Resurrection of the Body?
1 Peter 3:13-22
13 Now who will harm you if you are eager to do what is good? 14But even if you do suffer for doing what is right, you are blessed. Do not fear what they fear,* and do not be intimidated, 15but in your hearts sanctify Christ as Lord. Always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you; 16yet do it with gentleness and reverence.* Keep your conscience clear, so that, when you are maligned, those who abuse you for your good conduct in Christ may be put to shame. 17For it is better to suffer for doing good, if suffering should be God’s will, than to suffer for doing evil. 18For Christ also suffered* for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, in order to bring you* to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit, 19in which also he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison, 20who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which a few, that is, eight people, were saved through water. 21And baptism, which this prefigured, now saves you—not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for* a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, 22who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers made subject to him.
If not more, there are at least two fistfuls of ten minute sermons in today’s Lectionary reading from First Peter. There may be a dozen points of theology to contemplate. And there are innumerable things to ponder working through the passage in a Bible study. A couple of things are especially intriguing to me this morning. In verse 18 He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit: is Peter saying that Jesus was resurrected spiritually, but not in his earthly body? Seems so, doesn’t it. But if so, what about the Church’s teaching about the resurrection of the body? There’s something to ponder. One week during my seminary days there was a campaign to get everyone to sign up on the drivers license to be an organ donor. Of my classmates everybody signed up except one young man. He declined, saying that he wanted his body to be complete at the resurrection. Some in the class laughed and scoffed at him.
“I believe in ... the resurrection of the body” we say in the Apostles Creed (BCP 53, 66). Is that a resurrection of the physical body, graves bursting open and the dead being raised? What about those whose body no longer remains, including those of us who were cremated and ashes scattered? Is the resurrection an archaic notion that the Church inherited from first century Pharisees? Is it an instantaneous spiritual resurrection into life eternal? When is the resurrection? Is it an untenable hope of bodily resurrection that contrasts with science including modern cosmology? What about the view of my seminary classmates versus the evidently differing view of the declining young man? Should we delete “donor” from our drivers license?
The other thing that intrigues me this morning is in the very next verse, verse 19, he went and made a proclamation to the spirits in prison. Ancient fathers of the Church understood that specifically, and so our English translation of the Apostles Creed said rather startlingly, “He descended into hell.” Contemporary translation says, “He descended to the dead.”
Our adult Sunday school class is recessed for the summer, but if we were meeting this morning there are a couple of things we could worry over and disagree about.
The peace of the Lord be always with you.
TomW+