The Resurrection of the Flesh

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. JOHN 11:25

The Enchiridion follows the Creed, and after the forgiveness of sins comes the resurrection of the body. Augustine admits that he cannot treat it briefly and still answer every question people ask. But on the main point he is not in the least uncertain. He does not mean a resurrection like that of Lazarus, who came back to life for a time and died again, but a resurrection to eternal life, as the body of Christ Himself rose. And that the bodies of all people, those who have died and those who will die, shall be raised, “no Christian ought to have the shadow of a doubt.”

Death is an enemy

This was not a small thing for Augustine to say. He had been formed by the Platonists, for whom the body was at best a lodging and at worst a prison, and death a release of the soul into its proper freedom. Who would want the prison back? Augustine learned a different account from the Scriptures. The body is God’s good work. Death, the tearing of soul from body, is not a natural release but a penalty. Neither the first death, he says, when the soul is forced to leave the body, nor the second death, would ever have been inflicted if no one had sinned.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:21–22

So death may be named honestly as an enemy. The Christian need not pretend it is beautiful. It is the last enemy, and it will be destroyed.

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:26

Nothing is far to God

Augustine had seen this faith lived out in his mother. Monica had long planned to be buried in Africa beside her husband. But at Ostia, in her last days, her friends asked whether she was not afraid to leave her body so far from her own city. Her answer is one of the quiet glories of the Confessions: “Nothing is far to God; nor was it to be feared lest at the end of the world, He should not recognise whence He were to raise me up.” She no longer cared where she lay, because she knew who would raise her.

When she died, his friend Euodius took up the Psalter, and the whole house sang, I will sing of mercy and judgments to Thee, O Lord. Years later, writing of the resurrection in the Enchiridion, Augustine returned to that verse: only on that day, he says, shall the saints see fully what it means.

I will sing of mercy and judgment: unto thee, O LORD, will I sing. PSALM 101:1

The great Artist

Augustine’s people asked what people still ask. What of a body burned, or lost at sea, or turned to dust and scattered? He answers with an illustration. If a statue of some metal were melted, or broken into dust, a sculptor could make it again from the same metal, and it would not matter which particle went into which part, so long as the whole was restored. So, he says, “God, the Artificer of marvellous and unspeakable power,” will restore our bodies, and nothing of them will be lost to Him. The great Artist, he says, will see that nothing is unbecoming or out of place.

Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself. PHILIPPIANS 3:21

Some of this is speculation. But under it lie two convictions that are pure comfort. The first is that we shall be ourselves. He thinks it likely that each will keep his own features and a recognisable likeness to his former self, and that whatever differences remain will be like “the voices that make up a full harmony.” The second is that what is broken will be mended. Whatever time has marred, he says, will be renewed, and whatever time never had the chance to complete will be completed. Of children who died before birth he will not affirm more than he knows; but he cannot see, he says, why anyone who has once lived should be denied a share in the resurrection.

A body, not a ghost

Paul calls it a spiritual body, and Augustine guards the phrase. The bodies of the saints will be free from every defect and corruption, from all heaviness and hindrance; they will be called spiritual, he says, “though undoubtedly they shall be bodies and not spirits.” A spiritual body is not a body made of spirit, but one wholly at the service of the spirit. Even after the resurrection, he reminds us, the body of Christ was called flesh.

It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; 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. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:42–44

Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. LUKE 24:39

Augustine is often blamed, with some reason, for a suspicion of the body that has troubled the church. Here he is at his most biblical. The body is not the enemy. It is to be raised, glorified and brought into perfect harmony with the spirit, so that the war he knew so well will be over. The gospel does not promise to free us from our bodies. It promises to give them back, made new.

Mercy and judgment

Augustine does not hide the other side. The lost, too, will rise, each with his own body, to what Scripture calls the second death.

Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation. JOHN 5:28–29

In the following pages he presses on into the mysteries of election, where the reader will need the care urged in the chapter on grace. But his summary of what the saints will understand on that day is one no believer should quarrel with: “it is only of unmerited mercy that any is redeemed, and only in well-merited judgment that any is condemned.” No one in the resurrection of life will think that he earned his place there.

What should this hope do to us now? Paul’s answer is not speculation but work.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not in vain in the Lord. 1 CORINTHIANS 15:58

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Read 1 Corinthians 15 in one sitting this week, and mark every phrase that speaks of the body.

2. Ask yourself whether you have thought of heaven as an escape from the body rather than the raising of it. How would the resurrection change the way you treat your body now?

3. If you have buried someone who died in Christ, give thanks by name for the day God will raise them, and let Monica’s words, nothing is far to God, comfort you.

4. If you live with a body that is broken or in pain, bring it to God in prayer as a body He has promised to renew.

5. Choose one task in the work of the Lord that you have let go slack, and take it up again this week, knowing that your labour is not in vain.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You are the resurrection and the life, and You were raised in the body that was nailed to the cross.

Thank You that nothing is far from You, and that not one of those who sleep in You is lost to Your sight.

Teach me to honour this body You have made and will raise, and to name death honestly as the enemy You have conquered.

Keep me stedfast in Your work until the day You change this lowly body to be like Your glorious body, and I sing of mercy and judgment to You for ever. Amen.