Why do Christians believe that the body can rise again after it has perished in the ground?
Certainly, human bodies decay and are often wholly disintegrated within years of burial, or lost in the sea, or destroyed by fire.
However, the God who formed the body from the ground in the beginning (Gen 2:7; see Q390, Q573) can equally restore it after it has perished. The Apostle illustrates this by the analogy of the seed, which disappears into the earth, yet from which a plant springs up: “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and what you sow is not the body, which is to be, but a bare grain… But God gives it a body as he has chosen” (1Co 15:36–38; see Q360).
This faith was confessed by the Maccabean martyrs:
I got these [my tongue and hands] from Heaven, and because of his laws I disdain them, and from him I hope to get them back again. … The Creator of the world, who shaped the beginning of humankind and devised the origin of all things, will, in his mercy, give life and breath back to you again, since you now forget yourselves for the sake of his laws. (2Ma 7:11 + 7:22-23)
An essential aspect of the Christian belief in the resurrection of the body is that the normal and intended state of the human being is not that of a disembodied spirit, but the unity of body, soul, and spirit (1Th 5:23; see the Study: Body, Soul and Spirit; see Q167, Q390). The separation of body and soul is precisely what constitutes death (Jas 2:26; see Q167); and the Lord preserves the souls of the departed in a fitting place or state until the end of the age: “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them… their hope is full of immortality” (Wis 3:1–4; see Q035, Q167).
Because the human person is a unity of body, soul, and spirit in the sight of God, the universal judgment considers “what was done in the body” (2Co 5:10; see Q138, Q373).
