12. Commentary On Resurrection – Honoring The Body
Without the afterlife, there is no religion, just as there is no causality, there is no Buddhism.
- RESURRECTION
Without resurrection, Christianity has no reason to exist. Saint Paul affirms: “If Christ has not been raised, our faith is in vain … We are the most foolish, for we believe in vain things” (1 Cor 15:12, 19).
The resurrection of Jesus is at the heart of the Christian faith. God restores life, giving the body a noble meaning.
With regard to the body, we often go to two extremes:
- Excessive tolerance: indulging in instinctively demanding desires, licentious living, lowly passion, debauchery.
- Or torturing the body: see it as an obstacle to spiritual upliftment. This view is less common, often falling on the Stoics, who want to make rapid progress on the path of cultivation.
Both detract from the noble dignity of the human person. Lust of the body must be restrained, disciplined and at the same time, the body must be respected and honored with dignity.
- Reincarnation according to the concept of Buddhism:
Advocacy of samsara and reincarnation. Buddhism believes that when one dies, the body dissolves and only the karma of each person remains. Depending on the good or bad karma, people are reincarnated into other lives high or low. Only when we pay off our karma can we escape the cycle of samsara and enter nirvana.
Thus, in Buddhism, there is no longer talking about this tangible body because it no longer exists after death.
- Biblical interpretation of resurrection:
Revelation doesn’t tell us much about the afterlife. In my opinion, it is not because God doesn’t want us to know, but because perhaps the concepts that we are using to describe the reality on earth cannot explain and enlighten the life in the spirit world. That’s why Paul said, “What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him” (1 Cor 2:9).
Christianity believes that a person only lives once and of course dies once. There is no chance to live a second time. Depending on your good or bad life, you can reap happiness or encounter disaster.
At death there is a personal judgment: merit or sin is determined for reward or punishment. The body temporarily returns to dust.
Paul writes in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians; “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive recompense, according to what he did in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Cor 5:10).
At the end of the world, there will be a common judgment day, the soul and the body will reunite to enjoy the blessings of heaven or suffer the punishment in hell.
It’s everyone’s resurrection day. So, what will happen when our body is resurrected?
- Non-physical body:
We can gather here and there pieces in the gospel, to illustrate in part the transformation of the body after the end.
Jesus has a body, a human form like us, that eats, drinks, suffers, joys and sorrows like us. After his resurrection, he was still the body before his suffering.
Eight days after his resurrection, Jesus came to his disciples, he said to Thomas: “Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side” (John 20:27).
At another time, He also appeared to them. The disciples, who were mortal and could not distinguish how the body sanctified after resurrection was different from the flesh. They thought it was a hidden ghost. The Lord came to them when the door was closed. He said: “Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have” (Lk 24:39). Then as if to testify: “He took (the grilled fish) and ate it in front of them” (Lk 24:43).
The body is the old one but its materiality has changed, so that many people cannot recognize it without previous contacts and experience.
The two disciples on the road to Emmaus, walking with Jesus for a long distance, and heard him explain, “”Their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight” (Lk 24:31).
The resurrected body is not like our current physical body, which Eastern medicine calls sluggish, slow body with negative energy: “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Mt 26:41). On the contrary, it belongs to positive energy. The body after resurrection can go through walls, when the door is closed; sometimes it is here and there at the same time.
From time to time, we often hear that the sages also have this ability, as in the case of Saint Martin. Some people see him at the same time in many places, sometimes in Peru, and at the same time, he is taking care of the sick in other countries. Saint Martin was also granted by God the power to enter the house through the wall when the door was closed. (Saint Martin de Porres, chapter 10, by Mary Fabyan Windeall).
When praying many saints are ecstatic and their bodies soar, not pulled down by gravity.
- The body has been sanctified:
According to the interpretations of reputable theologians, the body after resurrection no longer suffers, but appears beautifully, has many divine characteristics, radiates, is agile, indestructible, and does not decay with time.
We see these phenomena when the Lord was transfigured on Mount Tabor, “His face changed in appearance and his clothing became dazzling white” (Lk 9:29).
When asked about the afterlife, Jesus replied: “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven” (Mk 12:25).
Generally, a body will be transformed from the perishable, imperfect, lowly form of finite physicality, to incorruptibility, perfection, divinity, glory, and eternity.
Paul explained to those who do not believe in the resurrection of the body, in 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, verses 35-58.
He said:
The resurrected body is like a seed which is sown to decay, but it will grow up to have a form according to the will of God. Not everyone is the same, but they change depending on the conditions.
“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one” (1 Cor 15:42-44).
- An explanation from the current scientific point of view:
The resurrected body is still a mystery and incomprehensible for many people. But if we calmly think about it from the perspective of current advanced scientific knowledge, the problem is no longer a myth, but the opposite is true.
First, based on observation, the human form is always changing, progressing over time from childhood to old age and then to death. Scientists recently estimated that the human body has about 30 trillion cells. These cells are constantly dying and being replaced by new ones. But I am still me and not someone else, from childhood until death.
What we perceive with our senses, for a while, is very relative and apparent, but not the truth of things at all. A woman we consider beautiful now will be just an old woman a few decades later. Also, if you look under the microscope, her face is really horrible. Senses and perception deceive us.
Likewise, the resurrected body is the truth of things, the vision of changelessness, of wisdom. It is beyond the limits of the physical world in which we live.
Now, human knowledge has just groped its way into the wonderful and vast world of quantum mechanics and has had correct and exact scientific applications. The time has come to re-evaluate the old-fashioned classical knowledge that we still believe to be true.
- HONORING THE BODY
Jesus was resurrected in a sanctified body. It is also He in the form of an earthly human having been conceived by Our Lady.
Paul writes: “Jesus Christ will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body” (Phil 3:21).
Thus the resurrection gives our bodies great meaning. From now on, the human body is no longer a dark prison of death, but on the contrary a halo of eternal life.
Paul himself admonishes us to treat our bodies with dignity, worthy of the dignity redeemed at the price of Jesus’ blood:
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the holy Spirit? … For you have been purchased at a price. Therefore, glorify God in your body” (1 Cor 6:19-20)
CONCLUSION
The body is not a place of imprisonment for the soul, nor is it a place for the soul to perform a physiological function. Man is a wonderful combination of matter and spirit. On the eschatological day (the last day), according to Christian beliefs, the body will resurrect to unite with the soul to be judged together and participate in the eternal divine life.