What We Believe About The Resurrection

I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible; And in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made, of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made: Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate and suffered and was buried; And the third day He arose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end. And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, Who proceedeth from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, who spake by the prophets; And I believe in one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

This confession of faith in the resurrection of the Lord was at the very heart of what was proclaimed by the Apostles from the very beginning. Nothing is more important to the Christian faith. St. Paul writes…

The whole point of it all is that Christ’s death, Christ’s resurrection, is not for Him alone. It’s done out of love for us. Everything that applies to the resurrection of Christ also applies to our resurrection.

There are three accounts of Jesus raising people from the dead in the New Testament (Jairus’ daughter, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus). But all three are properly called resuscitations. They are the restoring to life of people who had died. But all three will die again. These were not resurrections to a completely new life that death has no more power over. The resurrection of Jesus was not simply His return to this flesh and blood existence. Although, of course, it is the resurrection of His body, it is the transformation and transfiguration of His body into a completely new and previuosly unheard level of life. As the Scripture teaches, Christ, having risen from the dead, dies now no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him. A whole new way of life has been revealed in Him and, in Him, for everyone else. As St. Peter said,

According to the chronology of the Gospel, the feast of the Passover in the year that Jesus was crucified took place on Saturday, the Sabbath day. Christ was crucified on the eve of the Passover, the day that the Passover lambs were slaughtered, on Friday. The last supper that Jesus ate with His disciples was not a Passover meal, there was no lamb there because the lambs had not yet been slaughtered. Jesus did this purposefully because He knew that the next day, at the ninth hour (3:00 p.m.), when the slaughter of the Passover lambs was to begin, He would be die on the cross, revealing Himself as the true Passover sacrifice. This was not a sacrifice that reactualized the deliverance of Israel from Egypt. Rather, it was the sacrifice that released not just Israel but the whole human race from death and sin and brought them not into the promised land of this world but into the heavenly Kingdom of God.

Christ is crucified and dies on Friday. He is in the state of death ("In the tomb with the body and in Hades with the soul," as we say in the Divine Liturgy) on Saturday the feast of the Passover. And then on the first day of the week, on Sunday, He is risen. In the Middle East to this day, if I were to say, "On the third day from now I am going on a trip," in those three days you would count both today the and they that I am going on the trip. So, the third day from today (Tuesday) would be Thursday. When we say that the Lord is risen on the third day it’s counting Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

The Lord rises on the third day from Friday, on the first day of the week, which the Christians from then on describe as the Lord’s Day. They also like to describe it as the Eighth Day. Why the Eighth Day? In the week that is measured according to this world’s time there are only seven days. But in the resurrection we have the beginning of the age to come that is completely beyond the time of this world.

In the Jewish Passover celebration, on the first day of the week, the day after the Passover, they had the offering of the first sheaf of grain, the first fruits. When St. Paul wrote, "But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep." (1 Cor 15:20) he used an expression that was very familiar to his Jewish readers. St. Paul tells us that another kind of harvest is going on that is far beyond the measure of any kind of harvest in this world. There is an eternal harvest. As Christ has become in His resurrection, as the first fruits, so also the harvest will continue with all of those who will belong to Him. The pattern of Christ’s resurrection is the pattern of ours.

What the creed is saying here is that the entire Old Testament is being fulfilled in the resurrection of Christ. There is nothing more for God to do for the salvation of the human race and the salvation of whole world. In the resurrection of Christ a way of escape has been found from death.

The gospels and the Acts of the Apostles tell us that for a period of forty days the risen Lord Jesus Christ appeared to those to whom He chose to appear. He did not appear to everyone.

The appearances of the risen Lord hold important things in common. First, when the risen Lord appears to Mary Magdalene, to the Apostles, and to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, they don’t recognize Him. He has to open their eyes so that they can see who He is. A transformation has taken place. The Risen Lord, on the one hand, is not held by the things that normally hold people. For example, He comes through locked doors to the Apostles in the upper room twice. On the other hand, He is able, in a mysterious way, to eat and drink with them and He prepares a meal for them.

In understanding the resurrection we must avoid two extremes. The first is a grossly materialistic understanding. The resurrection of Christ is not just a return to this physical life that goes on and on.

The body of the resurrection is not the kind of body where you cut your fingernails and brush your team. It is a body that includes our physical existence in this world just as the risen body of Jesus includes His physical existence in this world. The risen body of Jesus is the body born of the Virgin Mary, is the body that died on the cross, is the body that was buried in the tomb – but taken to an immeasurably higher level.

On the other hand, we are not to look at the resurrection as some sort of dematerialized spirit existence. We are created, at God’s pleasure, as physical beings. Our materiality is good and blessed by God. Our materiality, our corporeality is so precious to God that that is the means He chose so save us by becoming corporeal and material Himself. St. John of Damascus says, "Blessed be the matter that brought about my salvation." We who are created as material and redeemed as material are going to continue on for eternity as material - but not in the sense that is limited to this world, that is held by dishonor, corruption, death, disease, weakness, and infirmity of all sorts. But we who are going to Passover with Christ through the cross (buried after the image of His death and raised in the image of His resurrection), we are to pass to the resurrection that is a glorified materiality, a spiritual materiality in which what is spiritual and what is material exist in perfect harmony. Since the fall, the spiritual and the fleshly have been out of kilter and out of whack for us. In the resurrection in Christ, who is risen as the first fruits and the new head of the new humanity, it is all restored.

On the fortieth day, this unique time of the appearances of the risen Lord comes to an end with a final appearance in which the Lord is physically taken up. These foundational appearances come to a conclusion with one final appearance in which the Lord is visibly taken up above the earth and a cloud receives Him and He can no longer be seen.

In His ascension, Christ returns to the "place" (i.e., state of being) that He never left in His divinity. What is different is that He returns in His glorified humanity. In the ascension of Christ, in the risen body of Jesus, humanity, materiality goes across the threshold of eternity and is enthroned at the right hand of the Father. In the incarnation, Christ goes forth and crosses the threshold of time and enters the womb of the Virgin Mary and takes upon Himself materiality. And in the ascension He takes that life which He has assumed, for which He has sacrificed Himself and died and, in His risen glory, He takes it with Him. Christ is forever united to His risen body for all eternity. It is our link with Him; it is what makes Him our brother (both God and our brother).

The Lord does not leave us in His ascension. He is everywhere present filling all things. Just as Christ is present with His Church on earth, so also in His glorified humanity at the right hand of the Father, we already (in a mysterious way, a way that requires the eyes of faith to see and to experience, a way that is invisible) reign with Him in heaven. The whole experience of the Church as Church is being in heaven with Christ. That is what we believe we do when we have the Divine Liturgy. We have this experience in the Church of the unification of the Church in heaven with the Church on earth. In this glorification of the ascended Christ we have the promise of where we are going and where we have already been taken. All that remains is for what is invisible and what has not yet been perfected to be made perfected (in the second coming).

The faith of the Church is that that Kingdom is given to Him.

In the crucifixion and death of Jesus, the end of the world already takes place. When the world rejects and kills Christ the world sentences itself to death. What does this mean? This world, this history, this whole system of things, that we know and experience on the level of the senses can never become of itself the Kingdom of God. Paradise cannot be found within it. One has to go beyond this world - one has to go with Him where He is in His Kingdom.

The Kingdom in which all power has been given to Jesus in Heaven and on earth is already here. It lives and exists within His Church among all those who belong to Him. It exists invisibly as the seed planted in the earth but its existence is real. We are not looking for any sort of millennial kingdom in which the Lord will reign with His saints on earth. Our experience is that the Lord is reigning with His saints now and has been since His resurrection.

What does the Church profess regarding the second coming of Christ? We begin with what we don’t know about it. In the Gospel the Lord made clear that of that day and hour no man knows. The Church holds that speculations on when history is going to come to an end and when the Lord will return is none of the Church’s business. The Church takes a very, very dim view on attempts to see various current events as fulfillment of various Biblical prophecies. They may, in fact, be, but it is not the business of the Church to speculate on whether or not now is the time. The answer of the Bible and, therefore, the answer of the Church to the question, "When will the Lord return?" is always, "Soon." It is always, "Soon." Everything that has been accomplished by Christ for us has been accomplished – in the resurrection, in the giving of the Holy Spirit, everything that makes the salvation and the reunion of man with God has been given. All that remains is for God to allow history to run as long as He wills it to run.

The signs of the coming (increase of war, increase natural disasters, increase of faithlessness, increase of evil, the love of people will grow cold, etc.) are present in every age. In most ages there have been people who have said (with good cause) that, "Things have never have been as bad as they are now. It’s got to be near the end." The Church takes a very careful attitude towards such things. The Church does not expect to be "raptured" out of the way of the tribulation. The Church is in the tribulation in every age, as long as history exists. The book of Revelation is addressed to the Church living in every age who is constantly attacked by her foes and by the powers of this world. The Church’s attitude towards the second coming is a very practical one - be ready and watch at all times and be faithful to the good works you are called to.

The Lord will come in glory to judge the living and the dead. They will be judged by love, by the God who is Love. God’s judgment is so awesome and so fearful, not because He is the God of wrath and of anger, but because everyone must face the God who has sacrificed Himself unto death for each one of us in love. The whole point of the judgment is that you must face that love, that love that is a consuming fire. And those who have loved that love, and have believed in that love, and have conformed their lives to that love, will be saved. Salvation, as expressed in the Gospel of John, is to look upon the face of the Son of God and live. If one looks at the face of the Son of God and one’s face is able to bear the reflection of that face because one has been transformed by the love of God, then one is saved.

The lost are not lost because of any failing on God’s part. God has done ultimately everything for the salvation of everyone. Those who are lost are those who have come to hate love, who have made themselves into the opposite of the love of God. Hell is not a place where people are punished and tormented by God who finally gets back at them for all their sins and who hates them and takes out His wrath on them. God is the God of Love and those who are tormented for all of eternity are tormented by the Love of God which they reject.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes as follows. "Those who find themselves in Hell will be chastised with the scourge of love. How cruel and bitter this torment of love will be. For those who understand that they have sinned against love undergo greater sufferings than those produced by the most fearful tortures. The sorrow which takes hold of the heart which has sinned against love is more piercing than any other pain. It is not right to say that sinners in hell are deprived of the love of God. But love acts in two different ways – as suffering in the lost and as joy in the blessed."

This was placed in the Creed by the Council to counteract two false teachings. Origen speculated that, because man had free will, those who entered heaven could choose to sin and fall again and that time could be an endless series of cycles. Origen failed to understand the linear nature of time (that it has a beginning and an end) and the fact that at the end of time man enters into the eternal present of God. In the eternal present of God the purpose of one’s free will has been realized. There is no more process of decision making when history comes to an end.

Secondly, the Church Fathers wanted to counteract a pantheistic understanding of 1Cor. 15:28 ("that God may be all in all"). Rather, the Kingdom of Christ, which He gives to God the Father, will have no end and will be the communion of those persons who, united to Him in His divine/human person, share the life of the Trinity for all eternity.