Resurrection of the dead

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This article concerns itself with the Christian tenet of belief in the final resurrection at the end of time, as featured in the last sentence of the Nicene Creed. For other meanings, see Resurrection (disambiguation)

Most denominations of Christians believe in the concept of eternal life after death, provided through the atonement of Christ. It is generally believed that when person's body dies, the soul is separated from the body and continues to exist forever. The term resurrection of the dead is generally used to refer to the idea that the dead bodies of all or some of humanity will be reformed and rejoined with the soul at the end of the world. This phrase is included at the end of the Nicene Creed.

Various Christian sects disagree on the exact nature of the resurrection.

Contents

0.1 Different beliefs concerning the timing
0.2 Different beliefs on the method
0.3 Different beliefs on the end state of resurrected person
0.4 Resurrection of the Dead as the Sole Afterlife

1 Resurrection of the Dead in Judaism
2 See also
3 External links

Different beliefs concerning the timing

Simultaneous both of the just and the unjust
The just are resurrected before the unjust
Only the just are resurrected
Timed with the Rapture

Different beliefs on the method

the qualities of the resurrected body will be different from those of the body laid in the grave
but its identity will nevertheless be preserved; it will still be the same body which rises again

Different beliefs on the end state of resurrected person

only spiritual, a body adapted to the use of the soul in its glorified state, and to all the conditions of the heavenly state
physical and spiritual resurrection
glorious, incorruptible, and powerful
like unto the glorified body of Jesus, based on the power and gift of His atonement

Resurrection of the Dead as the Sole Afterlife

Several churches, such as the Jehovah's Witnesses, and theologians of different traditions such as N. T. Wright or L. Ray Smith, dismiss the idea of the immortality of a non-physical soul as a vestige of Neoplatonism, and other pagan traditions of spirit/body dualism. In this school of thought, the dead remain dead (and do not immediately progress to a Heaven, Hell, or Purgatory) until a spiritual or physical resurrection of the dead occurs at the end of time.

Resurrection of the Dead in Judaism

As mentioned in the Gospels, the chief distinction between the Pharisee and Sadduccee parties in the 1st century AD, was that the latter denied the doctrine of Resurrection of the Dead, while the former accepted it. A third party, the Essenes, also believed in the Resurrection and had their own doctrines concerning it. However this debate may have not only concerned the resurection of physical bodies at the end of the world, but may have been a more encompassing debate over the existance of the afterlife at all.

External links

[Catholic Encyclopedia: General Resurrection]

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