“I am the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.”  He showed His power over the dead body, and furnished assurance of resurrection, by raising the dead.  He thus restored the daughter of Jairus and the son of the widow of Nain, and raised Lazarus from the tomb four days after he had died.  In His own resurrection we have the most signal pledge of our bodily immortality.  When He arose triumphant from the grave and showed Himself alive by many infallible proofs, He manifested His power as the conqueror of death.

It is clearly taught in Scripture that there is to be a general resurrection of the righteous and the wicked.  In addition to texts already quoted, we find John declaring, “I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God, ... and the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them";[220] and Paul writes to the Thessalonians, “We that are alive, that are left unto the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede them that are fallen asleep ... and the dead in Christ shall rise first."[221]

The resurrection is associated with the second coming of Christ.  It is His voice that shall awake the dead, and the angels who will accompany Him are to gather them from the four winds of heaven to the judgment-seat of Christ, “that everyone may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad."[222]

In resurrection, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost take part.  God the Father, who “both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power":[223] God the Son:  “As the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will":[224] God the Holy Ghost, who, as the Giver of life, by His special action will raise our bodies:  “He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."[225] The Lord Jesus Christ is the meritorious cause of resurrection:  “By man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive."[226] His resurrection is the pledge and the pattern of ours.  “If we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection."[227]

Christianity teaches that the body as well as the soul is redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ, “the Saviour of the body."[228] We are called to glorify God in our bodies, which are temples of the Holy Ghost, and we must give account for the deeds done in and through the body, as well as for those sins which are rather of the mind and will than of the body.  The body will be raised and will be judged.  God will bring to light all hidden things—­actions forgotten by ourselves, deeds of which the world knows nothing, as well as those which memory retains and the world knows of.  Before that “great and notable day” our bodies as well as our souls must have been purged, else we shall never see God.  The bodies of the unjust will rise; but theirs will be resurrection to shame and everlasting contempt.