The grave in the garden reversed Adam's bringing of death into Eden.
Christ's resurrection as a fact bears on the belief in a future state
as nothing else can.
It changes hope into certainty. It shows by actual example that death
has nothing to do with the soul; that life is independent of the body;
that a man after death is the same as before it. The risen Lord was the
same in His relations to His disciples, the same in His love, in His
memory, and in all else.
It changes shadowy hopes of continuous life into a solid certainty of
resurrection life. The former is vague and powerless. It is impossible
to conceive of the future with vividness unless as a bodily life. And
this is the strength of the Christian conception of the future life,
that corporeity is the end and goal of the redeemed man.
It changes terror and awe into joy, and opens up a future in which He
is.
We shall be with Him.
We shall be like Him.
Now we can go back to all these incomplete analogies and use them
confidently. Our faith does not rest upon them but upon what has
actually been done on this earth.
Christ is 'the First fruits of them that slept.' What will the harvest
be!
As the single little seed is poor and small by the side of the gorgeous
flower that comes from it; so will be the change. 'God giveth it a body
as it hath pleased Him.'
How then to think of death for ourselves and for those who are gone?
Thankfully and hopefully.