Wednesday, May 21, 2008

1Cor 15, 35-38 How are the dead raised?

(1Cor 15, 35-38) How are the dead raised?
[35] But someone may say, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come back?" [36] You fool! What you sow is not brought to life unless it dies. [37] And what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind; [38] but God gives it a body as he chooses, and to each of the seeds its own body.
(CCC 646) Christ's Resurrection was not a return to earthly life, as was the case with the raisings from the dead that he had performed before Easter: Jairus' daughter, the young man of Naim, Lazarus. These actions were miraculous events, but the persons miraculously raised returned by Jesus' power to ordinary earthly life. At some particular moment they would die again. Christ's Resurrection is essentially different. In his risen body he passes from the state of death to another life beyond time and space. At Jesus' Resurrection his body is filled with the power of the Holy Spirit: he shares the divine life in his glorious state, so that St. Paul can say that Christ is "the man of heaven" (Cf. 1 Cor 15:35-50).

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