Subject 12 : The Faith of the Apostles Creed
● Faith in the Resurrection of the Body
No
matter who, everyone dislikes hardships, is averse to illnesses,
laments aging, and are scared of death that would approach them at their
end. This is because sufferings, illnesses, and death, which were not
supposed to have come to mankind, nevertheless sprung up as the wages of
sin.
Fundamentally
speaking, because of the sin of the father of mankind, human beings
have been driven away from everlasting happiness. This is why people
endlessly seek after their lost eternal life and yet are unable to reach
it because of their sheer incapacity, looking at it as if it were an
unattainable picture and ultimately succumbing to their death in the
end. This is why all human beings come to seek after their salvation
from someone other than themselves, confessing, “O wretched man that I
am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24) The
answer to this cry is the last part of the Apostles’ Creed—that is, it
is the confession of faith in the resurrection of the body and the life
everlasting.
Matthew
16:26 says, “For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole
world, and loses his own soul?” Given this, the issue of the
resurrection of the body and the life everlasting cannot but be much
more important than any other issues of politics, economy, education,
sports, diplomacy, military, or modernization. Why? Because these things
are earthly issues of a lifetime that lasts no more than a hundred
years, and they cease to be issues as soon as one departs from this
world. Therefore, it is the resurrection and the everlasting life that
are the greatest issue of our lives.
Before we consider this issue, let us first address the problem of death for a while.
Those
who seek the final answer to the problem of death are the wise, for
without knowing the last direction of life, no one can find the way to
the true life.
The
dead do not move. The dead can neither hear nor see. For them, their
knowledge, wisdom, fame, wealth, power, as well as everything else, no
longer have any meaning—that is, such things become nothing to them. If
cremated, their bodies turn into ashes, and if buried, they rot away
under the ground. Death is the most horrible event that everyone faces.
But the horror of death disappears in the power of salvation that Jesus
has given us. This truth is found in the gospel of the water and the
Spirit.
In
Luke 8:52, Jesus said, “Do not weep; she is not dead, but sleeping,”
and He then raised Jairus’ daughter. Jesus saw the death of the
chosen—that is, of the believers—as their separation from God physically
and for a while. However, He declared that they would live again by
believing in the gospel of the water and the Spirit.
In
the first half of Matthew 10:28, Jesus also said, “And do not fear
those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” telling us about the
immortality of human souls. Just like Jesus Himself also entrusted His
own soul to the Father when He passed away, all the saints that preceded
us have also done so when they left this world behind (Acts 7:59).
In What Kind of Body Do We Live Again?
Life
is everlasting. Since the creation of the universe, life has never
ceased to exist but has continued to live. Life has neither volume nor
weight, but it has a great strength. A tree’s roots can break through
rocks and turn it into a great tree. Its life draws water from the
ground and makes leaves and fruits, for life is the strength itself.
Although death is strong and it seems invincible, what is even stronger
than death is life.
The
believers have received the Spirit of Jesus into their hearts when they
believed in His baptism and blood as their salvation from their sins. 1
Peter 1:23 states, “having been born again, not of corruptible seed but
incorruptible.” When the time comes, this seed of life will most
certainly perform the work of resurrection. Romans 8:11 therefore says,
“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal
bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.”
What,
then, is the nature of the resurrected body? The Bible speaks about
this in several places, but the clearest and most detailed explanation
is provided in 1 Corinthians 15:42-44: “So also is the resurrection of
the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness,
it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a
spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.”
The
nature of the resurrected body, therefore, is fundamentally different
from the nature of the earthly body, for it will be like the resurrected
body of Jesus Himself. This is why Philippians 3:21 tells us that
Christ “will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His
glorious body.”
That
is exactly right! The salvation spoken of by Christianity is not only
of our souls, but it is also of our bodies. Let’s now examine this fact
in more detail.
Our bodies will be transformed into incorruptible bodies.
The nature of our earthly bodies is corruptible. 1 Peter 1:24 states,
“All flesh is as grass, And all the glory of man as the flower of the
grass. The grass withers, And its flower falls away.” It is also said in
2 Corinthians 4:16, “our outward man is perishing,” and Proverbs 31:30
states, “Charm is deceitful and beauty is passing.” No matter how
youthful and beautiful our bodies may be, they will all eventually decay
away.
But
the resurrected body is transformed into an incorruptible body. As
Jesus ate in His resurrected body, so shall we. Some may question, then,
whether or not we would have to deal with waste, since we would be
eating in our resurrected bodies. But there would be no waste, for our
bodies would have been made new, so would everything in the entire
universe have been renewed, and therefore nothing would be corruptible
anymore. Therefore, in the immortal realm of Heaven, where we will be
living in our resurrected bodies, we will enjoy food, but there will be
no decay, no stench, and no pollution whatsoever—a world, in short, that
is perfectly clear and clean.
Our bodies will be transformed into strong bodies.
It is often said that depression, no matter how severe, never hits
hospitals, pharmacies, and funeral homes. This is a frank expression
that reveals the sheer weakness of human beings. We die from our
illnesses ravaged by unseen germs, or from our injuries suffered in
accidents.
But
the resurrected body is the indestructible body that suffers from
neither illnesses, nor injuries, nor even from death. As the three
saints of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego who emerged unscathed from
the fiery furnace burning seven times hotter than it was usually heated
(Daniel 3:19-26), our resurrected bodies will be utterly strong. Like
this, the lives of the saints in Heaven will see no illness, nor injury,
nor death, for they will be living in a paradise filled with healthy
joy and happiness.
Our bodies will be transformed into spiritual bodies.
This does not mean that our bodies will be changed into spirits, but
that they will be liberated like our spirits. While in this world, our
bodies are slow and inconvenient. But the resurrected body is limited
neither by time nor by space. It will be freed, as the resurrected Jesus
appeared before His disciples with no temporal or spatial constraints,
going through closed doors, appearing and disappearing all of a sudden.
This is the spiritual body.
Who,
then, are the ones who will receive this blessing? They are the ones
who believe in Jesus as the Savior within the gospel of the water and
the Spirit. John 11:25-26 therefore states, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am
the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die,
he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do
you believe this?’” And John 20:29 also says, “Jesus said to him,
‘Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those
who have not seen and yet have believed.’”
Death
is tragic and horrible. But if we believe in the atonement of the
baptism and blood of Jesus, then we will all be saved from our sins,
freed from the fear of death. We will become the ones who live in this
hope, preaching this gospel directly and indirectly.
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