God Can Raise the Dead
This list of cases of resurrection in the Bible does not include the strange event where “and the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the holy-ones who had fallen-asleep were raised. And coming forth out of the tombs after his (Jesus) awakening they entered into the holy city and appeared to many.” (Matthew 27:52-53) Neither does it include Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones and their resurrection--- a symbol of the restoration of Israel from Babylon (Ezekiel 37:1-14) and not a literal bodily resurrection.
William Jennings Bryan once delivered a lecture and confirmed his faith in immortality in their words:
“If the Father designs to touch with divine power the cold and pulseless heart of the buried acorn and to make it burst forth from its prison walls, will He leave neglected in the earth the soul of man, made in the image of his Creator? If he stoops to give to the rose-bush, whose blossoms float upon the autumn breeze, the sweet assurance of another springtime, will He refuse the words of hope to the sons of men when the frosts of winter come? If matter, mute and inanimate, though changed by the forces of nature into a multitude of forms, can never die, will the imperial spirit of man suffer annihilation when it has paid a brief visit like a royal quest to this tenement of clay? No, He who, notwithstanding His apparent prodigality, created nothing without a purpose, and wasted not a single atom in all His creation, has bade provision for a future life in which man’s universal longing for immorality will find its realization.”
Although there have been many who have believed in the resurrection of the dead, others have denied it. For example, when Paul addressed the Athenians on Mars’ Hill, he had an attentive audience until he spoke of the resurrection of the dead. This was too much; the sermon ended abruptly (Acts 17:22-32). Since denial of the resurrection was largely the belief of the Greeks, and since the resurrection had been denied by some at Corinth, Paul was concerned; he did not want the early Christians influenced by the heathen philosophers to doubt the possibility of a future bodily resurrection. As unbelievers in the resurrection, the heathen asked two questions: “But someone will say, (1) how are the dead raised up? (2) And with what manner of body do they come?” (1 Corinthians 15:35)
God is Good, Love you all Kevin J.