On the Resurrection of the Flesh

THE APOSTLE INDEED TEACHES IN HIS EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS THAT WE WERE ONCE DEAD: alienated, and enemies to the Lord in our minds, while we were living in wicked works, Colossians 1:21. He says that we were then buried with Christ in baptism, and also raised again with Him through faith in the working of God, who has raised Him from the dead, Colossians 2:12. And he adds, “And you, when you were dead in sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, has He made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses.” And again: “If you are dead with Christ from the elements of the world, why, as though living in the world, are you subject to ordinances?” Now, since he makes us spiritually dead, yet in such a way as to allow that one day we will have to undergo a bodily death, so too, when he considers that we have also been raised in a similar spiritual sense, he equally allows that we will further have to undergo a bodily resurrection. He says it in so many words: “Since you are risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God. Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth,” Colossians 3:1-2. Accordingly, he shows that it is in our mind that we rise with Christ, since by this alone we are as yet able to reach heavenly things. We should not seek these things, nor set our affection on them, if we already had them in our possession. He also adds: “For you are dead” — that is, to your sins, not to yourselves — “and your life is hid with Christ in God.” Now that life is not yet grasped which is hidden. In the same way John says: “And it does not yet appear what we shall be: we know, however, that when He shall be manifest, we shall be like Him,” 1 John 3:2. We are indeed far from already being what we do not know. Of course, we would be sure to know it if we were already like Him. Therefore, he speaks of the contemplation of our blessed hope even in this life by faith, not of its presence or its possession, but only of its expectation. Concerning this expectation and hope, Paul writes to the Galatians: “For we through the Spirit wait for the hope of righteousness by faith,” Galatians 5:5. He says we wait for it, not that we are in possession of it. By the righteousness of God, he means that judgment which we will have to undergo as the recompense of our deeds. It is in expectation of this for himself that the apostle writes to the Philippians: “If by any means I might attain to the resurrection of the dead. Not as though I had already attained, or were already perfect,” Philippians 3:11-12. And yet he had believed and had known all mysteries, as an elect vessel and the great teacher of the Gentiles. But for all that he goes on to say: “I, however, follow on, if perhaps I may grasp that for which I also am grasped by Christ.” No, more: “Brothers,” he adds, “I do not count myself to have grasped. But this one thing I do: forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forward to those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of blamelessness, that I may attain it,” meaning the resurrection from the dead in its proper time. Just as he says to the Galatians: “Let us not be weary in well-doing: for in due season we shall reap,” Galatians 6:9. In the same way, concerning Onesiphorus, he also writes to Timothy: “The Lord grant to him that he may find mercy in that day,” 2 Timothy 1:18. Until that day and time, he charges Timothy himself to keep what had been committed to his care, without spot, unrebukable, until the appearing of the Lord Jesus Christ, “which in His times He shall show, who is the blessed and only Potentate, the King of kings and Lord of lords,” speaking of God. It is to these same times that Peter refers in Acts when he says: “Repent therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord; and He shall send Jesus Christ, who before was preached to you. Heaven must receive Him until the times of restitution of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of His holy prophets,” Acts 3:19-21.