Human beings are composed of both a body and a soul. As Catholics, we believe in the resurrection of the body: after we die there will be a point in time when our soul and body are reunited. Our body is sacred. It is not just a lump of cells that we are free to use and abuse as we see fit. As Saint Paul tells us, “Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you.” (1 Corinthians 3:16) Do we live our lives according to this truth?
The Question about the Resurrection
There came to him some Sadducees, those who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the wife and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first took a wife, and died without children; and the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife.” And Jesus said to them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living; for all live to him.” Luke 20 : 27-38
Scriptural Analysis
The Sadducees now enter the conversation with Jesus. This is the only time they will appear in Luke’s Gospel. It is not surprising that they should be around the temple since the group included leading priests and often the high priest himself was a Sadducee. The Sadducees and the Pharisees emerged about the same time in the second century BC. The Sadducees belonged to the wealthy aristocracy and hold only to the written law of Moses rejecting the oral tradition of the Pharisees. They deny that there will be a resurrection. That particular belief gained widespread acceptance due to the experience of the Maccabean martyrs. The Sadducees were opposed to the belief in the resurrection believing that it was not taught in the law of Moses.
The Sadducees argued that Moses actually taught against the resurrection. The Law of levirate (brother-in-law) marriage states that a brother of a man who dies without leaving a child should marry their wife and raise the children in order that he may have descendants:
A Comparison Of The Pharisees And The Sadducees
The Pharisees were entirely religious. They had no political ambitions and were content with any government as long as they could carry out their ceremonies. The Sadducees were few but wealthy. The priests and nearly all the aristocracy belonged to this group. They were a governing class and cooperated with Rome.
The Pharisees accepted scripture plus the oral tradition. The Sadducees only accepted the written law of Moses.
The Pharisees believed in the resurrection from the dead as well as angels and spirits. The Sadducees did not.
The Pharisses believed in fate and that God ordered a man’s life The Sadducees believed in unrestricted free will.
The Pharisees believed in and hoped for the coming of the Messiah. The Sadducees did not.
“If brothers dwell together, and one of them dies and has no son, the wife of the dead shall not be married outside the family to a stranger; her husband’s brother shall go in to her, and take her as his wife, and perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her. 6 And the first son whom she bears shall succeed to the name of his brother who is dead, that his name may not be blotted out of Israel. Deuteronomy 25:6
The Sadducees present Jesus with a test case: a family of seven brothers each of whom marries the same woman as none of the brothers had any children with her. The Sadducees want to know, after the resurrection, whose wife will she be. This extreme case of the levirate law is designed to make the resurrection look ridiculous and thus false.
Jesus responds to their question by presenting a two-part response. First, Jesus challenges their understanding of the resurrection noting how the Sadducees expect that it will be the same kind of existence as they are living today. That thinking is wrong. In the resurrected existence, marriage does not exist. The purpose of the levirate law is to ensure that if someone dies without an heir, the family can still continue. Since people will no longer die this is not needed. The children of this age marry but the children of the next focus on God. Finally, Jesus’s response indicates that not all will attain to the resurrection, “but those who are accounted worthy to attain.” This is yet another attempt by Jesus to get the people to focus on the things of the world to come: to get their faith in order.
In the second response, Jesus shows that in fact the resurrection was taught by Moses. At the burning bush, the Lord revealed himself to Moses as the God of the patriarchs, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:6) Although their bodies are dead, to God they are still living. Since God is the God of the living, not the dead which means that the belief in the resurrection is necessary to have a proper understanding of God. However, since the resurrection has not occurred there has to be some intermediate state that Christians know as the immortal soul.
Daily Application
The resurrection of the body is an important and central tenant of the Christian faith. As Catholics, we profess this belief publically as we unite in reciting the Nicene Creed at Sunday Mass, “I look forward to the resurrection of the dead.” However, when most people think of eternal existence, the imagery used to describe it denotes more of spiritual existence as if we are unembodied souls that are just floating around. That notion is contrary to the tenants of our faith. Humans are body-soul composites and we will be that way after the resurrection. Now our body will be a glorified body. Precisely what that means is beyond our understanding as the Catechism points out, “This ‘how’ exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is accessible only to faith.” (CCC 1000) Nevertheless, we will be a body-soul composite for eternity after the resurrection.
Our bodies are sacred. They are a unique part of who we are: so much so that God will go through the effort of glorifying them and giving them back to us for eternity. Our identity, our existence absent our body is incomplete. That means we should reverence and revere the body accordingly. We should treat it with the utmost respect and care.
Unfortunately, we live in a culture that does the exact opposite. It treats the body as an object: a tool for personal gain or pleasure. The body is objectified by the media. The scourge of pornography degrades the human body in unspeakable ways. Of course, there is no greater debasement of the body than abortion where life is treated as a commodity that can be erased when it is inconvenient.
We must resist this cultural decay, this move to objectify human beings. This starts with our own personal conduct and speech. Do we dress modestly and do we make our children do the same? When we are with friends and one of them comments on someone’s appearance in an objectifying fashion, do we speak up or do we let their comment slide? Do we strive to maintain our physical health? I am not suggesting we all need to be triathletes but we can all do the basic things such as eating enough vegetables, drinking plenty of water, and getting sufficient rest. All of this is not done out of a desire to preserve our body but rather in doing these things it reminds us that there is something special about the human body, that it is integral to our identity.
The human body is sacred. So much so that at the end of time, we will rise from the dead and our body and soul will be reunited. We will be made complete in the way God always intended us to be as we spend eternity with him. Let us take care of our body, not out of a desire to be vain, but out of a desire to recognize it for what it is: a sacred creation integral to our true identity.
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