May 31 – LD 22, Day 4: The Miracle of the Resurrection of the
Body
by Prof Herman Hanko
Read: I Corinthians 15:12-23
There are several considerations
that make the resurrection of the body an amazing miracle. Let us mention a few
of them. They will help us realize what a great wonder God performs for us when
he raises our bodies.
Think, first of all, of
the fact that the bodies of every child of God that ever lived will be raised.
This includes not only all the saints who lived in both the old and new
dispensations, but also all those saints who lived before the flood: Adam,
Abel, Seth, Enoch, Methuselah, Noah and all the rest. The flood was a great
catastrophe and tore the earth to pieces. Yet the bodies of the people of God
were somehow preserved.
Think of all the things
that can happen to a human body: it can be and has been burned with fire. The
ashes of the pre-Reformer John Wycliffe, for example, were strewn on the waters
of a river and were carried out to the oceans. Some were drowned; some were
eaten by fish; some were eaten by lions in the arenas of
How impossible it all
seems to us.
But we must
remember also that the resurrection of our bodies is a truth we believe by
faith. No wonder the unbeliever scoffs. With all his science he cannot believe
something so “scientifically” impossible. But we walk by faith, not by
sight. We believe in a great God who created all things, is present in every
particle of the creation with his whole being, and upholds all things by his
word. He can and does preserve every particle of every child of God so that he
can raise it at the end of time.
This miracle is
necessary, because our own bodies are raised. We are taught: “this my body, being raised.” The very same
body conceived in my mother’s womb, grown to adulthood, dead and buried, rotted
in the ground, is going to be raised. God does not abandon our earthly bodies
and create for us entirely new bodies. No, he preserves our bodies and raises
them.
They are greatly
changed, but they are the same bodies in which we lived on earth.
This is the way it was
with the body of Jesus. When our Lord died, he was buried in Joseph’s tomb.
From that tomb his body arose. After he arose, the body was there no longer.
And yet it was changed.
It was so changed that our Lord could not be seen unless he took on some form
that was visible to the human eye. He could, in his body, enter rooms that were
locked and sealed. It was his body that ascended into heaven, is now glorified
and in which body Christ rules over all.
What an astounding
wonder. But what blessedness!