Resurrection

This article is about the religious meaning of the word "Resurrection". For other meanings see Resurrection (disambiguation).

Resurrection of the Flesh (1499-1502) Fresco by Luca Signorelli
Chapel of San Brizio, Duomo, Orvieto

Resurrection is most commonly associated with the raising of a person from death back to life, or the reuniting of the spirit and the body of an individual. Some religions, such as Buddhism, believe that deities are reborn. What this means depends upon one's presuppositions about the nature of the human person, especially with regard to the existence of a soul or spirit counterpart to the physical body. The term plays a particularly powerful role in Christianity, as the resurrection of Jesus is the core foundation of the religion; in Paul's words, "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile." (1 Corinthians 15:17)

Introduction

According to some ideologies, resurrection occurs on different planes. Some resurrections are of the physical body, brought back to life, indistinguishable from the life it had prior to its death. Other resurrections are symbolic, not of a physical body, but of a ghost body arising after the death from a person's body of flesh. Additionally, some reserve the resurrection as denoting a final and permanent unification which cannot be undone, much like the resurrection of Jesus.

Greek Philosophy

As summarized by Alan Richardson, "Greek philosophy (esp. Plato) divided man into two parts, body and soul. In Platonism the soul was both pre-existent and immortal; in this life it was imprisoned or entombed in the body.… death is merely a change in the manner of existence. (It is, of course, important to realize that generalizations like 'the Greek view' are subject to many qualifications; the Epicureans, for instance, taught the total dissolution of the human personality at bodily death, thus claiming to have released mankind from superstitious fears of divine vengeance in an after-life.)"

Religious examples

While the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the foundational beliefs of Christianity, accounts of other resurrections also figure in religion, myth, and fable. Joseph McCabe wrote "... centuries before the time of Christ the nations annually celebrated the death and resurrection of Osiris, Tammuz, Attis, Mithra, and other gods." [1]

World Religions

Examples of a resurrected deity are Syrian and Greek worship of Adonis; Egyptian worship of Osiris; the Babylonian story of Tammuz; and rural religious belief in the Corn King.

The Platonic-type view of a pre-existent soul and its transmigration into the spirit realm until final release in perfection, after a process of development that may take many lifetimes (Hindu-Buddhist) or one (Latter Day Saints), is one form of belief about resurrection. In Buddhism, the perfected person may return to the earth in a new body in order to assist others on their path of spiritual growth.

Islam has a strong doctrine of resurrection in terms of the afterlife of all human beings. The faithful are brought to eternal life in Paradise, the wicked suffer in eternal flames. Islam denies, however, the traditional Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus.

Judaism

According to Richardson's dictionary, "The Hebrews did not conceive of the soul as existing apart from the body (except perhaps in the unreal and shadowy existence of Sheol, the underworld of departed spirits). A man was a living body. …a man dies and literally ceases to exist: his resurrection (a late Old Testament idea which became normative Pharisaic teaching) was the result of an act of new creation by God."

Medieval Judaism came to insist that belief in revival of the Dead is one of the cardinal principles of the Jewish faith. A famous Jewish halakhic, legal authority, Maimonides, set down 13 main principles of the Jewish faith according to Orthodox Judaism and Resurrection is printed in all Rabbinic prayer books to the present time. It is the thirteenth principle and states:

• "I believe with complete (perfect) faith, that there will be techiat hameitim - revival of the dead, whenever it will be God's, blessed be He, will (desire) to arise and do so. May (God's) Name be blessed, and may His remembrance arise, forever and ever."

In the Tanakh (also called by Christians the Old Testament), Elisha is said to have raised a young boy from death. However, this boy and other resurrected persons are traditionally held to have eventually died. Also of interest are the Biblical accounts that Enoch and the prophet Elijah were removed into the presence of God without experiencing death, and the traditional belief that the grave of Moses cannot be found because the prophet was raised from the dead. Both Moses and Elijah are said to be seen with Jesus during the transfiguration. There is also Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones being restored as a living army, followed by a prophesy that the house of Israel would one day be brought out of their graves to live in the land of Israel.

In Jesus' Ministry

At the time of Jesus there were debates between the Pharisees and the Sadducees over whether or not there was immortality - and thus over whether or not there was an afterlife, or there could be a general resurrection. In these matters, Jesus was closer to the opinion of the Pharisees. Most Christian churches teach that there will be a general resurrection of the dead at the "end of time". Fundamental Christian belief is that when Jesus comes again, the saints will come back to life in the flesh. Their bodies, buried in the earth and completely decomposed, will be reconstituted to their original state. This is attributed to passages such as 1 Thessalonians 4:16:

• "For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first."

In the New Testament of the Bible, Jesus is said to have raised several persons from death, including the daughter of Jairus shortly after death, a young man in the midst of his own funeral procession, and Lazarus, who had been buried for three days. At the moment of Jesus' death tombs open and many who are dead awaken. After Jesus' resurrection many of the dead saints come out of their tombs and enter Jerusalem, where they appear to many, according to the Gospel of Matthew.

Resurrections are credited to Christian apostles and saints. Peter raised a woman named Dorcas (called Tabitha), and Paul restored a man named Eutychus who had fallen asleep and fell from a window to his death, according to the book of Acts.

The Virgin Mary is also believed by some Christians to have been taken bodily into heaven, after her death (this belief, the Assumption of Mary, was made dogma in 1950 by the Roman Catholic Church). In one tradition Mary's assumption takes place at Ephesus. Here, she lived out her later years, under the care of the apostle John. There have been many claims through the centuries of seeing Mary.

Jesus' Resurrection

The assertion that Jesus physically died and was buried and then returned to life on the third day, with no body left in the tomb, is foundational to biblical Christian faith. His appearances after his resurrection empowered his followers to spread their affirmation of his messiahship. Jesus' resurrection is proclaimed as victory over death, as an ascension to the "right hand of the Father". His resurrected existence was not physical, as he was able to appear and disappear suddenly and he was viewed rising from the earth into the clouds at his departure. Nonetheless it was not as an apparition or ghost; as he could eat and be fully present to those who witnessed him.

Christian Theology

In Pauline belief, adopted by most Christian teachings, saved believers will experience resurrection when Christ returns, but, similar to Jesus in his resurrected state, it will not be normal physical existence, but rather as a "glorified" or "spiritual" body (1 Corinthians 15:35-54), "a body of a new order, the perfect instrument of the spirit, raised above the limitations of the earthly body, with which it will be identical only in the sense that it will be the recognizable organism of the same personality." In Richardson's words, "The idea of 'the resurrection of the body' (cf. the Apostles' Creed) was the natural Hebraic manner of speaking about the risen life of Christians with Christ: it is the body that person are recognizable as individuals with their own personal identity. Hence 'resurrection of the body' means resurrection after death to a fully personal life with Christ in God, and this is what Christians should understand when they profess the Apostles' Creed."

Unificationism

The Unificationist teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon affirm resurrection in a way that is considered consistent with "the modern state of human knowledge." The core theological text, Exposition of the Divine Principle, devotes an entire chapter to the topic. There it states simply that "resurrection means to come back to life. To come back to life implies that we have been dead. [Therefore,] to fathom the meaning of resurrection, we must clarify the biblical concepts of life and death." The Bible, according to Unificationism, contains two different concepts of life and death. The first concept of life and death concerns physical life. Death is the end of physical life, and 'life' in that sense means the state in which the physical self maintains its physiological functions. To resurrect would be to return from physical death to physical life. The second concept of life and death is a spiritual one. Here, death refers to spiritual death, tantamount to "leaving the bosom of God’s love and falling under the dominion of Satan. The corresponding concept of life refers to "the state of living in accordance with God’s Will, within the dominion of God’s infinite love."

Reverend Moon argues that the second, or spiritual, meaning of resurrection is the only one that makes sense and that, in addition, is truly biblical. Human beings, in his philosophy, have a physical body and a spirit body, both given by the grace of and according to the original plan of God. The former is a temporal entity, part of the natural physical order and subject to its laws. The latter is an eternal entity that abides in a spiritual realm, called spirit world, after the death of the physical body.

Therefore, the physical is created to die. The death caused by sin is not the death of the physical body, but is rather the death of the human spirit. The resurrection of the physical body does not restore one to God. The term resurrection still applies, but it refers to a spiritual phenomenon, the passage from spiritual death, the realm of the fall, sin and Satan, to spiritual life, the realm of true love, goodness and God. The text summarizes this view with a biblical passage:

• "We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He who does not love remains in death." (1 John 3:14)

Thus, Reverend Moon deems resurrection to be a process, not a one time event, although the turning from a life of sin to a life of goodness can take place at one moment. That "one moment" event can include a "change of lineage," as it is stated: "…because we inherited Satan's lineage as a result of Adam's fall, we are dead; when we return to the lineage of God through Christ, we shall be resurrected to life." Nonetheless, in general, Unificationism shies away from sudden transformations: "Resurrection may be defined as the process of being restored from death to life… Accordingly, whenever we repent of our sins and rise to a higher state of goodness, we are resurrected to that degree."

For Unificationism, resurrection is a very, very broad category, encompassing all dimensions of human spiritual growth and even social transformation. The Divine Principle goes on to enumerate four tenets relevant to this process. One, it is historical; that is, the progress of each human generation is inherited by the next. This is called "the merit of the age." Two, human growth requires the combined effort of God, whose role is to give His Word and guidance, and human beings, whose responsibility is to believe and practice it. Three—and this tenet plays a critical role in the Unification belief system—spiritual growth comes about only on the basis of deeds carried out in the physical world; "the resurrection of a spirit can be achieved only through earthly life." Four, this process, as do all processes in the Unification view, takes place through three "ordered stages."

The first of these tenets has obvious implications for the Unification view of human history. The further one goes back in post-fall history, the less spiritual growth was possible; the further one moves forward in history, the higher the stage of resurrection was possible (not that everyone achieved it). A corollary here is that human spiritual progress came about through the successes of specific individuals. Divine Principle names Abraham and his family, Moses and Jesus, but also credits religious founders of other cultures as moving humanity forward on the perimeters of the biblical providence.

One more implication of the Divine Principle is well worth noting: the tenet that resurrection takes place only on the basis of the physical life. This means that all spirits of departed persons can achieve further spiritual growth only through participating in someone's, usually a descendent's, physical life. Our good acts on earth, therefore, benefit spirits. The Divine Principle refers to two biblical passages in this connection:

• "…apart from us they [spirits] should not be made perfect." (Hebrews 11:40)

• "Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." (Matthew 18:18)

This is proffered also to explain the brief appearance of saints who rose from their tombs and were seen in Jerusalem at the time of the crucifixion of Christ. (Matthew 27:52) They came, it is said, to help their descendants on earth believe in Jesus and thereby gain for themselves and the spiritual ancestors the benefit of redemption by the cross. Here the Unification teaching compares with the Roman Catholic doctrine of indulgences, the Latter Day Saints' "baptism of the dead," and the appeasement of spirits generic to most eastern and autochthonous faiths.

Bodily disappearances

Christian knowledge of the belief in bodily disappearance of Divine Heroes, or Saviors, in other religions around the world is relatively new and sometimes unwelcome. For these similarities, contemporary evangelical Christians have coined the phrase "Satanic Counterfeits". In addition, some Christians argue that because resurrection stories in these "mystery religions" almost always center around agricultural cycles (i.e. seeding and harvest) and involve their god dying and being resurrected every year then any resemblance to the resurrection of Jesus is strictly superficial. [2] In ancient times, known pagan similarities were many times explained by early Christian writers (curiously, except Justin Martyr) as the work of demons.

As the knowledge of different religions has grown, the bodily disappearance of Divine Heroes has been found to be common. Gesar, the Savior of Tibet, at the end, chants on a mountain top and his clothes fall empty to the ground. The bodies of the Divine Gurus of Sikhism vanish after their deaths. There is a traditional spot in Jerusalem whence, while mounted, Muhammad and his horse both ascend into the sky. The fact that many Muslims visit Mohammed's tomb in Mecca shows a variety of beliefs.

Lord Raglan's Hero Pattern[3] lists many Divine Heroes whose bodies disappear, or have more than one sepulcher. B. Traven author of The Treasure of Sierra Madre, wrote that the Inca Divine Hero, Virococha, walked away on the top of the sea and vanished. It has been thought that teachings regarding the purity and incorruptibility of the Divine Hero's human body are linked to this phenomenon. Perhaps, this is also to deter the practice of disturbing and collecting the hero's remains. They are safely protected if they have disappeared. In Deuteronomy (34:6) Moses is secretly buried. Elijah vanishes in a whirlwind in 2 Kings (2:11).

Recommended reading

• Fyodorov, Nikolai Fyodorovich. Philosophy of Physical Resurrection 1906
• Wright, Tom. The Resurrection of the Son of God. 2003, Augsburg Fortress Publishers, ISBN 0800626796
• Albright, William Foxwell, From Stone Age to Christianity: Monotheism and Historical Process 2003, ISBN 1592443397
• Hatch, Edwin,Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages Upon the Christian Church (1888 Hibbert Lectures), 1995, ISBN 0913573612
• Hock, Ronald F., The Favored One: How Mary Became the Mother of God, Bible Review, p. 12-25, June 2001. Also in this issue: Limberis, Vasiliki, The Battle Over Mary, top of p. 22-23

External links

• Why should I believe in the Resurrection and the Afterlife?
• Jewish Encyclopedia: Resurrection
• Philosophy Now
• Minds in the Making
• Gnosticism
• Divine Principle

References

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