Resurrection: Jewish Hope Meets Greek Pessimism
September 20, 2024 - Friday, Memorial of Saints Andrew Kim Tae-gŏn, Priest, and Paul Chŏng Ha-sang, and Companions, Martyrs
1 Cor 15:12-20
The message of Christianity that Christ is risen met with ridicule and disbelief in Athens. When Paul declared in his lecture on the Areopagus that Jesus Christ had been raised from the dead, some listeners "mocked," and others said they would listen to him another time (see Acts 17:32). Greek philosophy considered the soul imprisoned in the body, so the resurrection of the body implied the soul's eternal return to its prison. In the encounter between Paul and the Corinthians, the Jewish hope of the resurrection of the body met with the Greek hope of liberation from the sufferings of physical life.
"If Christ is preached as raised from the dead, how can some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?" (1 Cor. 15:12). The Jewish hope of resurrection was rooted in their experience of suffering for their faith. Persecutors offered a choice: give up faith and live, or hold on to faith and die. Many gave up their faith, but some became martyrs. This raised a question: martyrs suffered in their bodies for God's sake—what would God do about it? The answer: He would raise them up, give them transfigured bodies, wipe their tears, and let them live in a transformed world free from death's corruption.
The Greek hope of the soul's liberation from the body was rooted in viewing human life as a tragedy governed by fate. In the story of Oedipus, fate led him to kill his father and marry his mother despite his efforts to avoid this destiny. Thus, death was seen as liberation from life's tragedy, allowing the soul to finally be free.
Paul, a Jew who encountered the risen Christ, faced the challenge of communicating Jewish hope in a culture marked by Greek pessimism. In the Bible, death is a tragedy and ultimate suffering, while in Greek Platonic philosophy, similar to Buddhism, it is seen as liberation from suffering. Ironically, after two thousand years of Christianity, the West has re-embraced Greek pessimism, seeing death as liberation and losing hope for transformation through God's grace.
Paul, the bearer of Jewish hope in a world of Greek tragedy, proclaimed something surprising even to many Jews. When Jesus told Martha that her brother Lazarus would rise, she answered, "I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day" (John 11:24). With Jesus' resurrection, the last day became Easter Day. The resurrection of the dead began with Jesus. As Paul put it, Christ is "the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep" (1 Cor. 15:20). Death and suffering no longer have power over Christ, and His resurrected body is not bound by time and space.
Jesus' resurrection has transformed death into a passage between two modes of life. It has revealed a life freed from the corruption of death and marked the beginning of the final stage of salvation history, where disfigured bodies become transfigured bodies and the disfigured earth becomes a transfigured earth.