An important part of the creed of the Catholic Church is the resurrection and eternal life. One cannot be a Christian without professing it, since it is the culmination of Christ’s redemptive work, in which he has conquered death through his sacrifice.
The Hope of the Resurrection
The Catechism of the Catholic Church says:
Catechism 989 We firmly believe, and hence we hope, that just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day Like his own, our resurrection will be the work of the Most Holy Trinity:
John 6:39-40 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up at the last day. For this is the will of my Father: that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.»
I Thessalonians 4:14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep.
I Corinthians 6:14 And God, who raised the Lord, will also raise us up by his power.
II Corinthians 4:14 knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.
Philippians 3:10-11 that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
The meaning of the resurrection of the flesh
Therefore the Catechism continues:
Catechism 990 The term “flesh” refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality. The “resurrection of the flesh” means that, after death, there will be not only the life of the immortal soul, but that our “mortal bodies” will also come to life again.
In the Bible we find more about the term “flesh”
Genesis 6:3 Then Yahweh said: «My spirit shall not abide in man for ever, for he is flesh; his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.»
Psalm 56:5 In God, whose word I praise, in God I trust and am not afraid; what can flesh do to me?
Isaiah 40:6 A voice says: «Cry!» And I said: «What shall I cry?» — «All flesh is grass, and all its beauty is like the flower of the field.
But when the flesh rises, our bodies will have life:
Romans 8:11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Importance of the resurrection in the Christian faith
The Catechism continues:
Catechism 991 Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of the Christian faith from its beginnings. “The resurrection of the dead is the hope of Christians; we are Christians because we believe in it.”
1 Corinthians 15:12-20 Now if Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is empty and your faith is empty. We are even found to be false witnesses of God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is vain: you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied! But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.
Catechism 992 God revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively. Hope in the bodily resurrection of the dead established itself as an intrinsic consequence of faith in God as creator of the whole man, soul and body. The creator of heaven and earth is also the one who faithfully maintains his covenant with Abraham and his posterity. It was in this double perspective that faith in the resurrection began to be expressed. In their trials, the Maccabean martyrs confessed:
II Maccabees 7:9 At his last breath he said: «You accursed wretch, you dismiss us from this present life, but the King of the universe will raise us up to an everlasting renewal of life, because we have died for his laws.»
What Jesus said to those who did not believe in the resurrection
Catechism 993 The Pharisees and many of the Lord’s contemporaries hoped for the resurrection. Jesus teaches it firmly. To the Sadducees who deny it, he answers:
Mark 12:24 Jesus answered them: «Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God?
Mark 12:26-27 And as for the dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the bush, how God said to him: = I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? = He is not God of the dead, but of the living. You are quite wrong.»
Jesus links the resurrection with faith in him
Catechism 994 But there is more: Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person:
John 11:25 Jesus said to her: «I am the resurrection. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live;
It is Jesus himself who will raise up on the last day those who have believed in him:
John 5:24 Truly, truly, I say to you: he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life.
And have eaten his body and drunk his blood:
John 6:54 He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.
In his public life he already offers a sign and pledge of the resurrection by restoring life to some of the dead, announcing thereby his own Resurrection, which nevertheless will be of another order. Of this unique event,he speaks as the “sign of Jonah,” the sign of the Temple: he announces his Resurrection on the third day after his death.
Matthew 12:39-40 But he answered them: «An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. For as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
John 2:19-22 Jesus answered them: «Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.» The Jews then said: «It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will you raise it up in three days?» But he spoke of the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken.
Mark 10:33-34 Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of man will be delivered to the chief priests and the scribes; they will condemn him to death and deliver him to the Gentiles; and they will mock him, spit upon him, scourge him and kill him, and after three days he will rise.»
To be a witness of Christ is to be a witness of his resurrection
Catechism 995 To be a witness to Christ is to be a “witness to his Resurrection” (Acts 1:22; cf. 4:33), to have “eaten and drunk with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). Christian hope in the resurrection is entirely marked by the encounters with the risen Christ. We shall rise like him, with him, and through him.
Acts 1:21-22 So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.»
Acts 4:33 With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And great grace was upon them all.
The resurrection has always been misunderstood by many people
Catechism 995 From the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with incomprehension and opposition. “On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body” (St. Augustine, psal. 88, 2, 5). It is very commonly accepted that, after death, the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to eternal life?
Acts 17:32 When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked and others said: «We will hear you again about this.»
What is it to rise?
Catechism 997 What is “rising”? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays while the soul goes to meet God, awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection.
Who will rise?
Catechism 998 Who will rise? All the dead: “those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment” (Jn 5:29; cf. Dan 12:2).
Daniel 12:1-3 «At that time Michael shall arise, the great prince who has charge of your people. There shall be a time of trouble, such as never has been since there was a nation till that time. At that time your people shall be delivered: everyone whose name shall be found written in the book. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.
John 5:29 and come forth: those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment.
How will they rise?
Catechism 999 How? Christ is raised with his own body:
Luke 24:39-40 See my hands and my feet; it is I myself. Handle me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.» And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet.
But he did not return to an earthly life. In the same way, in him “all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear” (Lateran Council IV: DS 801), but this body will be “transformed into the body of his glory,” a “spiritual body”
Philippians 3:20-21 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him to subject all things to himself.
I Corinthians 15:42-44 So it is with the resurrection of the dead: what is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable; 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
Catechism 1000 This “how” exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ’s transfiguration of our bodies: Just as bread that comes from the earth, after receiving the invocation of God, is no longer ordinary bread but Eucharist, made up of two things, one earthly and one heavenly, so our bodies that partake of the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, since they have the hope of the resurrection (St. Irenaeus of Lyons, haer. 4, 18, 4-5).
When will they rise?
Catechism 1001 When? Definitively “at the last day” (John 6:39-40,44,54; 11:24); “at the end of the world.” Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ’s Parousia: The Lord himself, at the command given by the voice of an archangel and by the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first:
I Thessalonians 4:16 The Lord himself, at the command given by the voice of an archangel and by the trumpet of God, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, shall be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air. And so we shall always be with the Lord.
Dying with Christ
Catechism 1005 To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ, we must “be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” In this “departure,” which is death, the soul is separated from the body. It will be reunited with the body on the day of the resurrection of the dead.
II Corinthians 5:8 We are of good courage and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
Philippians 1:23 I am hard pressed between the two: on the one hand, my desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better;
Conclusion
Catechism 1015 “Caro salutis est cardo” (“The flesh is the hinge of salvation”) (Tertullian, res., 8, 2). We believe in God who is creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the flesh, the fulfillment of both the creation and the redemption of the flesh.
Catechism 1016 By death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul. Just as Christ is risen and lives for ever, so all of us will rise at the last day.
Catechism 1017 “We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess” (DS 854). Nevertheless, a corruptible body is sown in the tomb, an incorruptible body rises (Corinthians 15:42), a “spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44).
Catechism 1018 As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer “bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned” (GS 18).
Catechism 1019 Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death he conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men.
Bibliography:
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Jerusalem Bible translation
