Question 57. What comfort does the “resurrection of the body” offer you?
Answer: Not only will my soul after this life be immediately taken up to Christ its head, (a) but also, my body, raised by the power of Christ, will be reunited with my soul, and made like the glorious body of Christ. (b)
(Scriptural proofs after the fold.)
The poor man died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side… .
And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.
So is it 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. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God … .
Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
… who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.