What the Resurrection means and why it matters
by Martin Davie:
On Easter Sunday the Church of England, like other Christian churches, celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In this post I am going to explore two questions. ‘What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ rose again from the dead?’ and ‘Why does the resurrection matter?’
What does it mean to say that Jesus Christ rose from again the dead ?
The answer given to this question by the Church of England in Article IV of the Thirty Nine Articles runs as follows:
‘Christ did truly rise again from death, and took again his body, with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection of Man’s nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day.’
The understanding of the nature of the resurrection put forward in this article is helpfully explained by William Beveridge in his commentary on the Thirty Nine Articles. Using the term ‘hell’ to refer to the place of the dead rather than the final place of everlasting punishment, he writes:
‘…Christ did truly rise from death. As he did truly suffer, was truly crucified, truly dead, truly buried, and did truly descend into hell; so did he also truly rise again from death. The soul of Christ; being breathed from his body, went down to hell; the body of Christ, being deprived of its soul, was carried to the grave. And here they both continued, the one in the grave, and the other in hell, until the third day after the divorce was made: at which time the soul that went from the body down to hell, comes up again from hell unto the body. And, as it left the body upon the cross, it now finds it in the grave; even the self-same body that, three days before, was nailed to the cross; not any way broken, be-mangled or corrupted, but in the same condition the soul had left it in. This self-same body, which the soul before was forced from, is it now again united to. After which union of the soul to the body, immediately follows the return, or resurrection both of soul and body from the state of death. The separation of the soul from the body had brought (though not the soul, yet) the human nature into a state of death; the union of the soul to the body brings it back again to the state of life. So that Christ after his resurrection, as well as before his passion, had all things appertaining to the human nature; having the same soul and the same body, the same flesh and the same bones that he had before, and the same of everything that belongeth to the perfection of man’s nature.’
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