At the Resurrection, when our bodies come out of the ground and are reconstituted and transformed into whatever a spiritual body is so that they are fit to inhabit whatever that new reality is that we sometimes call heaven or the new heavens and new earth—when that happens, will we still maintain the sex distinctions common to our bodies now? In other words, in the Resurrection, will I be male?

This is a question that people have asked. And answered. We will review some of the answers in just a moment. But let’s think together about what sort of evidence we could have for such a question. Well, there’s Jesus. He died, and rose from the dead, a model for our own resurrections, and after he did so, he was still male. That’s one data point.

Thanks for reading Gallagher! This post is public so feel free to share it.

Maybe also the Bible says something specific about our resurrection bodies and the potential for sex distinctions?

Does the Bible say something? Hmm, maybe Jesus did in his conversation with the Sadducees. Now, you remember that the Sadducees were sad, you see, because they denied the resurrection. As part of his response to their question about the one bride for seven brothers, Jesus says that those accounted worthy of the resurrection “neither marry nor are given in marriage, for neither are they able to die anymore, for they are angel-like and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:35–36). Well, if they can’t marry, does that mean that the sons of the Resurrection are not distinguished by sex—no male and female? After all, Paul said that in Christ there is no male and female (Gal 3:28), which does not exactly describe life as we experience it now, but maybe that vision will be fulfilled in the Resurrection. But, in reference to what Jesus says to the Sadducees, let me point out that even now, in this life, some people don’t get married and yet they are—usually—specifically one sex or the other.

So, I am not clear on whether the Bible addresses the question. Does the great tradition of Christianity have an answer? No, I don’t think so. There does not seem to be a unified answer when you look back at the great thinkers in the history of the church. Well, I will say, I have not put in much work on this question. I don’t know whether Thomas Aquinas provided an answer; that would be interesting. But I have relied on a few scholarly discussions written in the last few decades, and these discussions have served as my guide to the history of interpretation.

One sorta recent answer from an authoritative source comes from Pope John Paul II. Now, when I say the pope is authoritative, I mean that he’s authoritative for a lot of Christians, and that he’s almost always (these days, at least) brilliant, and that, by virtue of his office, he’s sorta obligated to say things that are in harmony with traditional Christian teaching, as he understands it. So I think of popes, at least modern popes, as authoritative voices in regard to what the Christian tradition is. And in his book Theology of the Body, JPII affirmed that

human bodies, which are recovered and also renewed in the resurrection, will preserve their specific masculine or feminine character and the meaning of being male or female in the body will be constituted and understood differently in the ‘other world’ than it had been ‘from the beginning’ and then in its whole earthly dimension. (§66.4, p. 388)

The pope is reflecting on Christ’s reply to the Sadducees, and in particular his assertion that in the resurrection people will “take neither wife nor husband.” According to this papal statement, humans will continue to be distinguished by sex in the Resurrection, though those sex distinctions will function differently in that realm of existence.

Does the pope’s statement accurately represent the tradition? Yes, sorta; depends on whom you ask. If you ask scholar Taylor Petrey (pp. 666–69), he would say yes, citing Tertullian (Resurrection 60) and Ps-Justin (Resurrection 2–3), but he would also tell us that this is a question that did not receive much attention in the history of the church. If you asked Nonna Harrison, she would say, no, the pope does not accurately represent the Christian tradition, or at least the early Christian tradition, and she can cite more patristic authors, and more famous ones: Clement of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Maximus the Confessor, not to mention Gregory of Nyssa (discussed by Marc Cortez, ch. 1). I myself haven’t checked all of these sources, but according to Harrison and other scholars, these early Christian writers said that in the Resurrection, our bodies will be glorified and will reflect the true essence of humanity—not the trueness of a man or a woman, but of a human. There is an argument hidden in here also about what it means to be created in the image of God and its relation to sex distinctions, but we will not explore that line of thinking here. I simply note that the Christian tradition is divided regarding whether the resurrection body will maintain sex distinctions.

The best argument, it seems to me, for the idea that sex distinctions are maintained in our resurrected state is the experience of Jesus. As Marc Cortez (pp. 198–202) has recently written, echoing Nonna Harrison: “we also need to account for the fact that Jesus retains his identity as Jesus in the resurrection, an identity that is unavoidably linked to the fact that he is male. Although the resurrection narratives present Jesus’s body as transformed in some way, nothing about those narratives suggests a transformation of identity such that he is no longer the same male individual the disciples knew him to be” (p. 199). There are other arguments that could be put forward, and have been, but tied up in the whole question is a lot of speculation. And that’s where we will leave the matter of sex distinctions.

The Flesh Resurrected

The Christian tradition is divided on whether the resurrection body will reflect our maleness or femaleness. The Christian tradition is not divided on whether there is a resurrection body, and whether it is the same as our current body. On that point, there is unanimous affirmation.

Yes, our current bodies will be raised and transformed.

The only way it makes sense to wonder about whether sex distinctions continue in the hereafter is if we have our current bodies in the hereafter. And that is certainly the dominant Christian tradition: our souls will be reunited with our bodies.

Listen to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: and all the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall be united again to their souls for ever. (32.2)

Again, this is the Westminster Confession of Faith, written in 1646, which was—I’m sure you remember—the confession of faith that at one time expressed the theology of Barton Stone and Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander. Of course, they left behind this confession of faith in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and they repudiated it and other Protestant creeds, but I am unaware that they ever expressed any disagreement with this particular point, that—to quote it again—“the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other.”

Is it just Presbyterians who think this? No, it’s not. Here is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection. (§997)

Early Christianity

The revised Nicene Creed of the year 381 has a line near the end about our anticipation of the resurrection of the dead—that’s the language it uses, “resurrection of the dead” (ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν)—whereas the Apostle’s Creed, recited each Sunday in many churches, contains a distinct version of that line expressing hope in the resurrection of the flesh (carnis resurrectionem).

Among early Christian writers, pretty much everyone agreed with a bodily resurrection, except for maybe Origen. We’re talking about Origen, so of course his views are complex, but it may be that he thought in terms of something like a spiritual resurrection that will not involve our mortal bodies. (For discussion, see Crouzel, here and here; and Heine, 118–22.) See the following passages.

* Selections on the Psalms 1:5

* Commentary on Matthew 17.29–30

* On First Principles 2.10–11

* Against Celsus 5.18–23

Despite Origen’s enormous influence in many areas of theology, not many people followed Origen in his ideas of a spiritual resurrection. Indeed, this is one of the points of contention leading to the condemnation of Origen at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. For example, that council’s Anathema #11 says, “If anyone says that the coming judgment means the total destruction of bodies and that the end of the story will be an immaterial nature, and that thereafter nothing that is material will exist but only pure mind, let him be anathema” (trans. Price, 2.286).

Most patristic authors, even fans of Origen’s—such as Gregory of Nyssa and Rufinus of Aquileia—departed from the great theologian on this score (see Bynum), including:

* Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.7–14

* Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 48–57

* Methodius, From the Discourse on the Resurrection 1.13–14; 3.5–6

* Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection; On the Holy and Saving Pascha

* Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Apostle’s Creed 41–47

* Jerome, Epistle 108.23–24

* Augustine, City of God 20.20; 22.21–24.

These authors insisted on a resurrection of the flesh.

Early Judaism

Such a belief reflects the Jewish background of Christianity. I have already mentioned our Lord’s interaction with the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection. This denial of the resurrection was becoming in first-century Judaism one of those beliefs that was out-of-bounds. A little after the time of the New Testament, the rabbinic document called the Mishnah explains that all Israelites have a share in the world to come (tractate Sanhedrin 10.1), and then it specifies some groups of people who have no share in the world to come, and the first group so specified is those who deny the resurrection of the dead (האומר אין תחית המתים)—or, perhaps specifically, who deny that the doctrine of resurrection can be proved from the Torah (מן התורה).

Much earlier, 2 Maccabees, from perhaps the late second century BC, contains the wonderful story of the mother and her seven sons who suffer martyrdom rather than betray their God. Part of the reason they so joyfully and defiantly suffer death for their faith is because of their hope of resurrection. Listen to the testimony of the third of these brothers, who is willing that his tongue be cut off and his hands severed.

When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, and said bravely, “I received these from heaven, and because of His laws I disregard them, and from Him I hope to get them back again.” (2 Macc 7:10–11)

These Maccabean martyrs help to show us what the hope of resurrection meant in ancient Judaism, and it was something similar to what was expressed many centuries later in the Westminster Confession of Faith, that “the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other.”

Jesus’ Body

From a Christian perspective, it is much more important what we observe regarding Jesus. Did the resurrected Jesus appear in the same physical body that had been nailed to the cross? Was it the same body?

Yes, obviously, the Gospels show us this. How? Well, why else would they stress the empty tomb? The point was that the body wasn’t there in the tomb because Jesus had been raised. And you remember that the nail holes were still there, right? Life was returned to the body. He demonstrated that it was a real body, that he was no ghost, when he showed them his hands and feet and ate a piece of fish (Luke 24:36–43). As Peter told Cornelius, “We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). On the other hand, this was no resuscitation, as in the case of Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter, who would both die again. In the case of Jesus, as Peter said, God “loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (2:24). Paul specifies that Jesus is “no more to return to corruption” (13:34). Death was defeated.

Yes, the body of Jesus was transformed, as we seem to see especially in the accounts of the Resurrection in the Third and Fourth Gospels. And in that speech to Cornelius, when Peter says (in the ESV) that “God made him to appear, not to all the people but to us” (Acts 10:40–41), does he mean that Jesus’ body was invisible to most people but not to the preselected witnesses, or does he mean that after the Resurrection Jesus didn’t mingle with the people as he did earlier in his life?

Paul on the Resurrected Body

At any rate, his body was in some ways transformed, and so shall ours be. Note that transformed does not mean replaced. It will be this body that is raised up and glorified. I know someone’s going to ask, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Look, there are no stupid questions, except that one. That’s a stupid question. The best answer to such a question is, you fool! (See 1 Corinthians 15:35–36.) I’ve already mentioned that I don’t even know whether I will be male in the Resurrection, whether sex distinctions are maintained in that state of existence. I will have this body, but my body will be transformed, and I don’t know how much, or in what ways. It’s like if you plant a seed, which is a kind of body, and then a plant comes up from the ground, from that seed—the plant is the seed, but transformed. Think about a tomato seed and a tomato plant. By looking at the seed, you could not guess at all how the plant would appear. It’s the same with the resurrection, or so says the apostle Paul.

Now, of course, Paul also says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50). Again, we anticipate a transformation of our bodies. By the way, the term “flesh and blood” does not appear very often in ancient Greek literature. James P. Ware searched for all the occurrences, and the phrase appears only six times, all in Jewish literature, if you count the New Testament as Jewish literature. Here is the list of all the appearances.

* Sirach 14:18

* Sirach 17:31

* 1 Enoch 15:4

* Testament of Abraham 13.7

* Matthew 16:17

* Galatians 1:16.

It turns out that the phrase always is negative, always referring to weakness and perishability, which fairly describes our current bodies. That is entirely Paul’s point, that this corruptible—not some other corruptible, but this corruptible—must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Look, it is very popular these days, and it has been for a century and a half, to propose that Paul actually wasn’t talking about the resurrection of our current bodies, but he meant some sort of spiritual resurrection. Certainly there were people in antiquity who held to such views. In this context, Paul is often compared to Stoics or to Platonists, and the claim is often made that the apostle is reflecting ancient Greek philosophical categories in terms of a spiritual, not physical resurrection. And taking 1 Corinthians 15 by itself, it would be hard to argue definitively against that position. Still, if you find that position appealing, take a look at the recent monograph by James P. Ware called The Final Triumph of God. Ware argues from 1 Corinthians 15 for a physical resurrection. As Ware puts it in an earlier study: “in 1 Cor 15:36–54, resurrection is understood as the miraculous reconstitution of the mortal body of flesh and bones and its transformation so as to be imperishable.”

You might disagree, and you might say that Paul did not think that our mortal bodies would be raised, and you might say that Jesus was a unique example and one of the ways he was unique is that his body was raised, and so the tomb was found empty, but our bodies won’t be raised. You might think this, but you should recognize that you are disagreeing with nearly two millennia of Christian interpretation of this issue.

In the early centuries of the church, the belief in the destruction of the body and the immortality of the soul was a distinctively gnostic belief, as Irenaeus shows (Against Heresies 2.29). The late second-century bishop of Lyon said in regard to the Marcosians: “Even though they do not wish to, they will surely rise again in the flesh in order to acknowledge the power of Him who raises them from the dead; they will, however, not be numbered with the righteous, because of their unbelief” (Against Heresies 1.22.1).

Where Will Those Bodies Exist?

Now, the idea of a physical resurrection raises the question of what kind of existence our future will be. Will we be in heaven, or will it be something like the new heavens and new earth described in Scripture? Fortunately, these issues are not controversial at all, which makes sense because none of us can possibly know what the future is like, outside of special revelation, and it turns out that the Bible presents divergent images of that future state. But the trend to talk about a transformed earth rather than a destroyed-forever earth is no recent phenomenon. A thousand years ago, Anselm of Canterbury wrote in his most famous work, “We believe that the present physical mass of the universe is to be changed anew into something better” (Cur Deus Homo 1.18).

A few centuries later, John Milton, in his great epic, wrote about the time when “earth be changed to heaven, and heaven to earth” (Paradise Lost 7.160), and elsewhere in Paradise Lost he includes this description.

Meanwhile

The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring

New heaven and earth, wherein the just shall dwell,

And after all their tribulations long

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,

With joy and love triumphing, and fair truth.

(Paradise Lost 3.333–38)

At the end of the epic, Michael the archangel reveals the future to Adam, even describing the time when…

[Jesus will] receive them into bliss,

Whether in heaven or earth, for then the earth

Shall all be paradise, far happier place

Than this of Eden, and far happier days.

(Paradise Lost 12.462–65)

In the mid-twentieth century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflected on the third Beatitude, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Bonhoeffer wrote: “what it means is that when the kingdom of heaven descends, the face of the earth will be renewed, and it will belong to the flock of Jesus” (Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ch. 6).

But if we live in glorified bodies on a glorified earth, what will we actually do? What kinds of activities will occupy our time?

How am I supposed to know that?

I can cite a nice Talmudic passage on the question: “In the world to come, there is neither eating nor drinking nor sexual relations nor business transactions nor jealousy nor hatred nor rivalry. Rather, the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads and enjoy the radiance of the Divine Presence” (b. Ber. 17a §12; see Levenson, p. 189).

But my favorite description of that phase of existence comes, perhaps inevitably, in a children’s story, and if you don’t know what I’m quoting, I’m certainly not going to tell you.

Then Aslan turned to them and said:

“You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.”

Lucy said, “We’re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.”

“No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?”

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly [referring to something narrated in ch. 13]. “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth had read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmongallagher.substack.com