be in the heart of the earth three days and three nights” (Mat. 12, 40, New Test. XXVII); 5. “He shall be mocked and scourged, and crucified, and the third day He shall rise again” (Mat. 20, 19).
The great significance of the Resurrection. That Jesus Christ should rise from the dead by His own power, and call Himself back from death to life, is the greatest of all miracles, a very miracle of miracles. The Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ is therefore:
1. the clearest proof of His Divinity, for He thereby showed that He is; a) the absolute Lord of life and death, possessing, therefore, Divine Omnipotence; and b) that He is a true Teacher; for His distinct prophecy that He would rise from the dead on the third day came to pass, and proved the truth of his teaching; and if His teaching be true then must His oft repeated assertion that He was the Son of God be equally true. His own testimony to His Godhead is absolutely trustworthy, for not only did He die for this testimony, but He confirmed it by His glorious Resurrection, proving thereby that He is the Truth and the Life.
2. The Resurrection is to us the proof and pledge of our redemption, since it shows that His Passion and Death were pleasing to God (for otherwise they would not have been rewarded by the wonderful Resurrection), and that the satisfaction He offered has infinite value, being offered by the Incarnate Son of God. In this sense St. Paul writes (1 Cor. 15, 17. 20): “If Christ be not risen again, your faith is vain, for you are yet in your sins ... but now Christ is risen from the dead, the first-fruits of them that sleep.” The apostle’s meaning is this: “If Christ had not overcome death by His Resurrection, He would not have overcome sin; for death is the punishment and consequence of sin; but the fact of His having overcome the consequence of sin, death, gives us the certitude that He has overcome the cause of death, sin.”
3. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the pledge of our own future resurrection, “for by a man came death, and by a man the resurrection of the dead. And as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all shall be made alive” (1 Cor. 15, 21. 22). Compare with this passage the words: “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in Me, although He be dead, shall live: and every one that liveth and believeth in Me shall not die for ever” (John 11, 25. 26), and “The hour cometh wherein all that are in the graves shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that have done good things shall come forth unto the resurrection of life; but they that have done evil unto the resurrection of judgment” (John 5, 28. 29). See the eleventh Article of the Creed.
The glorified Body. At His Resurrection our Lord’s Sacred Body was transformed, or glorified. The glorious Body is 1. immortal and impassible, i. e. it can neither die nor suffer; 2. it is bright, or full of light; 3. it is subtle, i. e. it can pass through any substance like a spirit; and 4. it is agile, or swift as thought. The bodies of all the just shall
