Topics / Plan of Salvation
The most physically specific doctrine in Christianity
The Resurrection
Not survival, not immortality of the soul, not a metaphor for renewal. Spirit and body reunited permanently, in a body that can be handled and can eat — and it comes to everyone.
20 min2 sections
What kind of body
39Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.
41And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them, Have ye here any meat?
42And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honeycomb.
He offers His body to be handled and then eats, which is a fairly emphatic way of ruling out a merely spiritual resurrection. Paul's phrase 'a spiritual body' in 1 Corinthians 15:44 translates pneumatikos — animated by the Spirit — and describes a body's power source rather than dissolving the body.
Cross-references
- Alma 11:42–45The most anatomically specific account in scripture: every limb and joint restored to its proper frame, and no more death.
- Alma 40:23'The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul' — restoration as reunion.
- D&C 88:15–16'The spirit and the body are the soul of man. And the resurrection from the dead is the redemption of the soul.'
- 1 Corinthians 15:20–22Universal and unconditional: as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
- 3 Nephi 11:14–15Twenty-five hundred people invited to verify it with their hands, one at a time.
Why it changes the doctrine of the body
If the resurrection is physical and permanent, the body cannot be a container the person eventually leaves. D&C 88:15 states the consequence: you do not have a soul, you are one, and half of it is physical. That single verse is why Latter-day Saint teaching about health, chastity, appetite and disability all sit in the same doctrinal frame rather than in a separate ethics.
Principle
The resurrection is universal and unconditional, and it is the redemption of the soul rather than an escape from it.
What this topic holds
The resurrected body is physical, tangible, and permanently reunited with the spirit.
Resurrection comes to everyone as a free gift, independent of anything they have done.
Check your reading
3 questions01What does Paul mean by 'a spiritual body'?
02Who receives the resurrection?
03What does D&C 88:15 define as the soul of man?
Where to go next
Sources
- Gospel Topics, "Resurrection"
- 1 Corinthians 15; Alma 11, 40; D&C 88 — The primary texts.