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Faith

Back from the dead

There is nothing new about scepticism concerning resurrection. In the 15th chapter of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul addresses people who do not believe in resurrection. According to Paul, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised… If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still answerable for your sins. Also anyone who has died in Christ has perished. If our hope in Christ only relates to this life, we are the most pathetic of all people.”

Christians believe that sin makes us imperfect, separating us from God who is perfect. The only way to reconcile ourselves to God is for the effects of our sin to be cancelled. Jesus died on the cross to pay the necessary price to cancel the sins of the world, and his resurrection is the sign that sin has been defeated. If Jesus did not defeat death, then he did not defeat sin, which would mean that our sins have not been cancelled and there remains an unbridgeable barrier between us and God.

So what is resurrection really like? Most people would prefer a body upgrade in the next life, with wrinkles, flab and other imperfections neatly airbrushed away. Paul makes it clear that our heavenly bodies will be quite unlike our earthly bodies: “I tell you, friends, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. The perishable does not inherit the imperishable.”