As you read through the Gospel of Matthew, I wonder if you noticed the spectacular event of the bodily resurrections that occurred at the death of Jesus. Matthew (and only Matthew) states that when Jesus gave up His Spirit "The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people." (Matt. 27:52-53)
In the Scriptures resurrection is a bodily phenomenon.
The Greeks believed in the immortality of the soul. Indeed, many peoples have believed in the immortality of the soul. Christianity did not come preaching merely another version of the immortality of the soul. Christianity came preaching that the immortal soul would re-inhabit the body, and a resurrection of the body would occur.
Think about it for a moment. The soul is not what dies; the body does. For this reason, the soul cannot be "resurrected"; it never died. It is the body that needs re-surrecting. The doctrine of the resurrection preached by Christians challenges the doctrine of the immortality of the soul by suggesting that God intends to redeem the whole of a person--body and soul.
Below I have listed a few Scriptures that discuss bodily resurrection, but before reading these, I want to challenge you to think about why this doctrine is so important (Paul says that without the doctrine of resurrection, we are hopeless--1 Cor. 15:12ff). The doctrine of the bodily resurrection assures us that God cares deeply about all of His creation. God intends to redeem not just "the spiritual." God wants to ransom the entire world. Indeed, Paul teaches us that the entire creation "groans" as it awaits God's liberation of it from the bondage of decay (Rom. 8:20:21)
The doctrine of the bodily resurrection teaches us that we should care about the God's creation, especially His creation of our bodies. So we are taught to treat our bodies as temples of the Spirit (1 Cor. 6:23). We are taught to live pure lives in our bodies. We are taught to use our bodies in obedience to God. Because God loves all of His creation, my body matters. Indeed, it matters enough that, one day, God will raise it up in immortal form and offer it back to my soul. The graves will literally open. The body will literally rise. And we will be whole again--body and soul--forever in God's presence.
The next time you sing about that place "where the soul of man never dies," remember that the immortal bodies God will give us at the great resurrection will be there, too. And, like the soul that never did die, these bodies will live with God forever.
Here are a few other Scriptures on the bodily resurrection.
"And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you." (Rom. 8:11)
"But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body." (Phil. 3:20-21)
"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." (Rom. 8:22-23)
"But someone may ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?' How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised 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." (1 Cor. 15:35-44)
