Demonstration 8: On the Resurrection of the Dead

At all times arguments arise over this question: how will the dead rise, and with what body will they come? For look, the body wears out and decays, and the bones too, no doubt, waste away as time stretches on over them, until they can no longer be recognized. When you go into a tomb in which a hundred dead men are buried, you do not find a handful of dust there. And so those who reflect on these things say: “Of course we know that the dead will rise; but they will be clothed in heavenly bodies and spiritual forms. If it is not so, then think of these hundred dead buried in one tomb, of whom nothing at all is left there after a long time has passed. When the dead are brought to life, and are clothed in a body and rise, where will their body come from, unless they are clothed in a heavenly body? For look, there is nothing in the tomb.” [a] Whoever reflects like this is foolish and without knowledge. When the dead were brought in, they were something; and when they had been there a long time, they became nothing. But when the time comes for the dead to rise, that nothing will become something, according to its former nature, and a change will be added to its nature. You who are unwise and reflect like this, hear what the blessed apostle said when he was instructing a foolish man like you: “You fool, the seed you sow is not brought to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not like what grows up into the blade, but a single bare grain of wheat or barley or some other seed. To each of the seeds is given its own body. But God clothes your seed with its body as he wills.” [b] So, you fool, learn from this that each of the seeds is clothed in its own body. You never sow wheat and reap barley, and you never plant a vine and find it bearing figs; everything grows according to its nature. In the same way, the body that was laid in the earth is the body that will rise again. As for the body decaying and wasting away, you ought to learn from the parable of the seed. When the seed is thrown into the earth, it decays and rots, and out of its decay it springs up and buds and bears fruit. For plowed land into which no seed is thrown bears no fruit, even if it drinks in all the rain. So too with a grave in which no dead are buried: no one will come out of it when the dead are brought to life, even if the full sound of the trumpet rings out inside it. And if, as they say, the spirits of the righteous will go up into heaven and put on a heavenly body, then they are in heaven. And the one who raises the dead lives in heaven. So when our Savior comes, whom will he raise up from the earth? And why did he write for us, “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead also will hear the voice of the Son of Man, and they will live and come out of their tombs”? For the heavenly body will not come and go into the tomb, and then come out of it again. [c]

For this is what those who are stubborn in their folly say: “Why did the apostle say, ‘The body that is in heaven is different from the body that is on earth’?” But let whoever hears this hear the other things the apostle said as well. “There is an animal body, and there is a spiritual body.” And again he said, “We will all sleep, but we will not all be changed.” And again he said, “This that will die must clothe itself with what will not die, and this which is corruptible must clothe itself with what is incorruptible.” Again he said, “We must all stand before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be repaid in his body for everything he has done before, whether good or evil.” Again he said, “What will those do who are baptized for the dead? If the dead do not rise, why are they baptized for them?” Again he said, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not risen; and if Christ has not risen, then your faith is in vain, and so is our preaching. And then we are found to be false witnesses, because we testified of God that he raised up Christ, whom he did not raise.” So if the dead do not rise, there is no judgment. And if there is no judgment, then “let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we will die. Do not be deceived: bad company corrupts good purposes.” Now as for the apostle’s saying, “The body that is in heaven is different from the body that is on earth,” understand the word this way. When the body of the righteous rises and is changed, it is called heavenly. And the body that is not changed is called earthly, according to its earthly nature. [d] But hear, my beloved, another saying like this one, which the apostle spoke. He said, “The spiritual man judges everything, and he is judged by no one.” And again he said, “Those who are spiritual are spiritually minded, and those who are fleshly are fleshly minded.” And again he said, “When we were in the flesh, the weaknesses of sins were at work in our members, so that we bore fruit for death.” Again he said, “If the Spirit of Christ is in you, you are spiritual.” The apostle said all these things while he was clothed in the flesh but was doing the works of the Spirit. So it will be at the resurrection of the dead: the righteous will be changed, and the earthly form will be swallowed up in the heavenly, and it will be called a heavenly body. And whatever is not changed will be called earthly. [g]

Now concerning this resurrection of the dead, my beloved, I will instruct you as well as I am able. From the beginning God created Adam: he shaped him from the dust of the earth and raised him up. If God made him out of nothing when Adam did not exist, how much easier is it for him now to raise him up, since, look, he is sown in the earth like a seed! If God did only the things that are easy for us, his works would not seem mighty to us. For look, there are craftsmen among people who make wonderful things, and those who are not craftsmen stand and wonder how the work was done; the work of their fellows seems hard in their eyes. How much more should the works of God be a marvel! But for God it was no great thing that the dead should be brought to life. Before any seed was sown in the earth, the earth brought forth what had never been thrown into it. Before it had conceived, it gave birth in its virginity. How then is it hard for the earth to make what was thrown into it spring up again, and to give birth after it has conceived? And look, her labor pains are near, as Isaiah said: “Who has seen anything like this, and who has heard such things as these, that the earth should be in labor in one day, and a people be born in one hour?” For Adam sprang up without being sown; he was born without being conceived. But look, now his children are sown, and they wait for the rain, and they will spring up. Look, the earth is teeming with many, and the time for her to give birth is at hand. [h]

For all our fathers looked ahead and hurried on in the hope of the resurrection and the bringing of the dead to life. As the blessed apostle said, “If the righteous had been looking ahead to that city from which Abraham went out, they would have had the chance to turn back to it again. But they showed that they were looking ahead to a better one, namely the one that is in heaven.” They were looking ahead to being released and going there quickly. And from what I am writing to you, understand and see that they were looking ahead to the resurrection. For when Jacob our father was dying, he bound Joseph his son with an oath and said to him, “Bury me in the tomb of my fathers, with Abraham and Sarah and Isaac and Rebekah.” Why, my beloved, did Jacob not want to be buried in Egypt, but with his fathers? He was showing beforehand that he was looking ahead to the dead being brought to life: so that when the shout of the resurrection was raised and the sound of the trumpet was heard, he might rise up near his fathers, and not be mixed, at the time of the resurrection, with the wicked, who will go back to Sheol and to punishment. [i] In the same way Joseph bound his brothers with an oath and said to them, “When God remembers you, take my bones up with you from here.” And his brothers did as Joseph had said, and kept the oath for a hundred and twenty-five years. At the time when the hosts of the Lord went out of the land of Egypt, Moses took up the bones of Joseph when he went out. The bones of the righteous man were more precious and better in his eyes than the gold and the silver that the children of Israel took from Egypt when they plundered it. The bones of Joseph were forty years in the wilderness, and when Moses fell asleep, he left them as an inheritance to Joshua the son of Nun. The bones of Joseph, his forefather, were better in Joshua’s eyes than all the plunder of the land he conquered. Why did Moses give the bones of Joseph to Joshua? Clearly, because Joshua was of the tribe of Ephraim the son of Joseph. And he buried them in the land of promise, so that there might be a treasure in that land, the bones of Joseph buried in it. Also, when Jacob was dying, he blessed his tribes and showed them what would happen to them in the last days. He said to Reuben, “Reuben, you are my firstborn, my might and the beginning of my strength. You have gone astray; like water, you will not last, because you went up to your father’s bed. Truly you defiled my couch and went up.” From the time Jacob fell asleep until the time Moses fell asleep, two hundred and thirty-three years went by. Then Moses wanted, by his priestly power, to absolve Reuben of his transgression and sin in lying with Bilhah, his father’s concubine, so that when his brothers rose, he would not be cut off from their number. So at the beginning of his blessing he said, “Reuben will live and not die, and will be in the number.” [l] And when the time came for Moses to sleep with his fathers, he was grieved and distressed, and he asked his Lord and pleaded with him to let him cross over into the land of promise. Why, my beloved, was the righteous Moses grieved that he did not enter the land of promise? Clearly, because he wanted to go and be buried with his fathers, and not be buried in the land of his enemies, the land of Moab. For the Moabites had hired Balaam the son of Beor to curse Israel. So Moses did not want to be buried in that land, in case the Moabites should come and take revenge on him by digging up the bones of that righteous man and throwing them out. And the Lord showed grace to Moses. He brought him out to Mount Nebo and showed him the whole land, making it pass before him. As Moses gazed on all the land, and gazed on the mountain of the Jebusites, where the tabernacle was to dwell, he grieved and wept when he saw the tomb in Hebron where his fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were buried, because he would not be buried with them, nor would his bones be laid on their bones, so that he might rise along with them at the resurrection. But when he had seen all the land, his Lord encouraged him and said to him, “I myself will bury you and hide you, and no one will know your tomb.” So Moses died according to the word of the Lord’s mouth, and the Lord buried him in a valley in the land of Moab opposite Beth-peor, where Israel had sinned; and no one has known his grave to this day. His Lord did two good things for Moses by not making his tomb known to the children of Israel. First, he was glad that his enemies would not know it and throw his bones out of his tomb. Second, the children of his own people would not know it and make his tomb a place of worship, for he was counted as God in the eyes of the children of his people. Understand this, my beloved, from the fact that when he left them and went up the mountain, they said, “As for this Moses who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.” So they made themselves a calf and worshiped it, and they did not remember God, who had brought them up out of Egypt through Moses with a mighty hand and an uplifted arm. Because of this God had regard for Moses and did not make his tomb known. For if he had made his tomb known, the children of his people might have gone astray and made themselves an image, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and so by their sins disturbed the bones of the righteous man. [n]

Moses also proclaimed the resurrection of the dead clearly, for he said, as from the mouth of his God, “It is I who put to death, and it is I who make alive.” Hannah too said this in her prayer: “The Lord puts to death and makes alive; he brings down to Sheol and brings up from it.” The prophet Isaiah also said: “Your dead will live, O Lord, and their bodies will rise; and those who sleep in the dust will awake and praise you.” David also proclaimed it, saying, “For look, you work wonders for the dead, and the mighty ones will rise and give thanks to you, and those who are in the tombs will tell of your grace.” How will they tell of the grace of God in the tombs? Clearly, when they hear the sound of the trumpet summoning them, and the horn sounding out from on high, and the earthquake that will come, and the tombs that will be opened, then the mighty ones will rise in glory and tell one another in the tombs, saying: “Great is the grace that has been shown to us. Our hope had been cut off, yet another hope has risen for us. We were shut up in darkness, and we have come out to the light. We were sown in corruption, and we have risen in glory. We were buried naturally, and we have risen spiritually. Again, we were sown in weakness, and we have risen in power.” This is the grace they will tell of in the tombs. [p] It was not only in words, my beloved, that God said, “I make the dead alive.” He also showed it to us in deeds, by many testimonies, so that we might have no hesitation about it. He showed it plainly beforehand. Through Elijah a wonder was shown, as proof that the dead will live and those who sleep in the dust will rise. For when the widow’s son died, Elijah raised him up and gave him back to his mother. And again Elisha, his disciple, raised up the son of the Shunammite woman, so that the testimony of two might be established and confirmed for us. And again, when the children of Israel threw a dead man onto the bones of Elisha, that dead man came back to life and rose. And the witness of three is certain. [s]

The resurrection of the dead was also plainly shown through the prophet Ezekiel. God brought him out to the valley and showed him many bones, and made him pass among them all around, and said to him, “Son of Man, will these bones live?” And Ezekiel said to him, “You know, O Lord of lords.” And the Lord said to him, “Prophesy, O Son of Man, over these bones. Prophesy and say to the dry bones, Hear the word of the Lord of lords.” When he had made them hear those words, there was a shaking and a noise, and the bones were gathered together, even those that had been crushed to pieces and broken. When the prophet saw them, he was astonished, for they came together from every side. Each bone took its fellow, and each joint came to its fellow joint, and they set themselves in order, one on another. Their dryness was made moist, the joints were joined by the sinews, the blood grew warm in the arteries, skin was stretched over the flesh, and hair grew according to its nature. But they lay flat, and there was no breath in them. Then he commanded the prophet again and said to him, “Prophesy to the spirit and say to it, Come, O spirit, from the four winds, and breathe on these slain, so that they may live.” And when he made them hear this second word, the spirit entered them, and they came to life and stood up on their feet, a very great host. [t] But why, my beloved, did those dead not rise at the one word spoken through Ezekiel? Why was their resurrection, of both bones and spirit, not completed by that one word? For look, by one word the bones were fitted together, and by another the spirit came. It was so that the full perfection might be left for our Lord Jesus Christ, who with one utterance and one word will raise up every human body at the last day. For it was not the word that fell short; it was its bearer who was lesser. And on this point, understand and see that when Elijah, and Elisha his disciple, raised the dead, they did not raise them with one word. Only after they had prayed and made intercession and waited no little time did the dead rise. Our Lord himself, at his first coming, raised up three who were dead, so that the testimony of three might be made sure. And he raised each of them with two words. When he raised the widow’s son, he called him twice, saying to him, “Young man, young man, arise.” And he came back to life and rose. And again he called the daughter of the synagogue leader twice, saying to her, “Little girl, little girl, arise.” And her spirit returned and she rose. And after Lazarus died, when he came to the place of burial, he prayed earnestly and cried with a loud voice and said, “Lazarus, come out.” And he came back to life and came out of his tomb. [u] As for all this that I have explained to you, that those dead were raised with two words each: it was because two resurrections take place for them, the former one, and the second, the one that is to come. For in that resurrection in which all people will rise, no one will fall again. By one word of God, sent out through Christ, all the dead will rise quickly, in the twinkling of an eye. For the one who brings it about is not weak or lacking. With one word of summons he will make all the ends of the world hear, and all who are laid in the grave will leap out and rise up. And no word will return empty to him who sent it out, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, who compares the word to rain and snow. He said, “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but fertilize the earth and make it bring forth, and give seed to the sower and bread for food, so will the word be that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish whatever I desire, and will accomplish that for which I sent it.” For the rain and the snow do not return to heaven, but accomplish in the earth the will of the one who sends them. So the word that he will send through his Christ, who is himself the Word and the Message, will return to him with great power. For when he comes and brings it, he will come down like rain and snow, and through him all that is sown will spring up and bear righteous fruit. And the word will return to the one who sent it. His going will not have been in vain, but this is what he will say in the presence of the one who sent him: “Look, I and the children whom the Lord has given me.” And this is the voice through which the dead will live. Our Redeemer testifies about it, saying, “The hour is coming when even the dead will hear the voice of the Son of Man and will come out of their tombs.” As it is written, “In the beginning was the voice,” that is, the Word. And again he said, “The Word became a body and lived among us.” And this is that voice of God which will sound from on high and raise up all the dead. [v]

Again, our Lord explained the resurrection of the dead to the Sadducees, when they brought him the parable of the woman who was married to seven husbands, and said to him, “Look, the woman was wife to all of them. In the resurrection of the dead, whose wife will she be?” Then our Lord said to them, “You are badly mistaken, and you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For those who are worthy of that world and of that resurrection from the dead, the men do not take wives, nor are the women given to husbands, for they cannot die, since they are like the angels of God and are children of the resurrection. But concerning the resurrection, that the dead will rise, have you not read in the Scripture that God said to Moses out of the bush, ‘I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob’? And look, he is not the God of the dead, for they all are alive to him.” [x] And there are those who are dead to God even while they live. For he laid a command on Adam and said to him, “On the day you eat from the tree, you will surely die.” Yet after he had broken the command and eaten, he lived nine hundred and thirty years; but he was counted dead to God because of his sins. And so that it may be made sure to you that a sinner is called dead even while he lives, I will make it clear to you. For this is what is written in Ezekiel the prophet: “As I live, says the Lord of lords, I do not desire the death of the dead sinner.” [y] Again, there was the man who said to our Lord, “Let me go and bury my father, and then I will come to you.” And our Lord said to him, “Let the dead bury their dead; but you go and preach the kingdom of God.” How do you understand this saying, my beloved? Have you ever seen the dead burying their dead? Or how will a dead man get up to bury another dead man? But take this explanation from me: a sinner, while he is living, is dead to God, and a righteous man, though he is dead, is alive to God. For such a death is a sleep. As David said, “I lay down and slept, and I awoke.” Again Isaiah said, “Those who sleep in the dust will awake.” And our Lord said about the daughter of the synagogue leader, “The girl is not dead, but is asleep in slumber.” And about Lazarus he said to his disciples, “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I am going to wake him.” And the apostle said, “We will all sleep, but we will not all be changed.” And again he said, “Do not grieve about those who sleep.” [z]

But it is right for us to fear the second death, the death that is full of weeping and grinding of teeth, of groaning and misery, the death that lies in the outer darkness. Blessed will the faithful and the righteous be in that resurrection, in which they expect to be awakened and to receive the good promises made to them. But as for the wicked, who are not faithful, woe to them at the resurrection, because of what is stored up for them! By the faith they hold, it would be better for them not to rise. For the servant whose lord is preparing a beating and chains for him does not want to wake while he is sleeping, because he knows that when dawn comes and he wakes, his lord will flog him and bind him. But the good servant, whose lord has promised him gifts, watches eagerly for the time when dawn will come and he will receive presents from his lord. Even when he is sound asleep, he sees in his dream something like what his lord is about to give him, whatever he has promised him; and he rejoices in his dream, and exults, and is glad. As for the wicked man, his sleep is not pleasant to him, for he imagines that, look, the dawn has come for him, and his heart breaks in his dream. But the righteous sleep, and their sleep is pleasant to them, by day and by night. They take no thought of all that long night, and in their eyes it counts as one hour. Then in the morning watch they wake with joy. But as for the wicked, their sleep lies heavy on them. They are like a man laid low by a great and deep fever, who tosses this way and that on his bed and is terrified the whole night long, a night that stretches itself out for him; and he fears the dawn, when his lord will condemn him. [aa] But this is what our faith teaches: when people fall asleep, they sleep this sleep without knowing good from evil. The righteous do not look forward to their promises, nor do the wicked look forward to their sentence of punishment, until the Judge comes and separates those whose place is at his right hand from those whose place is at his left. Learn from what is written: when the Judge sits, and the books are opened before him, and the good and evil deeds are read out, then those who have done good works will receive good rewards from him who is good, and those who have done evil deeds will receive evil penalties from the just Judge. For toward the good he does not change his nature; and he shows himself just because he justly condemns many. But toward the evil he changes his nature, in that world where grace is lost in justice; and he shows himself just to all. And grace will not be joined with justice toward them. Just as grace does not help to repair loss, so justice does not help grace. For grace is far from the judge, but justice presses the judge on. If grace is near to anyone, let him turn himself toward it, and not hand himself over to justice, so that justice does not condemn him and exact from him the penalty for his failings. And if grace is far from anyone, justice will bring him to trial, and by it he will be condemned and go away to the torment. [ab]

But hear, my beloved, this proof that the recompense will take place at the end. When the Shepherd divides his flock and sets some on his right hand and some on his left, only when he has acknowledged the service of the good will he make them inherit the kingdom; and only when he has rebuked the evil and they are condemned will he send them to the torment. And as for those who sent messengers after the King, saying, “This man will not be king over us”: when he has received the kingdom and returned, then his enemies will be killed before him. The laborers who hurried and grew weary in the vineyard will not receive their reward until the work is over. And the traders who received the money: when the lord of the money comes, then he will demand the interest. And the virgins who, while waiting for the bridegroom, grew drowsy and slept because he was slow to come: when they hear the cry, then they will wake and trim their lamps, and the wise will go in, and the foolish will be shut out. And those who went before us into the faith will not be made perfect without us. [ad] From all these things, my beloved, understand, as it has now been made sure to you, that no one has yet received his reward. The righteous have not inherited the kingdom, and the wicked have not gone into torment. The Shepherd has not yet divided his flock. And look, the workers are going into the vineyard and have not yet received their reward. Look, the merchants are trading with the money, and their lord has not yet come to take the account. The King has gone to receive the kingdom, but he has not yet returned the second time. The virgins who are waiting for the bridegroom are sleeping to this day, and are waiting for the cry, when they will wake. And the first men, who labored in the faith, will not be made perfect until the last men come.

But those who are infants in understanding say, “If no one has received his reward, why did the apostle say, ‘When we leave the body, we will be present with the Lord’?” But remember, my beloved, that I instructed you on this matter in the Demonstration on Monks. The spirit that the righteous receive goes, according to its heavenly nature, to our Lord until the time of the resurrection, when it will come to put on the body in which it lived. At all times it keeps this in memory in the presence of God, and looks eagerly for the resurrection of the body in which it lived. As the prophet Isaiah said about the church of the Gentiles, “Those who make mention of you will be faithful and stand before the Lord, and you will not give them rest.” But the wicked have no one to make mention of them before the Lord, because the Holy Spirit is far removed from them, since they are animal, and they are buried the way animals are buried. [ae] Again, the followers of teachings that are instruments of the Evil One take offense at the word our Lord spoke: “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man, who was in heaven.” And they say, “Look, our Lord testified that no earthly body has gone up to heaven.” In their ignorance they cannot grasp the force of this. For when our Lord was instructing Nicodemus, Nicodemus did not grasp the force of what was said. Then our Lord said to him: “No one has gone up into heaven so as to come down and tell you whatever is there. For if I have spoken to you of the things that are on earth and you do not believe, how will you believe if I speak to you of the things that are in heaven? For look, no other witness besides me has come down from there to bear witness about the things that are in heaven, so that you might believe. Elijah went up there, but he did not come down along with me to bear witness, so that the testimony of two might be sure.” [ag] But as for you, my beloved, have no doubt about the resurrection of the dead. For the living mouth of God testifies, “I put to death and I make alive.” Both of these came out of one mouth. And as we are sure that he puts to death, since we see it, so also it is sure and worthy of belief that he makes alive. From all that I have explained to you, receive and believe that on the day of the resurrection your body will rise whole, and you will receive from our Lord the reward of your faith; and in all that you have believed, you will rejoice and be glad. [ah]