On the Resurrection, Fragments
Chapter 9: The Resurrection of Christ Demonstrates the Revival of the Body
If He had no need for the body, why did He heal it? Most importantly, He raised the dead. Why? Was it not to demonstrate what the resurrection would be like? How then did He raise the dead? Their souls or their bodies? Clearly, both. If the resurrection were only spiritual, it would have been necessary for Him, in raising the dead, to show the body lying apart by itself and the soul living separately.
But He did not do so; instead, He raised the body, confirming the promise of life within it.
Why did He rise in the flesh in which He suffered, if not to demonstrate the resurrection of the flesh? Wishing to confirm this, when His disciples were unsure whether to believe He had truly risen in the flesh, and were looking at Him in doubt, He said to them, “You still have no faith; see that it is I.” He allowed them to touch Him and showed them the marks of the nails in His hands. When they were persuaded by every kind of proof that it was indeed Himself and in the body, they asked Him to eat with them to further verify that He had genuinely risen bodily; and He ate honeycomb and fish.
By doing this, He showed them that there truly is a resurrection of the flesh, and wished to demonstrate that it is not impossible for flesh to ascend into heaven (as He had said that our dwelling place is in heaven), “He was taken up into heaven while they watched,” as He was in the flesh.
Therefore, if after all this, anyone still requires proof of the resurrection, they are no different from the Sadducees, since the resurrection of the flesh is the power of God, and, being beyond all reasoning, is established by faith and seen in action.