Article 11: "I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body"

Catechism of the Catholic Church · Part One › Section Two › Chapter Three · Article 11 (§§988–1019)

Paragraphs · 32

The Catechism's text is under copyright, so each paragraph is quoted briefly here with a link to the full text at vatican.va.

"I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body"

§988 — The Christian Creed - the profession of our faith in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in God's creative, saving, and sanctifying action - culminates in the proclamation of the resurrection of the dead on the last day and in life everlasting.vatican.va
§989 — We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on the last day.vatican.va
§990 — The term "flesh" refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality. The "resurrection of the flesh" (the literal formulation of the Apostles' Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our "mortal body" will come to life again.vatican.va
§991 — Belief in the resurrection of the dead has been an essential element of the Christian faith from its beginnings. "The confidence of Christians is the resurrection of the dead; believing this we live."vatican.va

The progressive revelation of the Resurrection

§992 — God revealed the resurrection of the dead to his people progressively. Hope in the bodily resurrection of the dead established itself as a consequence intrinsic to faith in God as creator of the whole man, soul and body.vatican.va
§993 — The Pharisees and many of the Lord's contemporaries hoped for the resurrection. Jesus teaches it firmly. To the Sadducees who deny it he answers, "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the scriptures nor the power of God?"vatican.va
§994 — But there is more. Jesus links faith in the resurrection to his own person: "I am the Resurrection and the life." It is Jesus himself who on the last day will raise up those who have believed in him, who have eaten his body and drunk his blood.vatican.va
§995 — To be a witness to Christ is to be a "witness to his Resurrection," to "[have eaten and drunk] with him after he rose from the dead."vatican.va
§996 — From the beginning, Christian faith in the resurrection has met with incomprehension and opposition. "On no point does the Christian faith encounter more opposition than on the resurrection of the body."vatican.va
§997 — What is "rising"? 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.vatican.va
§998 — Who will rise? All the dead will rise, "those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of judgment."vatican.va
§999 — How? Christ is raised with his own body: "See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself"; but he did not return to an earthly life.vatican.va
§1000 — This "how" exceeds our imagination and understanding; it is accessible only to faith. Yet our participation in the Eucharist already gives us a foretaste of Christ's transfiguration of our bodies:vatican.va
§1001 — When? Definitively "at the last day," "at the end of the world." Indeed, the resurrection of the dead is closely associated with Christ's Parousia:vatican.va
§1002 — Christ will raise us up "on the last day"; but it is also true that, in a certain way, we have already risen with Christ.vatican.va
§1003 — United with Christ by Baptism, believers already truly participate in the heavenly life of the risen Christ, but this life remains "hidden with Christ in God."vatican.va
§1004 — In expectation of that day, the believer's body and soul already participate in the dignity of belonging to Christ. This dignity entails the demand that he should treat with respect his own body, but also the body of every other person, especially the suffering:vatican.va

II. Dying in Christ Jesus

§1005 — To rise with Christ, we must die with Christ: we must "be away from the body and at home with the Lord." In that "departure" which is death the soul is separated from the body.vatican.va
§1006 — "It is in regard to death that man's condition is most shrouded in doubt." In a sense bodily death is natural, but for faith it is in fact "the wages of sin."vatican.va
§1007 — Death is the end of earthly life. Our lives are measured by time, in the course of which we change, grow old and, as with all living beings on earth, death seems like the normal end of life.vatican.va
§1008 — Death is a consequence of sin. the Church's Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man's sin.vatican.va
§1009 — Death is transformed by Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, also himself suffered the death that is part of the human condition. Yet, despite his anguish as he faced death, he accepted it in an act of complete and free submission to his Father's will.vatican.va
§1010 — Because of Christ, Christian death has a positive meaning: "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." "The saying is sure: if we have died with him, we will also live with him.vatican.va
§1011 — In death, God calls man to himself. Therefore the Christian can experience a desire for death like St. Paul's: "My desire is to depart and be with Christ.vatican.va
§1012 — The Christian vision of death receives privileged expression in the liturgy of the Church:vatican.va
§1013 — Death is the end of man's earthly pilgrimage, of the time of grace and mercy which God offers him so as to work out his earthly life in keeping with the divine plan, and to decide his ultimate destiny.vatican.va
§1014 — The Church encourages us to prepare ourselves for the hour of our death. In the litany of the saints, for instance, she has us pray: "From a sudden and unforeseen death, deliver us, O Lord"; to ask the Mother of God to intercede for us…vatican.va

In Brief

§1015 — "The flesh is the hinge of salvation" (Tertullian, De res. 8, 2: PL 2, 852). We believe in God who is creator of the flesh; we believe in the Word made flesh in order to redeem the flesh; we believe in the resurrection of the…vatican.va
§1016 — By death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul.vatican.va
§1017 — "We believe in the true resurrection of this flesh that we now possess" (Council of Lyons II: DS 854). We sow a corruptible body in the tomb, but he raises up an incorruptible body, a "spiritual body" (cf 1 Cor 15:42-44).vatican.va
§1018 — As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer "bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned" (GS # 18).vatican.va
§1019 — Jesus, the Son of God, freely suffered death for us in complete and free submission to the will of God, his Father. By his death he has conquered death, and so opened the possibility of salvation to all men.vatican.va

Scripture cited · 130 verses

"I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body"

Paragraphs · 32

"I Believe in the Resurrection of the Body"

The progressive revelation of the Resurrection

II. Dying in Christ Jesus

In Brief

Scripture cited · 130 verses

Connections

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