So, the dead will be resurrected. This is what we learn from the following.

1. The resurrection of the dead is confirmed by the three-day Resurrection of our Lord, for He is the firstfruits of those who slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). His light-bearing Resurrection is the pledge of the resurrection of our bodies as well, and He foreshadowed this already in the Old Testament by the example of the prophet Jonah, who was swallowed up by a whale and vomited up again three days later alive and unharmed. The Lord also assured the Jews of His Resurrection. He said to them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it up in three days," calling the temple not the temple of Solomon, but the most holy temple of His immaculate body. The disciples were fully convinced of this when He had already risen from the dead (John 2:19-22).

This truth constitutes the central teaching of the apostolic preaching. It is also the source of the inexpressible joy that the Christian soul experiences when it remembers the great miracle of the three-day Resurrection of the Savior. That is why she sings: "My Saviour, Thou didst resurrect the all-begotten Adam, Thou didst rise from the grave" [1018]. The fruit of Thy life-giving Resurrection, O Lord, is the Universal Resurrection of the human race. It has opened to us the gates of paradise, closed by the transgression of the primordial ones.

2. There is no doubt about the resurrection of the bodies for another reason: since by the death on the cross and the Resurrection of the Lord our resurrection from eternal death, that is, from sin, then why should not the resurrection of the bodies also take place? Spiritual and bodily death owe its origin to sin: "the body fell because it sinned." If sin is the beginning of the fall, then the beginning of the resurrection is liberation from sin. But although in Holy Baptism, thanks to the Sacrifice of the Saviour, we were resurrected spiritually, "resurrected by a greater resurrection, casting off the debilitating death of sin, and cast off the old garment," let us not deny the "lesser," that is, the resurrection of the body. that is, in the abolition of bodily death [1019].

3. The resurrection of the dead will take place because nothing is impossible for the all-powerful wisdom of the Creator and the all-wise power of the Creator. "With God all things are not difficult" [1020], as He Himself assures us (Mark 10:27). Everything can be done by Divine omnipotence. And let the unbelievers know what God really cannot do. God "cannot deceive" [1021]. Everything that He said, what He promised, what He taught through His evangelists, the Apostles, will be fulfilled exactly. In addition, there are many amazing events that His almighty will has accomplished. Why should He not also bring about the resurrection of the bodies, of which He spoke to us directly? He told us that the hour is coming, and this hour is the end of the world, in which all the dead who will hitherto be in the graves will hear the voice of the Son of God, commanding them to rise again. And they will all rise again, and come out of the grave, to be judged (John 5:28-29).

4. Both the Lord and the Apostle Paul used the image of seed sown in the ground for the resurrection of bodies. The Lord said of His death and Resurrection: "... If a grain of wheat does not fall into the ground and die, it will remain alone; but if he dies, he will bear much fruit" (John 12:24). "In the same way, if I die, according to the decree of God my Father, I will rise again and bring forth the fruit of the resurrection and salvation of men."

The inspired Paul considers the resurrection from the dead to be as easy and natural as the germination of seed. To the one who objects to this, he answers: {p. 463} "Foolish! What you sow will not come to life unless it dies. And when you sow, you do not sow the body to come, but the bare grain that will happen, wheat or whatever it is; but God gives him a body as He wills, and to each seed his own body" (1 Corinthians 15:36-37). Here the characterization given by the Apostle to the unbeliever is also important. He calls it "reckless," that is, mad, stupid! The Apostle Paul, who is always very "meek and humble," uses the word of accusation in this case precisely to emphasize that the resurrection of the body is something quite natural, since all nature is full of manifestations of the resurrection from the dead. The unbeliever seems to be truly foolish, for he ignores what he himself does every day. Forgetting that he himself becomes the "creator of the resurrection" in sowing the seed, the unbeliever doubts God, that He can raise the dead. And the same thing that the unbeliever takes as an argument in favor of the non-resurrection of the dead, the Apostle puts forward as a proof of the possibility of resurrection. The unbeliever says, "The dead decay." "Yes," the Apostle answers, "and the seed decays and dies, but this becomes the cause of the resurrection" (1022).

This wonderful image has been used by almost all divine fathers since ancient times. St. Cyril of Jerusalem, speaking of the wheat being sown, notes that the grain dies, smolders and becomes unfit for food. At the same time, decaying, the seed sprouts as a "green sprout" and, having fallen as a small seed, "rises as the most beautiful". "And the seeds themselves," he says, "are for us. But if they, intended for us, are quickened by first dying, then why don't we, for whom they were created, die and rise again?" St. Cyril borrows another image from trees: if a felled tree then "blossoms" ("blossoms"), then why does not "a felled man blossom"? "And the vine and other trees, perfectly pruned and transplanted," is quickened and bears fruit, but the man for whom it was created, "falling into the ground, will not be resurrected"? And he concludes: "God makes a resurrection every year in these natural phenomena, so that you, seeing what happens in the inanimate world, believe that the same thing happens to animate rational beings" (1023).

St. Athanasius the Great writes that just as seeds are thrown into the ground, so we, when we die, do not disappear or are destroyed, but are sown in order to be resurrected, for death is abolished by the grace of the Savior [1024]. St. John of Damascus, looking at the seeds of plants, says: "Who put into the seeds the roots, stems, leaves, ears of corn and the finest down? Is it not the Creator of all things? Did not His Divine command build everything? Thus, "believe that the Resurrection of the dead will take place according to Divine desire and Divine beckoning." For the all-wise God, along with the will, as a concordant like-minded person and helper, has the power to accomplish what He wills" [1025].

Thus, sowing and fruiting show us that we, too, must await "the spring of our bodies," as the second-century Latin apologist Minucius Felix beautifully wrote. The earth is now sown with human bodies, but when the end of the present age comes, it will bring them forth again by the power of God. The human body today is interred, but awaits its resurrection on the Last Day. Thus, "every tomb is {p. 465} the ark of incorruption" [1027]. That is why the divine Chrysostom exclaims in his Catechetical Sermon read on Pascha: "Christ is risen, and the dead are not one in the tomb!"

5. Church writers and divine fathers, teaching about the resurrection of the body as a matter of God's omnipotence, also use another example: the conception and birth of man. The Holy Martyrs Justin, Athenagoras and Theophilus of Antioch, who firmly and without a shadow of doubt believe in the resurrection of bodies, note that just as God determined that from "one and simple seed," from a small drop of "human seed," bones, sinews, and flesh should be created and a whole full-fledged man should be formed, so in the same way God can unite a "destroyed" body and resurrect the dead. St. Cyril of Jerusalem asks: "Where were we, now speaking and listening, a hundred or two hundred years ago? Or don't you know that "we are born from weak, ugly and monotonous substances"? And yet, from this "uniform and weak" substance, a living man is formed; From this weak man, who has received flesh, strong nerves are formed, clear eyes, nostrils for smell, ears for hearing, tongue for words, a beating heart, hands are formed for work [...]. And this weak becomes a man – a shipwright, a builder, an architect [...], a ruler, a legislator and a king." And the saint concludes: "God, Who created us from formless substances and 'transforms into a body' in such a miraculous way the 'most insignificant', can He not resurrect the 'dead body'? Can not He who created a creation that did not exist before, resurrect a body that exists but is dead?" [1029]

{p. 466}

St. Athanasius of Sinai, addressing someone who is perplexed as to how a dead body can be resurrected, writes: "If doubts arise in your soul about the resurrection, when you see 'already soulless dust in the grave' and wonder how 'this miserable dead dust' can become an 'animated and full-fledged man', then immediately watch yourself. Then you will see how the "image (type) of the bodily resurrection" will become a reality. Whence didst "thou arise and become a whole and animated man"? Did you not arise from conception, pregnancy and birth by the power of God? And if you are still perplexed "about the lifeless dust of bodies" and doubt "how the inanimate is reborn as animate," then nature gives you many examples of this" [1030].

The same idea is developed by St. John of Damascus. He says: "God, who changed dust into a body by His will alone, who determined that one 'small drop of seed' should grow and give form to this complex human body, can He not resurrect at His will that which was, and then was destroyed?" [1031]