Devotion - Tuesday, November 10

In I Corinthians 15:41-50 Paul writes of the Resurrection. It was after seminary, when I was preparing to teach confirmation ministry classes, that I came across a great insight to the Church’s teachings on Resurrection.

Resurrection is a theological term. The word might be used in secular contexts, but when we use it we use it in a very specific technical way. It refers to our participation in the dying and being given new life. Resurrection is not simply to come back-to-life; Resurrection is not the inevitable continuation of an immortal soul; Resurrection is the gift of God in which death is followed by new life.

God, who has given us life, will give us life again, after we have died.

We say this every Sunday in our worship services. We are very intentional, in our Creeds, to note that Jesus does indeed die. He does not appear to die, he does not fake a death, he dies. He is so death that he descends into hell. That partition was not crafted as some sort of time line, as a way of explaining what happened to him during those three days. It is an acknowledgement that he is dead.

Death comes. Death is not avoided. But death does not have the final word. That final word is God’s Word and it is the word of the Resurrection.

The Christian Church does not teach an immortal soul. The teachings of the Church affirm that even when we die, yet we shall live. “ The perishable… is raised imperishable.”