 | The Reverend Doctor Cathy Northrup was born in Ft. Meade, MD, and was raised in a variety of places in the United State and Germany, as her father was in Counter Intelligence with the Army. She graduated summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, with a double major in English and Religion. She graduated from Georgetown Law Center in Washington, DC, and practiced law with the Federal Reserve Board for a number of years before attending Union Theological Seminaryin Richmond, VA. She graduated from Union, and served several churches in North and South Carolina, at the same time obtaining her Doctor of Ministry from Princeton Theological Seminary in Princeton, NJ. Dr. Northrup is currently the Pastor/Head of Staff of First Presbyterian Church, Wichita, KS. She is married and has two black Labrador dogs who were rescued from abusive situations. You can contact Dr. Northrup at cnorthrup@firstpresbywichita.org or by phone at (316) 263-0248, ext. 26. |
Religion
2009-06-01 10:29:00
Body and soul renunited?
Question: I have always been taught that at the end of time, the soul will be reunited with the body and each will be judged by our Lord. How is it in Matthew 17:2-7, Moses and Elijah appeared to Peter and James during the Transfiguration? How did their souls reunite with their bodies if the end of time has yet to come?
Answer: You ask in your question about the soul and the body, their separation and uniting, and the end of time and judgment. Yet the Biblical passage you refer to is the transfiguration. In my judgment, the passage about the transfiguration in Matthew 17:2-7 is not really applicable to your question. Its purpose is to describe Jesus’ transfiguration, and through it, according to Biblical commentator Dale Bruner, show who had authoritative power in the early church.
Bruner explains that, among the people of God from the time of the Old Testament, those who were thought to have this power were Moses and the law, and Elijah and the prophets. Now comes Jesus, with the gospel. Moses and Elijah’s presence at the transfiguration show that Jesus is continuous in a line with them, but there is also a discontinuity because, in the Matthew story, God says, “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Jesus is the one God calls the people to listen to.
With regard to your question, we believe that physical death is not the end of our lives. God will, at the resurrection, raise us up with a spiritual body, as Paul puts it in 1 Corinthians 15. We cannot fully comprehend what happens at death and at the resurrection, but we know that the soul doesn’t “go off somewhere” at death while the body lays in the ground. Neither the body nor the soul is immortal. Some say that they “sleep” until the resurrection, but again, because we are mere creatures, we do not know exactly what happens. Paul puts it beautifully, however, in 1 Corinthians 15:51 and 52: “Listen I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.”
