“I am a soul; I have a body.”
Have you ever heard that?
It sounds nice, but it’s not actually what the Bible teaches us about ourselves. To be human is to be a spiritual and physical being. Each one of us is a body and a soul, together in one person.
When Jesus Christ the Son of God became man, it was essential that He have the body of a man. In fact, He could not accomplish the Father’s work of redeeming mankind without a body. His physical body died on a cross, and that same body rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.
In the same way, each one of us will be physically raised from the dead on Judgment Day. And the bodies of God’s children will be transformed into something glorious, just as the acorn which falls into the ground is transformed into a glorious oak tree.
This is one reason the people of God have always taken care of the bodies of their departed loved ones. As we lovingly bury the dead, we proclaim our hope in God’s promise of resurrection.
Christians believe in the resurrection of the body.
