Question 149, from George P

What kind of bodies will unbelievers get at their resurrection?

There are two verses in the New Testament that seem to support the idea that unbelievers experience a physical resurrection. These are:
John chapter 5, verse 29, when Jesus is reported as saying “those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.”
Acts chapter 24 verse 15 when Paul refers to “a resurrection of both the righteous and the wicked”.

It would appear from these Bible passages that there was an expectation among some of the Biblical writers that unbelievers would be raised from the dead and judged on judgement day. As attitudes towards eschatology have changed, particularly with some theological viewpoints dispensing with the notion of eternal punishment for the unbeliever, this idea has gradually been sidelined. For example, an ‘annihilationist’ viewpoint that states that unbelievers cease to exist after death (or after judgement day) would probably not include a reference to bodily resurrection of unbelievers.

But in theological traditions that maintain a doctrine of judgement and ‘perdition’ (e.g. that unbelievers are destined to be punished in hell for their sins), the physical nature of descriptions of hell presupposes that the human beings who are sent there possess a physical body.

The unbeliever’s resurrection physical body would presumably be similar to the believer’s resurrection body in that it would be recognisable with a continuous physical resemblance to the former body of the person who died. It will not, however, be remade in the same way as a believer’s resurrection body as it will not have been perfected and glorified in the way a believer’s resurrection body is described, because that process of glorification is achieved because of the believer’s faith in Christ. (1 Corinthians chapter 15)

Posted on July 19