On Wednesday evenings I am leading a Bible study of Paul’s Corinthian letters. Recently we have been in I Corinthians chapter 15 and have been discussing the resurrection of the dead, the subject of the entire chapter. It is tempting to pull a few hopeful verses from this chapter for use in funeral services and move on just taking resurrection as a given in the Christian faith. But the Corinthians’ struggle to understand the meaning of resurrection as something very different from the immortality of the soul is very much a problem for us today.
The idea of the immortality of the soul was a very familiar idea to the Corinthians. It came to them as a basic part of Greek understanding of the world which taught that the soul and the body were separate things. The soul was good and immortal while the body was temporary and inadequate. On death the the soul was freed from the weak and temporal body to continue it’s immortal journey in the realm of the spirits. Understood correctly, it was best to accept death as a welcomed deliverance of the soul from its mortal prison. The Corinthians equated the immortality of the soul with the Gospel’s promise of the resurrection of the dead. All this sounds quite familiar to us as western society is heavily influenced by the philosophy of the Greeks.
There were, and are, however, serious incompatibilities between the Gospel and Greek philosophy that are particularly stark when it comes to the difference between immortality and resurrection. In Christian understanding death is not a part of God’s plan but has been imposed into our experience as a result of sin. Death is an enemy to be defeated. God’s plan is to deliver us from the influence of sin and its ultimate expression, death. When Jesus died His soul was not freed from an unimportant body. Rather he was experiencing in an act of love and sacrifice all the terrible destruction that our sins have imposed upon God’s plan. The resurrection of Jesus inaugerated the power of God’s plan in defeating death.
Another area that needs to be informed by the concept of the resurrection of the dead is respect for the body. While an immortal soul is delivered from bodily imprisonment in Greek thinking, the Biblical revelation teaches us that we are wonderfully made and that every part of us is loved by God and should be loved by us. We are not a soul trapped in a worthless body. We are a treasured creation that God has made, “a little lower than the angels … crowned with glory.” God’s redemptive plan includes all that we are, body, mind, soul, emotions, everything. The resurrection of the dead teaches what while our physical bodies are temporal and will “return to dust,” what lies beyond is a perfected extension of what God has already started, the redemption of our whole selves including the embodiment of all that we are.
Paul taught the Corinthians that the resurrection of the dead was a divine plan that expresses important aspects of God’s loving redemption revealed in the resurrection of Jesus. I think we need to pay attention, too.
Quiet Faith 
I did appreciate your words / thoughts on this subject. Admittedly, this subject has been somewhat of a “question mark” for me when I pause to reflect on what, exactly “eternal life” means and how it can be (as is often said from pulpits and individuals) that those who have faith in God / Christ are even NOW in possession of “Eternal Life”. Like most people, whether we be conscious of it or not, my theology and philosophy have been strongly influenced by Greek ways of looking at things . . . more so than the Hebrew ways. I HAVE, indeed, taken by faith that what Jesus said he was able to accomplish; i.e., prepare a place for us and a time after death when we would be joined with HIM in a new life, body and community; NO LONGER subject to evil, corruption, … It does seem that a fuller appreciation of The Resurrection, which by faith we believe will occur and at such “time” all who have allowed the joining of their souls with Jesus in this life, involves resurrection and reformation of a NEW body and soul incorruptible. That would seem to imply that our “souls” do experience a “disconnect” at death, just as do our earthly bodies. It puts us even more into the realization mode that Death IS a curse that only the grace of GOD through the death of JESUS has removed. … I can not mortally comprehend or take it all into my finite mind but by FAITH I can accept what my creator has promised! Perhaps my “soul” is carried across the great chasm of TIME / ETERNITY by it’s union with Christ . . . I cannot “know” how, but I can, through Faith, understand it to be so.
Not studious Theology, I know . . . just my thoughts after your words and other readings and reflection on the subject.
Ken