Illustrated Stories from the Bible - Dawn of the Dead Saints

Illustrated Bible Stories (that they won't tell you in Sunday School)

Dawn of the Dead Saints

Why this story matters

(commentary on Matthew 27:51-53)

(Page 2 of 6)

What kind of bodies were they raised in?

The next difficulty concerns the kind of bodies the saints were raised in. Were they raised in new everlasting bodies in which they would ascend to heaven, or were they merely raised in mortal bodies to die again naturally? Christians disagree about this.

Those who believe they were raised in mortal bodies have a strong case. They point out that when people are raised from the dead, in the Bible, they are always raised in mortal bodies which die again later. And what's more, to say that many people were raised in eternal bodies demeans the unique resurrection of the messiah. After all if “many” people were raised from the dead and ascended to heaven in new everlasting bodies around the same time, what’s so special about Jesus’ resurrection?

In addition, if they were raised in new bodies and ascended to heaven, we would have one of the most spectacular scenes ever witnessed by humankind where a large group of people rose up to heaven together. This would have been an astonishing, breathtaking sight witnessed by many. After all, these were supposedly famous Jewish holy people from the past, so Jews in Jerusalem would have had great affection for them. They would surely have gathered to hug them goodbye and watched them ascend. This scene would have been talked about widely for decades and even centuries afterwards. Yet there is no mention it anywhere, not in the Bible nor any history book of the time. This just isn't very credible.

And finally, the apostle Paul indicated quite clearly that believers would not receive eternal bodies until the end of time. In 1st Corinthians Paul writes, "At the sound of the last trumpet the dead will be raised. We will all be changed, so that we will never die again. Our dead and decaying bodies will be changed into bodies that won't die or decay” (15: 52-53 CEV).

It appears, then, that the saints could not have been raised in eternal bodies that went to heaven. So that leaves us with the position that the saints were raised in the same mortal bodies which would later die again of natural causes. Let's turn to that idea now to see if it's any more believable.