"I believe …
in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting." With
these final clauses of
the
Apostle's Creed, Christian commitment to life from the moment of
conception is under-girded and Christian hope in the face of death, even
death by violence, is affirmed.
On the one hand, the Creed implies that life in
this body is of
everlasting significance and therefore must be tended, guarded and
nurtured. It braces us with the reality that no human being is
discardable or neglectable. On the other hand, the Creed comforts us
with the hope that life goes on beyond the bounds of this world.
Though we may fail to protect life here, that failure is not eternal.
There is more life to come. The forgiveness we seek is grounded in the
sacrifice of Christ once for all in the past and also in the future he
has established where the consequences of even our worst actions will be
resolved.
The resurrection of the body
Our belief in the resurrection of the body is very different from the
idea that what makes us essentially human is our immortal souls, which
continue after the body is discarded. Our gospel shocked the culture of
Greek thought that prevailed during the years in which the New Testament
was written. The body was understood to be a prison for the soul. The
goal of spirituality was to slip the bonds of corrupt, weak flesh
through developing the mind or enacting mystic rituals. So, the gospel
seemed foolishness to educated Greeks. What kind of God would actually
take up residence in a stinking human body? The resurrection of Jesus in
his body seemed contrary to everything they believed about spirituality.
Even granting that God had come to the world in a body, why would he
ever
keep that body after death?
In that culture, bodies were often burned after death. There was no need
to honor or preserve what had been only a hindrance to true life. By
contrast, Jews and Christians tenderly cared for the bodies of those who
had died. This was not done with some naïve idea that only an
intact, preserved corpse could be resurrected. Rather, it was a matter
of honoring the body because we have our lives in an embodied existence.
Though these bodies will be healed, vivified and transformed into
something more splendid than we can imagine, they will yet be our
bodies. We will not be airy spirits floating on clouds with harps. We
will be more real, more substantial, than we have ever known.
In a passage that has been crucial to the theology of the resurrection
of the body, Paul declared: "But our citizenship is in heaven, and
from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform
our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables
him even to subject all things to himself" (Phil. 3:20-21). We are
going to be like Jesus. Jesus was raised and ascended in the same body
in which he was crucified. Yes, he has been glorified and outfitted for
heaven. But he has not forsaken his body. Because we are going to be
like Jesus, we know that our bodies will likewise be transformed and
decked out for life in glory.
With his usual clarity, C. S. Lewis writes:
- He goes "to prepare a place for us." This presumably
means that He is about to create that whole new Nature which will
provide the environment or conditions for His glorified humanity
and, in Him, for ours.… It is the picture of a new human
nature, and a new Nature in general, being brought into existence.
We must, indeed, believe the risen body to be extremely different
from the mortal body: but the existence, in that new state, of
anything that could in any sense be described as "body" at
all involves some sort of spatial relations and in the long run a
whole new universe. That is the picture – not of unmaking but
of remaking. The old field of space, time, matter, and the senses is
to be weeded, dug and sown for a new crop. We may be tired of that
old field: God is not.1
The hope of the resurrection of the body in the future is the basis
for our high regard for the body in the present. Even the most
disfigured, diminished or diminutive human body is valuable for it is
precisely the object of God's eternal love and included in the future
transformation he has promised. We do not consider embryonic human
beings to be mere lumps of protoplasm. We do not consider that bodies
worn out with age and disease are discardable because they are drains on
our resources. We pour concern and attention even into "losing
causes" of broken or unwanted bodies because of the Triune God's
valuation of our embodied life.
Threads of love
One of the most moving and tangible ways I have seen belief in the
resurrection of the body affirmed is through the
ministry of
Threads of Love.
Sissy Davis recalls:
"In the fall of 1993, a pediatrician from Earl K Long Charity
Hospital in Baton Rouge contacted my pastor with a request for help. She
saw a need for tiny burial gowns for patients who were born prematurely
and were too sick or too tiny to survive."
A group of women began sewing these little gowns. It proved to be a
powerful ministry in the lives of the families who had lost their
babies. Sissy continues:
"The ministry is about healing and binding hearts together of
parents at a time of uncertainty about their baby's health or when they
lose an infant. Our mission is to show parents the love of Christ at a
time when their personal pain is hard to endure and let them know that
God is faithful."
2
Threads of Love is now an international ministry with hundreds of
chapters of women sewing gowns for the little ones. So, what seems like
a waste – sewing beautiful garments for those who died before they
ever lived in this daylight world – is actually a powerful
affirmation of love. The bedrock belief in the resurrection of the body
makes possible such care.
Limits to our madness
Belief in the life everlasting also gives us powerful hope in the midst
of a violent world. Choices are made that do not honor the body, protect
the weak or bind up the broken ones. Rather, infants are killed within
the womb; children are allowed to starve; the elderly are neglected; the
best and the brightest fall in the crossfire of greed, addiction and
human warring madness. We can do terrible things to one another. But
there are limits to our power. We cannot harm beyond this life.
Martin Luther wrote: "The body they may kill; God's truth abideth
still." There are boundaries to the reach of even the cruelest,
most-powerful, most-demonically possessed human beings. We do not go on
forever in this present age. The dictator will die. The wicked
perpetrator's strength will fail. We cannot reach into heaven and harm
any further the little ones who have already gone there to await
resurrection. The life everlasting means that there is more than this
world. Much more life is to come. The corruption of the present age will
not have the final say. The light will dawn, and God's everlasting
kingdom will come.
Resurrection and forgiveness
Precisely because life, and life in the body, matters so much, abortion
and euthanasia are grave sins that scar the soul of those who commit the
acts. But precisely because of the resurrection of the body and the life
everlasting, forgiveness for these acts is real. Let's consider how this
works.
God came to us in a body. The Son of God took up our humanity. In our
name and in our skin, he lived out the perfect faith and obedience
required of us. In our name and on our behalf, he bore the penalty –
in his body on the cross – for the sins we have committed. His
flesh was torn and his blood was spilled. Moreover, in his soul he
experienced the very hell of God-forsakenness that we deserve. He died
for us, as God in embodied human existence. This death took away our
sins. Even our sins unto death have been paid for.
In his resurrection, Jesus completed his work on the cross. He not only
paid for sins committed. He overcame the power of sin in our lives. He
conquered death. Jesus opened heaven for us. He secured the future
kingdom of God in which there will be no more tears or dying, nor more
betrayal or hatred, but life everlasting.
So, we have a Savior who has really paid for the sins of abortion and
euthanasia. He has also created a future in which the consequences of
those sins will be reversed. Those murdered will live again. Those who
have murdered can, through him, be reunited and even reconciled with
those against whom they sinned. Love and harmony, even when broken by
violence, can be restored in Christ in the life everlasting. Our sins
are not forever, neither in penalty nor in consequence, when brought to
the Savior who died on the cross and rose in the body unto everlasting
life.
1. C. S. Lewis, Miracles (Glasgow: Fontana
Books, 1960); p. 153.
2. http://www.threadsoflove.org
The Rev. Dr. Gerrit Scott Dawson is senior pastor of First
Presbyterian Church in Baton Rouge, La. He is the author of numerous
books, including, most recently, Jesus Ascended: The Meaning of
Christ's Continuing Incarnation
. This article originally appeared as
part of a series on the Apostle's Creed published on the
Web site of Presbyterians
Pro-Life. It is reprinted here with permission.