[AI translation] We have come to the end of the explanation of the Apostles' Creed, begun more than a year ago, to the last movement, the explanation of the resurrection and eternal life. It is here that the believer - that I, believing as I do in the thrice one God, as I confess in this Creed - look forward with the triumphant hope that "I believe in the resurrection of our bodies and the life everlasting". This is our great Advent hope! I know well that in all our Creed this is perhaps the least asserted proposition.Indeed, the idea of bodily resurrection is the most difficult to believe, and many would perhaps not mind if it were left out of the Creed. But that is only because there are so many misconceptions attached to it. Things that the Bible does not teach. In this sermon today, I want to do nothing more than dismantle those misconceptions and so clarify what the Bible does teach about the resurrection of our bodies and eternal life.
1) First and foremost, the very common idea that is usually held as a hope after death is wrong. It is a vague and quite unfounded optimism which tries to reassure itself in the face of the harsh reality of death. Many people think, for example, that death is just a beautiful dream from which the soul will awake in the next world, happy and smiling. Death is a pallet or tunnel that connects earth with the afterlife. It is a boat of the underworld in which the soul, freed from the body, is beautifully carried into eternity. Indeed, the instinct to escape from death has led man to develop the theory of the immortality of the soul, according to which the soul is something that does not perish in death, that is not touched by death, and thus the soul, in the knowledge of its own immortality, can even despise death.
Well, my brethren, first of all, let me say quite frankly: death is not such a harmless thing! All this is just the instinctive self-indulgence of a man who fears death. For death is death! In the coldest, most uncomfortable sense of the word. It is not annihilation, and not only a physical process as death, but also a state, a way of being. For death is not the opposite of existence, so it is not that death is non-existence, but death is the opposite of eternal life, a state of separation from God as Life, the source of eternal life. And so death puts its stamp on our whole life. This life that we are living at this moment is also a life existing in the shadow of death, and this shadow is the horizon of our whole existence. Our whole existence has the character of death. We have a life that is surrounded by death. Our life is a life destined to death, a life locked in the prison of death from which there is no escape by any human effort. Even our soul, however different the soul may be from the body, has no faculty, no quality that can lift it out of the embrace of death. This is what the Bible says: "the wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23).
Well, that is why what the Apostle Paul proclaims is so significant: "But Christ rose from the dead, and became the Saviour of those who had fallen asleep." (verse 20) Someone died there on Calvary too, but someone died who said this about himself: I am Life! And when this Life met death, it broke through it, it pierced it, like the first sprout of a leaf emerging from the crust of the earth, that certain "germ" through which a new possibility opens, a new process begins.
You have probably seen it from Moscow Square, when the tram turns off towards Krisztina Boulevard, there is a young poplar tree that has split a large block of stone. At some point, the seed of this poplar tree got under the stone slab, started to sprout and slowly cracked the rock that was pressing on it and through the gap it pushed its way up above the ground. Something like this happened at Easter: the germ of eternal life, Jesus, burst the granite wall of our crypt, rose from the dead and opened the way through death to eternal life. What this means is that if Jesus has not risen, all our beautiful theories, philosophies and dreams are in vain, even our faith! We cannot break through the granite wall of death with him. If Christ has not risen, then we are miserable, then our human destiny is a miserable destiny. - But Christ has risen, in him and through him the conquest of death by the resurrection has already begun, and we can therefore, and only therefore, believe that the same process which has already begun in Jesus will continue in those who have fallen asleep in him. Death is a fatal thing, but by clinging to the risen Christ you can hope that through death the way to eternal life will be opened for you.
He said, "He who believes in me, though he die, yet lives" (John 11:25b).
2) Then there are many misconceptions in our hearts about the issue of bodily resurrection. Many people imagine that the decaying corpses buried in a cemetery somewhere 20-50-600 years ago will one day come out of the graves and come to life... But how is that possible, since those carcasses decompose and become plant nutrients, and are then used in the great cycle of nature as components of other animal or human bodies... Well, who was torn apart by wild animals or burned in a crematorium? Where do the parts of the body that belong together come from in the resurrection? It is fantasies like these that make the whole thing truly incredible. But the Bible tells a different story.
Let me briefly say that there are two different words in Scripture, both of which are translated as body in the Hungarian language. But there is a big difference between the two words! The two words in the Bible are. Sarfx means the matter of the body, that 50-60-80 kilos of flesh-blood, muscle, bone, that perishable heap of earthly matter that has been turned to dust and will be dust again. And the soma means the form, the essence of the body, which, despite the incessant exchange of particles of matter, always remains the same body, always remains my body, always remains the body expressing my individuality. The soma, then, is the form of representation that "breathes" me, my individuality, in which my personality is expressed in visible, audible and tactile form.
It is a well-known fact that the inner spiritual content of a human being is expressed in a certain physical appearance. For example, obedience to Jesus or service to Satan is expressed in looks, facial features and voice. Now, then, this visible manifestation of the soul, this bodily form of the soul, by which you can know that it is you and not the other person, this is the word. For example, to give you an analogy: the material of this temple is brick, wood, iron: this is the sarix. And if every brick were replaced by another brick, if it were replaced by another material, the building itself would remain unchanged, its shape, its style, its function would remain the same. So, the thing that remains the same despite all the materials being replaced is the soma! The material particles of our human body are also constantly changing, and this changing set of materials is the soma. And yet our body remains the same, this something that remains as a characteristic, as a style, as a form, as an essence, as the "I": this is the soma!
Now, when Scripture speaks of the resurrection of the body, it does not mean the sarix, not the body's substance. In fact, it says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but the soma, that is, the body as the form, the organ of the soul, in which the individuality of man is expressed. The Scripture does not say that the same substance is raised which is buried, but that the same body, the word, is raised, that is, the body to whose essence a certain substance does not belong.
Thus it becomes clear that the resurrection of the body is not affected by the direction in which its particles of matter circulate in the great circle of nature. So do you know what the whole bodily resurrection is about? It is that it is I myself, you yourself, who am resurrected, not another person. That is to say: God preserves man's individuality, his personality in a distinct and recognisable form, even after death!
The bodily resurrection, therefore, means that in eternity we will not melt into some indefinable spiritual mass like raindrops in the sea, nor will it be as if the little soul were a butterfly flitting on like a butterfly over the grave to somewhere, but the identity of the resurrected man with the former earthly man will be preserved. And it is precisely this fact that gives us a very strong basis for the hope that we will know each other on the other side of death, and that we will be delighted to see again those from whom death has temporarily separated us.
(3) The third misunderstanding of the problem of the resurrection is the believer's desire to understand this mystery. Such superfluous questions, how, how will it be?! Well, let me say that the question of "how" is God's business. The Bible only says: "But God will give him a body according to his will" (1 Corinthians 15:38). If we believe that Jesus is risen, let us also believe that this resurrection, which has already taken place, is the guarantee, the power, the motive, the beginning of our coming resurrection! So, if we believe that Jesus is risen...! That is why the Apostles' Creed says: I believe in "the resurrection of our bodies and eternal life!" It does not say I know, it does not say I understand or I feel, but I believe!
So the resurrection of our bodies, our certainty of victory over all death, is a matter of faith that cannot be logically proven or explained in a comprehensible way. So it is something that cannot be known and verified by the eye, not by the sense of touch, not by the brain, but by faith in Jesus. It is true: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved..." (Acts 16:31b) You, the man, you who are here.
4) And finally, there is one more misunderstanding that is common in people's minds about the whole resurrection problem, namely, that this whole doctrine of faith and this emphasis on it is really nothing more than a flight from the problems of real life into the afterlife. One of the strongest accusations against religion is precisely that it makes us irresponsible in practical life, because it postpones the settlement of life's problems until after death, promising a solution in the afterlife. In fact, it is the other way round: a person who believes in resurrection and eternal life does not neglect his earthly life for the sake of the afterlife, but, in the certainty of eternal life, takes this world much more seriously and lives it more responsibly. Because it is worth loving, fighting against sin, serving others, making sacrifices, living with the spirit of Christ, even if I do not see the results, because I know that the last word is not death, but the resurrected Jesus Christ!
If death is the end of all things, then the one who is selfish, greedy, greedy for pleasure, who is overbearing... For we live once! So let us eat, drink and be merry, tomorrow we die anyway! But those who look forward with the triumphant Advent hope, even in the twilight of earthly life, that: Believe in "the resurrection of our bodies and the life everlasting", are moved to goodness and sacrificial service by this heavenly encouragement, through all the struggles of earthly life, and through all the tasks of life, which, moreover, Paul says to the Corinthians, in connection with the description of the great mystery of the resurrection: "Therefore, brethren in love, stand firm, steadfast, always zealous for the work of the Lord, knowing that your labour is not in vain in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 15:58)
Amen
Date: 27 November 1960.
Lesson
1Kor 15,35-58