Early Christian Quotes on the Resurrection of Man
Apocalypse of Peter
(Early 2nd Century):
Jesus said, “Now see what will happen in the last days, when the day of God’s judgment comes. From the east to the west, all the children of men will be gathered together before My Father, who lives forever. And He will command hell to open its bars of adamant and give up all who are in it.
“And He will command the wild beasts and the birds to restore all the flesh they have devoured because He wills men to appear. Nothing perishes before God, and nothing is impossible with Him, because everything is His.
“All things will happen on the day of judgment at the word of God. As things were when God created them, so will they be in the last days, for all things are possible with God. As He says in the Scripture: ‘Son of man, prophesy to the bones and say to the bones: “bone to bone in joints, sinew, nerves, flesh and skin and hair.’”
“And the great Uriel will give them soul and spirit at the commandment of God, for God has set him over the rising of the dead at the day of judgment…
“God will raise those who believe in Him and are chosen by Him on the day of judgment because it is for their sake He has made the world.”
Justin Martyr’s On the Resurrection
(Mid-2nd Century)
Chapter 4:
If, while on earth, He healed the sicknesses of the flesh and made the body whole, He will do it even more in the resurrection, so the flesh will rise perfect and whole.
Justin Martyr’s On the Resurrection
(Mid-2nd Century)
Chapter 8:
It is evident that man made in the image of God was made of flesh. So isn’t it absurd to say that the flesh made by God in His own image is contemptible and worth nothing?
Justin Martyr’s Dialog with Trypho
(Mid-2nd Century)
Chapter 80:
If you have fallen in with some who are called Christians…but who say there is no resurrection of the dead and that when they die, their souls are taken to heaven, do not imagine that they are Christians…But I and others, who are right-minded Christians on all points, are assured that there will be a resurrection of the dead and a thousand years in Jerusalem, which will then be built, adorned, and enlarged, as the prophets Ezekiel and Isaiah and others declare.
Irenaeus’ Against Heresies Book 2
(Late 2nd Century)
Chapter 29, Paragraph 1:
If souls would have perished unless they had been righteous, then righteousness must have the power to save the bodies also, which these souls inhabited. For why should it not save the bodies, since they, too, participated in righteousness?
Origen’s De Principiis
(Early to Mid-3rd Century)
Book 3, Chapter 6, Paragraph 6:
The body we now use in its lowly and corrupt and weak state is the same body we will have in incorruption and power and glory…And we are to believe that, by the will of the Creator, it will live forever in this condition without any change.
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