Resurrection

Resurrection is a central doctrine of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It may refer to the resurrection of biologically dead corpses by divine power or to a purely spiritual resurrection where the 'dead' (human beings who are blind to their spiritual nature and the possibility of salvation) come to Life by means of spiritual awakening and subsequent transformation to a life of holiness.

A

But when the dust has drunk the blood of men,
No resurrection comes for one who's dead.
- Aeschylus, Eumenides, 641 (translated by E. Plumptre)

We cannot understand the preaching of the resurrection if it is understood as a miraculous moment which founds a new religion. If it is taken thus, we are in fact denying the force and efficacy of the resurrection. For the resurrection brings about the definitive installation in our midst, as a constructive hermeneutical principle, of the cult of Yahweh who knows not death, and who is worshipped in a continuous apprenticeship in participating in and not being scandalised by the collapse of the sacred. A sacred whose secret is always the victims which it hides, and on whose sacrifice it depends.
- James Alison, Faith Beyond Resentment, 34

B

Those who have deprived themselves of this Resurrection by reason of their mutual hatreds or by regarding themselves to be in the right and others in the wrong, were chastised on the Day of Resurrection by reason of such hatreds evinced during their night. Thus they deprived themselves of beholding the countenance of God, and this for no other reason than mutual denunciations.
- The Báb, in the Kitáb-I-Asmá (The Book of Names), XVI, 19

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.
Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.
- Wendell Berry, in "Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front" in Farming: A Hand Book (1970)

We therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection to eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ.
- Book of Common Prayer (1662), Burial of the Dead, Committal

C

Because Jesus came, died, and was resurrected, O[ld] T[estament] festivals have now been fulfilled, and to maintain them ‘means reverting back to the old covenant, as if Christ had never come.
- Oscar Cullmann, as quoted in the contemporary Vocabulaire biblique.

D

The last loud trumpet's wondrous sound,
Shall thro' the rending tombs rebound,
And wake the nations under ground.
- Wentworth Dillon, On the Day of Judgment, Stanza 3; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 671

F

Resurrection, like politics, makes strange bedfellows.
- Philip José Farmer, The Fabulous Riverboat (1971), first line, spoken by Sam Clemens (Mark Twain)

G

The fact that we awake from sleep is some evidence for the resurrection.
- Genesis Rabbah 78, Tales and Maxims from the Midrash by Rev. Samuel Rapaport, (1907), p. 84

H

J. B. S. Haldane counts fanaticism among the only four really important inventions made between 3000 B.C and 1400 A.D. It was a Judaic-Christian invention. And it is strange to think that in receiving this malady of the soul the world also received a miraculous instrument for raising societies and nations from the dead—an instrument of resurrection.
- Eric Hoffer, The True Believer (1951) Ch.18 Good and Bad Mass Movements, §125, citing Haldane's The Inequality of Man (1938)

J

For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.
- Jesus, Matthew 22:30 (KJV)

I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.
- Jesus, John 11:25 (KJV)

L

And I have hope toward God, which hope these men also look forward to, that there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.
- Luke, Acts 24: 15

God could cause a dead person to resurrect without possessing a single atom of the matter of which his earthly body was made.
- Dio potrebbe fare che un morto risusciti, senza possedere un solo atomo della materia di cui il suo corpo terreno era costituto.
  - As quoted in Sulla cremazione, radiospada.org (November 2, 2020)

M

The trumpet! the trumpet! the dead have all heard:
Lo, the depths of the stone-cover'd charnels are stirr'd:
From the sea, from the land, from the south and the north,
The vast generations of man are come forth.
- Henry Hart Milman, Hymns for Church Service, Second Sunday in Advent, Stanza 3; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 671

Q

And it is God who sends the winds, and they stir the clouds, and We drive them to a dead land and give life thereby to the earth after its lifelessness. Thus is the resurrection.
- Quran 35:9

S

Jede Trennung gibt einen Vorgeschmack des Todes und jedes Wiedersehen einen Vorgeschmack der Auferstehung.
- Every parting gives a foretaste of death, every reunion a hint of the resurrection.
  - Arthur Schopenhauer, Counsels and Maxims, Vol. 2, Ch. 26, § 310, as translated by Eric F. J. Payne

T

The word "resurrection" has for many people the connotation of dead bodies leaving their graves or other fanciful images. But resurrection means the victory of the New state of things, the New Being born out of the death of the Old. Resurrection is not an event that might happen in some remote future, but it is the power of the New Being to create life out of death, here and now, today and tomorrow.
- Paul Tillich, The New Being

Y

Shall man alone, for whom all else revives,
No resurrection know? Shall man alone,
Imperial man! be sown in barren ground,
Less privileged than grain, on which he feeds?
- Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night VI, line 704

I see the Judge enthroned; the flaming guard:
The volume open'd!—open'd every heart!
- Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IX, line 262

Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895)

Quotes reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895).

The resurrection morning is a true sun-rising, the inbursting of a cloudless sky on all the righteous dead. They wake transfigured, at their Maker's call, with the fashion of their countenance altered and shining like His own.
- Horace Bushnell, p. 519

The resurrection state is the culmination of glorified humanity; is the change of the earthly for the heavenly; is the putting off of flesh and blood, and the putting on of the spiritual body. The body of the resurrection is the body with which the spirit is clothed for its celestial life.
- Randolph Sinks Foster, p. 519

I shall see Him with these eyes,
Him whom I shall surely know;
Not another shall I rise,
With His love this heart shall glow;
Only there shall disappear
Weakness in and round me here.
- Louisa Henrietta, p. 519

Our Lord has written the promise of the resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in spring-time.
- Martin Luther, p. 518

O, on that glorious day, when all the hosts of God shall have been gathered from Europe and Asia, from Africa and America — when the long-buried armies of the dead shall come forth, spiritual, incorruptible, glorious, immortal — when the sons of God who have kept their first estate, shall sing " unto Him that loved us," and the redeemed from all parts of the earth, and from all the generations, shall respond in a song sweeter than the songs of the morning-stars when all the sons of God shouted for joy,— may you and I be there to join that everlasting song, and realize that bliss unspeakable which is the enduring portion of the Lord's redeemed.
- John J. Murray, p. 520

And shall they rise, all these? Will there be a trumpet blast so shrill that none of them may refuse to hear it, and the soul, re-entering its shrine of eminent or common clay, pass upward to the judgment? " Many and mighty, but all hushed," shall they submit with us to the judgment of the last assize? And in that world is it true that gold is not the currency, and that rank is not hereditary, and that there is only one name that is honored? Then, if this is the end of all men, let the living lay it to heart. Solemn and thoughtful, let us search for an assured refuge; childlike and earnest, let us confide in the one accepted Name; let us realize the tender and infinite nearness of God our Father, through Jesus our Surety and our Friend.
- William Morley Punshon, p. 519

How divinely full of glory and pleasure shall that hour be when all the millions of mankind that have been redeemed by the blood of the Lamb of God shall meet together and stand around Him, with every tongue and every heart full of joy and praise! How astonishing will be the glory and the joy of that day when all the saints shall join together in one common song of gratitude and love, and of everlasting thankfulness to this Redeemer! With what unknown delight, and inexpressible satisfaction, shall all that are saved from the ruins of sin and hell address the Lamb that was slain, and rejoice in His presence!
- Isaac Watts, p. 520

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