55To be changed is not to be destroyed: Scripture shows people transformed yet remaining themselves, and so the flesh will be changed at the resurrection without ceasing to be the same flesh.
56. 56It would be unjust for one flesh to suffer or sin and another to be rewarded or punished, and the risen person must remember being the one who is judged.
57. 57The flesh will rise not with its injuries and defects but whole, as a freed slave keeps the same body yet no longer suffers a slave’s punishments.
58. 58Scripture promises the end of pain and death, and its examples of preserved garments and bodies (Israel in the desert, the three young men, Jonah, Enoch and Elijah) foreshadow the flesh made whole.
59. 59Isaiah’s “all flesh is grass” and “all flesh shall see God’s salvation” distinguish the destinies of the same flesh, not two different kinds of flesh.
60. 60Even if the bodily organs lose their present functions in the resurrection, they will still exist, since the whole man must stand before God’s judgment, as a restored ship remains a ship even when laid up.
61. 61The bodily organs have higher uses than eating and procreation, and fasting, continence, and virginity already show that they can be idle without the person ceasing to be whole.
62. 62Jesus said the risen will be “like angels,” not angels: they keep their flesh while being freed from its bodily needs, just as angels who ate with Abraham remained spirits.
63. 63The whole, same flesh will rise, kept safe with God by Christ, who unites flesh and spirit, and the Paraclete’s New Prophecy has cleared away the ambiguities that heretics exploited.