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Christianity Today, April (Web-only), 2009 |

The Empty Tomb and the Emptied Urn

What the wounds of Jesus can — and can't — tell us about our resurrection bodies.

Russell D. Moore | posted 4/07/2009 08:29AM

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Only One of us will bear any reminder of the sufferings behind us, and it'll be clear that he is not suffering anymore.

Russell D. Moore is dean of the School of Theology and senior vice-president for academic administration at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. He also serves as a preaching pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky. He is the author of Adopted for Life: The Priority of Adoption for Christian Families and Churches (Crossway).

All Scripture references are from the Holy Bible, English Standard Version (ESV).

More articles on the Resurrection are in our Holy Week and Easter section.

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April (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53

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Tim Stevens

Posted: April 18, 2009 2:01 AM

The body is just the chucked " peanut" shell after death. The seed of life has been repositioned in either heaven or hell.Whither the spirit has gone does never prevent its reconstitution into a body. It is really the spirt and not the body upon which God reconstructs a new body in the same way he constructs a body enclosing the spirit in the womb. That is why death and hell gives up the dead that are there. That is why the graves will be opened and the dead in Christ will rise first. However cremation has a religious affinity associated with those who adhere to cremation as a right of passage of the spirit into eternity until it may find another body in reincarnation. I believe that natural decay of a buried body is well precedented throughout scripture and that this is still God's pattern for Christian burial. Some parts of the body- the hair for example does not decay and bones do also take a long time. The key to resurrection is really being in Christ. This is the DNA of life.

Xinosaj

Posted: April 14, 2009 9:43 AM

This article is pointless, and will do nothing except prompt more pointless, divisive arguments in local churches. The apostle Paul was explicit that things like this don't matter, and ARE TO BE KEPT AS PRIVATE OPINIONS. Articles like this defy the New Testament's explicit command. But since we're already discussing the topic, here's something that the author failed to consider: modern American burial practices involve intensive embalming, and the concrete bunkers we store the coffins in will ensure that the elements of the decayed body will not rejoin the dust of the earth for thousands of years. This is plainly against the Old Testament's intent, and makes modern American funerals something more akin to ancient Egyptian mummification rites than Biblical spirituality. We can't bury the way we did in the Bible because there are too many people and burying them in the earth would contaminate the ground water. Cremation's by far the better option today.

TM	Posted: April 13, 2009 8:01 PM


2+ pages of...what? I have no idea what exactly the author was trying to communicate. Cremation- bad, I think. but, in the end, no different than burial? A waste of time.

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