All men, after dying in this world, will be resurrected with their bodies on the last day. The Apostolic Symbol confesses it clearly: “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh.”
The symbol called “Quicumque”, and attributed by some to St. Atanasio and by others to St. Ambrosio or St. Fulgencio de Ruspe, and which is the most explicit and Trinitarian of the ancient Symbols, says more clearly: “When he comes the Lord, all men will be resurrected with their bodies and will account for their own deeds.” (Denz. 40)
1. Reality of the resurrection
Resurrecting is coming back to life. But, when we speak of resurrection, we can allude to three forms, types or resurrection realities: the recovery of lost life, to prolong the existence in this world for some more time; the return to a painful corporeal life to suffer the punishment of the evil done also with the body; the glorious and mysterious restoration of the whole man, body and soul, in order to, in imitation of the risen Christ, feel the glorification in the whole human being.
The first resurrection implies recovering all the vegetative and psychological traits that were had. Such was the miraculous resurrection of the daughter of Jairus, of the son of the widow of Naim or of Lazarus. And that happened in the others that are spoken of in the Bible (Elisha, for example) or some that have happened in the lives of some saints by special divine permission.
Those resurrected ones prolonged their earthly existence for a few years and then they died again to know the corruption of the sepulcher like all the other men.
The second type of resurrection will occur in the damned and will be a source of sadness and pain, by making the body participate in the punishment of damnation. We cannot even suspect what it may represent. The bodies will have life again; and the souls, who hitherto suffered alone, will unite with the bodies and make them participants “in harm and meaning.”
The third way will be a joyous resurrection, and the happiness of the soul that already possesses the immense joy of the divine vision, will be transfused into the bodies and they too will enjoy the perfect pleasure of the presence of God.
How it will be and what it will feel in body and soul after that resurrection, is mysterious. The only thing we can say is that the welfare of the resurrected bodies will no longer be equivalent to that of mortal bodies, although we can say no more. It would be too anthropomorphic to think in pleasurable sensory forms: aromas, flavors, pleasant melodies, visual beauties, gratifying pleasures.
It is difficult to establish a balance and equidistance between a conception of the resurrection with an excessive mystical and spiritualist load: subtle, crystalline, aerial, volatile, spiritualized bodies; and a material burden: real life, simply protected against new mortality and turned into an occasion for graceful and good-natured pleasure.
The only thing we can say is that it will be an authentic resurrection and not just a metaphorical one; it will be a definitive resurrection and not compatible with a new death; it will affect the totality of man in his essential dimensions and not the vegetative life of the body that needs to breathe, eat and move.
2. Biblical data
The concept of resurrection originates in the later periods of the Old Testament. At the time of Jesus, the reality or possibility of the resurrection was already being discussed, even within Judaism. The Sadducees opposed the belief in the resurrection: Mt. 22. 2-3; done 23. 5. The Pharisees defended it and were more attached to the texts of the prophets. It is likely that this discrepancy on the subject of the resurrection came from much earlier, at least since the return from captivity.
The Christians inherited these discussions, but they had from the beginning the clear interpretation of Jesus and formulated their own doctrine. Outside of Christianity, the resurrection was unthinkable for the Greek thinkers, the so-called Gentiles in the biblical writings: (Acts 17. 32).
And it is certain that some Christians of apostolic times already denied it or refused to accept it as real, as noted in the Pauline Letters: 1 Cor. fifteen; 2 Tim. 2. 17.
2.1. Old Testament
In the Old Testament there are some references and allusions in prophetic times. Hosea and Ezekiel use the image of the bodily resurrection of the dead and allude to it as a symbol of Israel’s liberation.
This denotes that they have the idea of such a fact and they know that they can pass from the state of sin or exile in which the people find themselves to a new and better life: Hos. 6. 3, 13, 14; Ez. 37. 1-14.
Isaiah expresses his faith in the resurrection of the righteous of Israel: “The dead will revive, and the corpses will rise. The inhabitants of the dust will rejoice… and the dead will rise from the earth.” (Isaiah 26. 19). However, the idea of him is torn between the belief of a real fact and the symbol of a conversion.
Daniel alludes to the resurrection of the wicked, but limiting himself to the People of Israel: “The multitudes of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will wake up, some to eternal life, others to eternal shame and confusion.” (Dan. 12. 2).
The second book of Maccabees clearly teaches universal resurrection: 7. 9. 11, 14, 23 and 29; 12. 43; 14. 46.
Job says: “I know that my Savior lives and that in the last days of the earth I will rise again.” (Job. 19. 25-27).
Other texts of the Old Testament can be remembered and they always leave the echo of a hope that is not fully clear and forceful.
2.2. New Testament
However, in the New Testament the statement is clear and unquestionable. Jesus rejects the Sadducean doubt of the resurrection of the dead: “You are in error and do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. For in the resurrection neither one will marry nor the other will be given in marriage, but they will be like angels in heaven.” (Mt. 22. 29-30).
Christ taught not only the resurrection of the just (Lk. 14. 14), but also that of the wicked (Mt. 5. 29; 10. 28; 18. 8). “Those who have done good for the resurrection of life will come out of the tombs; and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.” (Jn. 5. 29).
To those who believe in Jesus and eat his flesh and drink his blood, He promises the resurrection on the last day (Jn. 6. 39, 44 and 45).
Even himself, before the sisters of Lazarus who mourn his death, declares himself “resurrected”, because that means: “I am the resurrection and the life” (Jn. 11. 25).
The Apostles, basing themselves on the resurrection of Christ, decisively preached the universal resurrection of the dead. The texts are abundant: Hech. 4. 1; 17. 18 and 32; 24. 15 and 21; 26. 23. The message remained latent in the community of followers and constituted one of the basic principles and reason for hope in the Lord who is coming.
Saint Paul corrects some Corinthian Christians who denied the resurrection, and the proof for that of Christ: “How are some saying that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, neither is Christ risen. And if Christ has not risen, our faith is empty. But not. Christ has risen from the dead as the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. For just as through a man came death, so through a man came the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam we have all died, so in Christ we are all made alive. But each one at his time: the first, Christ; then those of Christ, when he He comes. Death will be the last enemy reduced to nothing by Christ.” (1 Corinthians 15, 12-23)
In the victory of Christ over death is included the universality of the resurrection: Rom. 8. 11; 2 Cor. 4. 14; Philip. 3. 21; 1 Thess. 4. 14 and 16; Hebrew 6, 1; 3. Tradition of the Church
From the earliest Christian moment, faith in the resurrection was the foundation of Christian hope. The Fathers of the early times, faced with the many attacks on the idea of the resurrection by Jews, pagans and Gnostics, demanded its acceptance by the followers of the Risen One.
San Clemente Romano is already enthusiastic about it at the end of the first century. The proof is by analogies taken from nature, by the legend of the Phoenix bird and by biblical passages from the Old Testament. (Letter to Cor. 24-26)
The texts that explain the resurrection of Christ, and those of Christians in imitation of Christ, were numerous: Saint Justin, Athenagoras of Athens, Tertullian, Origen, Saint Methodius and Saint Gregory Niseno are some of the most explicit defenders.
St. Irenaeus of Lyons wrote: “Just as the bread that comes from the earth, after having received the invocation of God, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, so our body, which participates in the Eucharist, is no longer corruptible. , but has the hope of the resurrection.” (Ad. Haer. 4. 18. 4)
Also, almost all the apologists of early Christianity dealt extensively with the doctrine of the resurrection. Natural reason cannot present definitive proofs. But the Christian message took care to compensate for the rational deficiency. The Christians resolutely assumed their great confidence in the “restoration” of man corrupted by death.
However, although reason escapes the fact of the resurrection and the situation of the resurrected body, it is not impossible that there is another form of life for the body other than the vegetative and temporary life of this world. That is why Christian writers affirmed it, claiming the three essential features of it: union again between body and soul; body’s involvement in reward or punishment; definitive permanence of the body united to the soul after the resurrection.
The power of God will cause the physical elements that formed the body (carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen) to “reorganize”, without us being able to say how many or how; but they will be enough so that the body is the one that was had and not just a metaphysical shadow without anything physical or a parabolic metaphor without anything natural and real.
Reason is blocked when trying to explain, although fantasy can invent a thousand subtle hypotheses. Faith is what affirms that it will be and reason only comes to recognize that it can be through various reflections: the reality of the body of the risen Christ; the similarity to his of the bodies of other men of which Christ is the Head; the character of sanctified by grace that the body of the just man will also have. That is what Saint Irenaeus said more or less. (Adv. haer. IV. 8, 5)
4. The resurrected body
The dead will be resurrected with the same body they had on earth, not with an appearance.
The Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, declared: “All men will be resurrected with the very bodies they now have, to receive according to their deeds, whether they are good or bad.” (Denz. 429). He thus synthesized the doctrine of the Church and definitively formulated the thought…