Certain passages in the Old Testament (Book of Daniel) have been quoted as "the first definite sign" that the Jews believed in the resurrection of the body. 29 The cryptic passages in Daniel are, among others: "Many (not all?) of those who sleep in the dust of the earth will wake, some of them to life eternal, the others to eternal shame and contempt." "And the man enquired of the one in linen garments who was above the waters of the river: 'How long shall it be till these wonders cease?' He said: "Go, Daniel, for the meaning of the words must remain sealed and secret till the time of the end.." (Dan 12, 2, 6 and 9)
It has to be said: that is no suitable basis on which to establish doctrines. Mark 12, 26-27 does not tell us the nature of the resurrection Jesus spoke of. Paul therefore asks the question: How are the dead raised? With what kind of body shall they come? (I Cor 15, 35) "A sensual body is sown, but one that has become spirit is raised." (1 Cor 15, 44) "So I tell you this, my brothers: flesh and blood can not achieve the Kingdom of God, and that which is mortal shall not attain to immortality." (I Cor 15,50)
Paul held the view, wrongly, that the end of the world would come in his day. He therefore wrote: ". . . and was a warning for us, who experience the end of times." (I Cor 10, 11) "The time is short." (I Cor 7, 29) "You see, I will tell you a secret: We shall not all die, but we shall all be transformed, and this suddenly, when the last trumpet sounds. For the trumpet shall sound; the dead will then be raised immortal, and we shall be transformed." (I Cor 15, 51-52) Paul, as we know, was mistaken. The end of the world did not come. But it is important to note that Paul spoke of the body 'become spirit'.
In the 5th century, Augustine, a man who evolved many erroneous and often incomprehensible, absurd doctrines and yet absolutely dominated Western thought for centuries, developed a strange concept of the resurrection of the fleshly body in the next world.
"By no means shall we believe these to be mere spirits, for they are rather bodies of tangible flesh." (Civ. Dei XIII. 22-23) This put him in direct opposition to the teaching of St. Paul. He did experience some doubt, however, as to whether the awkward physical body would actually fit into the world of spirits, but this certainly did not make him give up his absurd notion, and he tried to get around the problem by adding that the life-giving spirit in the next world "does not admit physical heaviness." (Civ. Dei XIII. 23) 30
Augustine's crude notion of resurrection in the flesh and of a fleshly body entering into the world of spirits persisted right through the Middle Ages. The Council of Toledo (A.D. 675) declared: "This body, in which we dwell, exist and move, will rise." (Denz 287)
Pope Leo IX (1053) spoke of a genuine resurrection "of the very flesh I am now clothed in" (Denz 347), and the Lateran Council (1215) of "the selfsame bodies that we have now." (Denz.
429) 31
Following 2nd Vatican, Catholic theological lexicons now say the exact opposite of what church fathers, popes and councils have taught. An example taken from Professor Karl Rahner's Herders theologisches Taschenlexikon (1972, page 255 f.) reads: "Whenever the New Testament refers to resurrection, it speaks of the 'resurrection of the dead', never of the flesh . . ." "As to the biblical concept, it should be evident from the above that its real core cannot be a concept of bodies being restored, although the Bible does present this as an image throughout." Joseph Ratzinger uses almost the same words; "Thus it is now also established that the real core to the concept of resurrection is not a restoration of bodies, though it has been reduced to this in our thoughts." 32 With this, Catholic theologians are now coming very close to what New Revelation has to say.
After this doctrinal chaos of conflicting opinions over the centuries, let us now turn to the words of New ReveIation:
"When the soul has become ripe, it leaves this body for ever, and the body is consumed. lt is all the same, then, by whom or in what way. Anything in it that is still substantial, belonging to the soul, is also restored to the soul. Everything else (physical matter) becomes nourishment for a thousand other forms of creature life." (Gr VI 53, 11)
"The human being will, however, at different times also have a different body." (Gr VI 54, 4) (It should be noted that the billions of cells in the human body are completely replaced in the course of seven years.)
"It can never be in accord with God's eternal scheme, for God Himself is a pure spirit, and men, too, in the end are destined only to become godlike pure spirits, for all time. What purpose then would their bodies serve to them?" "Yes, men will have bodies in that world, too, but not these earthly bodies of coarse matter, but wholly new ones that are spiritual and originate from the good works they have done on this earth, in accord with the teaching I have given to you. When these things are as I have said, how can anyone think that the resurrection of the body refers to these earthly bodies being revived in time to come? The resurrection of the body consists merely in the good works that alone give the soul true everlasting life, good works the soul has performed for the good of its fellow men in this life of the flesh. Therefore any man who hears My teaching, believes in Me and acts accordingly shall be raised by Me Myself on his day of judgement which will immediately follow the moment the soul leaves this body." (Gr
"Therefore understand the resurrection of the body to mean the good works of true love of your neighbor! These shall be the flesh of the soul and thus rise with it to everlasting life as an unalloyed ethereal body on its judgement day in the spirit world, following the true trumpet call of this My teaching. If you had borne a body a hundred times on earth, in that next world you shall have but one body, and that the one described to you." (Gr V 238, 1)
"Since the flesh of man is principally given to a spirit brought out of condemnation (spirits who fell with Lucifer, author) only so that he may go through a new trial of freedom in it, as in a world wholly of his own, you will now find it easy to see that a body of flesh would be quite unnecessary for spirits who already
are perfected (in the next world, author), in that the flesh is but a means, and never in all eternity an end, for in the final instance everything has to grow wholly spiritual again and no more material." (Gr I 165, 9)
"So not the smallest grain of the flesh that has served the soul here will in the next world arise united with the soul to enter eternal life?" one of the disciples asked Jesus. The answer he received was: "where the outline of the outer form of the soul, and particularly its garments, are concerned, the soul ether parts of its body on this earth shall be united with it again, but not a single atom of the coarse organic body." (Gr X 9, 14-15)