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NASB | John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 11:25 Jesus said to her, "I am the Resurrection and the Life. Whoever believes in (adheres to, trusts in, relies on) Me [as Savior] will live even if he dies; |
Bible Question: In 1 Thessalonians 4:16 it says "the dead in Christ will rise first." Can you help me undertand what will rise? I thought when we died our soul went diretely to heaven. Why would our dead earthly body rise? |
Bible Answer: Liveright, 1 of 2 The Incarnation of Christ was about redeeming us as God created us, an integrated person consisting of body and soul. Death is the sepaaration of the soul from the body. The resurrection is the reintegration of the body and soul, overcomng and conquering death. "994 But there is more. Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person: "I am the Resurrection and the life."( Jn 11:25) It is Jesus himself who on the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who have eaten his body and drunk his blood.( Cf. Jn 5:24-25; 6:40,54) Already now in this present life he gives a sign and pledge of this by restoring some of the dead to life,( Cf. Mk 5:21-42; Lk 7:11-17; Jn 11) announcing thereby his own Resurrection, though it was to be of another order. He speaks of this unique event as the "sign of Jonah,"( Mt 12:39)7 the sign of the temple: he announces that he will be put to death but rise thereafter on the third day.( Cf. Mk 10:34; Jn 2:19-22) 995 To be a witness to Christ is to be a "witness to his Resurrection," to "[have eaten and drunk] with him after he rose from the dead."( Acts 1:22; 10:41; cf. 4:33) Encounters with the risen Christ characterize the Christian hope of resurrection. We shall rise like Christ, with him, and through him. 996 From the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with incomprehension and opposition.( Cf. Acts 17:32; 1 Cor 15:12-13)0 "On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body."( St. Augustine, En. in Ps. 88,5:PL 37,1134) It is very commonly accepted that the life of the human person continues in a spiritual fashion after death. But how can we believe that this body, so clearly mortal, could rise to everlasting life? How do the dead rise? 997 What is "rising"? In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while 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. 998 Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "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) 999 How? Christ is raised with his own body: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself";( Lk 24:39) but he did not return to an earthly life. So, in him, "all of them will rise again with their own bodies which they now bear," but Christ "will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body," into a "spiritual body"( Phil 3:21; 2 Cor 15:44) But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?" You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel. . . . What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. . . . The dead will be raised imperishable. . . . For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.( 1 Cor 15:35-37,42,52,53) 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 God's blessing has been invoked upon it, is no longer ordinary bread, but Eucharist, formed of two things, the one earthly and the other heavenly: so too our bodies, which partake of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but possess the hope of resurrection.( St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4,18,4-5:PG 7/1,1028-1029) 1001 When? Definitively "at the last day," "at the end of the world."( Jn 6: 39-40,44,54; 11:24) Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ's Parousia: For the Lord himself will descend from heaven, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first.( 1 Thess 4:16) The Catechism http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p123a11.htm#996 Emmaus |