resurrection

• passage for resurrection (sub-topic): significance of 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 and 55-54
• the resurrection of Jesus is central to Christian faith:

  • forms the basis of the Christian hope of life after death
  • Paul expressed the sheer pointlessness of life + faith if resurrection of Jesus is fiction
  • all four gospels state the tomb was empty
  • it was a unique event
• interpretations of resurrection differ:

  • physical resurrection
  • spiritual resurrection
• St Augustine of Hippo believed the Fall (Adam + Eve eating the forbidden fruit) affected the whole of humanity, not just Adam and Eve
• resurrection of the flesh according to St Augustine of Hippo:

  • every human is infected with sin in every aspect of their being
  • humans are totally dependent on God's grace to deliver them from eternal punishment
  • Jesus' death achieved atonement + his physical resurrection showed to believers what was a possibility for those whom God had chosen
  • Jesus' resurrection + ascension were physical
  • Augustine believed God could perform the same miracle for anything created with a soul - in this physical resurrection, both the spiritual + physical effects of sin would be erased
• spiritual resurrection:

  • belief that after death, the body decomposes in a grave or is destroyed by cremation
  • the soul survives death + lives on with God
  • analogy of the lifecycle events of a butterfly: each stage is physically totally different, yet the essential identity is the same
• Hippo doesn't reject the idea of the soul, nor does he argue that the resurrection doesn't have a spiritual aspect

  • his proposition is that the physical + the spiritual are intimately intertwined
• significance of Corinthians 15:42-44 and 50-54:

  • Paul believed Jesus' death + resurrection had freed humans from the power of sin + death, and had opened up for humanity the possibility of eternal life in the presence of God
  • he believed in resurrection of the body (a new spiritual + imperishable body, not the physical earthly body which perished at death) rather than immortality of the soul
  • he believed that the Second Coming of Christ + the end of the world of human experience were imminent