8. What Have Hades, Earth, and Heaven Become After the Resurrection of Christ?
The descent into hades and the Resurrection of Christ have great significance in the work of the salvation of mankind.
Saint Philaret of Moscow wrote:
“Is it necessary to establish faith, to create hope, to inflame love, to enlighten wisdom, to raise up prayer, to bring down grace, to destroy calamity, death, evil, to give life to life, to make blessedness not a dream but reality, glory not a phantom but the eternal lightning of eternal light, illuminating everything and striking no one? — For all this, sufficient power will be found in one miraculous word: ‘Christ is Risen.’
What is hades after, since by the descent into hades, Christ is risen? A fortress into which, under the appearance of a prisoner, the conqueror entered; a prison whose gates are shattered and whose guards are scattered; this is truly, according to the image of Christ, a monster that swallowed the prophet cast from a ship; but instead of devouring and destroying him, it became for him another, though not so calm, ship, in order to bring him to the shore of life and safety. Now it becomes clear how someone hoped to pass safely even through hades itself: ‘Even though I walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me’ (Ps. 22:4) — You, Who for us descended from heaven, walked on the earth like us, and like us descended into the shadow of death, so that from there also You might open a path for Your followers into the light of life.
Now, when Christ is risen, what does the earth become? It is a nursery for heaven; the short-lived life of man in the body, ending in decay; it is like the beginning of the life of a chick in the egg, to which, after the shell is broken, a higher and more spacious realm of life is opened; it is only necessary that the embryo of the chick be embraced, penetrated, and quickened by the maternal warmth of the covering — that is, it is necessary that the embryo of heavenly life in a person be embraced, penetrated, and quickened by the life-giving power of the Blood of Christ.
Now, when Christ is risen, and when to Him, as God-man, has been given all authority in heaven and on earth (cf. Matt. 28:18), not only has heaven become accessible, but it has even been united with the earth in such a way that it is difficult to find a boundary or distinction between them; for on earth the Divinity appears, and in heaven humanity; the Angels, whom Jacob saw ascending and descending on the heavenly ladder, now move in hosts upon the earth as messengers of the Son of Man, who reigns in heaven.”
9. What is the Resurrection of the Dead?
Just as every year, at the end of winter and with the coming of spring, when the sun draws near to our earth, there is always a great change — so by the power of this great luminary approaching the earth, all nature is revived: all earthly things — plants and certain animals, as if half-dead, and sometimes even truly dead — come to life and receive new strength for activity, and with this new strength produce new growth and new fruit. In this visible way, after the winter of the final sufferings of the Antichrist, and at the Second Coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, the true God-man, into this world — when the great spiritual Luminary, the Sun of Righteousness, returns in full radiance and light, in inexpressible splendor and glory — then, at the return of this Luminary to our earthly sphere, all human dead bodies will, by His hidden power, come to life, rise, and stand up; they will receive a new form, a new life, and new activity.
But what is the resurrection of the dead, and in what will its essence consist? On this we can have no better reasoning, no clearer testimony, and no more certain proof than the example of the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ Himself. By His Resurrection He proved that our resurrection is possible and will without doubt occur; by His teaching He showed when it will be; and His own example can teach us what it will be.
Therefore, in order to understand what our resurrection will be, let us consider what the glorious Resurrection of Christ consisted in.
The Resurrection of Christ consisted in this: that He, as a perfect man, having been betrayed by Judas, tortured and crucified by the Jews, having died on the Cross, taken down from the tree and laid in the tomb — He, after His death, being according to His divinity with the Father in heaven, according to His human soul in Hades, and according to His dead body in the tomb, manifested His divine power — that He, having again come forth with His soul from Hades and having brought out with Himself those who were in Hades and awaited Him with faith, united His soul with His body, after three days enlivened it, raised it, resurrected it by the power of His divinity — He, having raised His flesh and united it with the divinity, again showed Himself to be the true God-man.
And He raised His flesh from the tomb no longer as it was before, but far more noble and majestic, raising it altogether in a transformed form. His flesh before, like that of other men, was subject to earthly sensation and earthly inclinations, although He did not follow them but ruled over them; after death and after the Resurrection this sensibility fell away, and earthly inclinations ceased to exist in it and were destroyed. His flesh before was visible, tangible, coarse; but in the Resurrection it became invisible, most refined; from earthly and fleshly it became a heavenly, spiritual Body. In short, it could be both visible and tangible to the disciples — and invisible, intangible, not held by coarse bodies, passing everywhere; it had the form of flesh and bones when Thomas touched it, and the form of a spirit when the Lord came to the disciples while the doors were shut (cf. John 20:19). His flesh before was corruptible, weak, natural, subject to suffering and death; but in the Resurrection it rose incorruptible, powerful, immortal, glorious, spiritual (cf. 1 Cor. 15:42–44), glorified, clothed in divine light — in a word, such as was perfectly capable of ascending with the divinity of the Son into heaven, entering places suited to bodiless spirits, and sitting at the right hand of the Heavenly Father Himself.
This is what the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ consisted in. And since His Resurrection consisted in such actions, it follows very rightly that our resurrection will consist in a similar change and in similar actions.
Namely: when the Sun of Righteousness again shines upon the horizon of this visible world, when our Lord Jesus Christ again comes to the earth — comes either to reward or to punish each according to his deeds, and commands the Holy Angels with the sound of a trumpet to call forth the dead — then, just as at the beginning of the world, when by the word of God, “let there be,” all things came into being (Gen. 1:3), so then, after the angelic trumpet, by the power of Almighty God all the bodies of men who have died from the beginning of the world — committed to the earth, decayed, dissolved into their elements, transformed into fire, water, air, and earth; bodies drowned in water and burned in fire — all dead bodies, small and great, male and female, will again be formed from those parts which they once had and into which they were divided; for the elements will give back what was taken from them — and fire, and the sea, and death, and Hades will give up their dead; all dry bones will receive sinews, be clothed with flesh, be enlivened by the spirit, be reunited again with their souls from which they were separated at death, and will rise from the graves — the dead will rise, come forth, and stand before the throne of the impartial Judge, and receive judgment according to what is written in the books, according to their deeds (cf. Rev. 20:12).
The dead will rise, the bodies of those who have died will stand up; but they will not rise in the form in which they now exist after the fall. Now they are coarse, solid, heavy, corruptible, weak, mortal, visible, earthly; but they will rise in the general resurrection in an entirely different form. Instead of coarse, they will be refined; instead of solid, transparent and capable of passing everywhere; instead of heavy, light and swiftly moving, so that in a moment, like eagles, they will be gathered from all parts of the universe before the throne of God. Instead of corruptible, they will be incorruptible; instead of weak, strong; instead of mortal, immortal; instead of visible to bodily eyes, invisible; instead of earthly and fleshly, truly heavenly and spiritual.
Yet, with all this transformation, they will not be phantoms or spirits, but true bodies, having the forms of the same persons; only they will be true spiritual bodies. For the Apostle Paul, testifying about the resurrection of the dead, says: “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” (1 Cor. 15:42–44).
In this will our resurrection consist! It will consist in this transformation — that our bodies will rise from the dead, come to life, stand up from the graves, come out of the earth; from being coarse, earthly, corruptible, mortal, fleshly, they will become most refined, as if completely heavenly, incorruptible, immortal, spiritual.
And in this transformation not only the dead — those who have died from the beginning of the world until that time — will participate, but also the living, those who remain alive at that final hour, those whom the terrible day of the Lord finds alive. For the living who remain until the Second glorious Coming of Christ will not die at that time — for death will be no more. But since it will be impossible for them to enter the spiritual Kingdom with their coarse flesh, instead of external death there will occur in them a transformation: when the living, like the dead, hear the trumpet of the Angels, the loud proclamation of the last hour — then, just as the dead rise as from sleep and see themselves in a completely different form, in the likeness of spiritual beings, so also the living, as if awakening from a brief sleep, will see themselves entirely changed in form, condition, and feeling. All the living, though they will not die, will be changed: “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (cf. 1 Cor. 15:51).
This coarse body, like a heavy garment, will then fall away, and the flesh will become refined; all sensibility will depart, fleshly desires will be destroyed, passionate inclinations will cease to act; and thus the living, without dying, will see in themselves death, and without dying will behold themselves, even in their outward part, in their very body, as new people, spiritual beings. For their bodies, having laid aside fleshly inclinations and cast off sensibility and corruption, will put on incorruption; leaving mortality, they will receive immortality, and like the bodies of the dead, will become spiritual, able to pass everywhere and fit for eternal dwelling in the spiritual kingdom.
Continued
