Resurrection Body

In the twenty-second chapter of Matthew and also in Luke’s gospel, there is a story about the Sadducees’ coming to test the Lord Jesus Christ on the subject of the resurrection. It was one of a number of tests because people were trying to attack Him on different subjects. They had asked Him about the law and what was the first and greatest commandment. There was also a question about taxes, hoping to catch Him on His views concerning the relationship between one’s obedience to God and to the Roman government. Then the Sadducees came with their question about the resurrection.

The Corinthians’ difficulty with the resurrection grew naturally out of Greek philosophical thought. The Greeks basically had a great difference between mind and matter in the sense that everything that was of the spirit or the mind was good, and everything that was of matter was evil. They would have said that the problem is not that we are sinful human beings—including our minds and our spirits, which is what the Bible teaches. Rather, they believed that the problem is that we have bodies, which are the cause of our evil desires and bad behavior. These bodies tend to drag us down, while there is something within us, the mind and the spirit, that aspires to go upward to God.