Manuscript of my sermon at Brooks Avenue Church of Christ, Raleigh, NC, April 9, 2023. The sermon was an Easter sermon, in three parts, with the Lord’s Supper after the second part.

You can watch it here. Part one begins at 18:45.

The text was Luke 24:36-43.

Introduction: The resurrection in three tenses

By rising from the dead on the first day of the week, Christ sanctified that day to Himself, for Himself and for His people. It is the Lord’s Day. 

At Easter we especially remember the resurrection of our Lord. The resurrection of Christ ripples out in all directions of time and space. It is a past event in time that has secured our future in eternity, and gives us hope now.

The resurrection of our Lord assures the saints that we are forgiven now. It is God’s promise of the future bodily resurrection of the saints, and the renewal of all creation: But based on his promise, we wait for new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness dwells (2 Peter 3:13).

Pray with me.

Almighty God, through the cross of Your only begotten Son Jesus Christ, You have shut up the terrors of Satan and hell against your people. And by His resurrection, You have overcome Death, and opened for Your people the gate of everlasting Life, and no one can shut it.

Father, by Your life-giving Spirit, make us die more and more to sin. And stir up our hope and expectation for the day when Christ returns to raise His people again to eternal life.

We pray this through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, now and forever. Amen.

Our text today is Luke 24:36-43. This happened during the evening of the day of the Lord’s resurrection, as His disciples were hiding themselves behind locked doors, from fear of the Jewish authorities.

As they were saying these things—the disciples had by now received multiple reports that Jesus’ tomb was empty, and that He had even been seen—he himself—that’s Jesus, of course—stood in their midst. He said to them, “Peace to you!” In light of what happened next, it’s almost like Jesus knew how they were going to react, and wanted to preemptively settle them down.

But they were startled and terrified and thought they were seeing a ghost. “Why are you troubled?” he asked them. “And why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet, that it is I myself! Touch me and see, because a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you can see I have.” Having said this, he showed them his hands and feet.

Now, Jesus had told them time and time again that though He was to die by crucifixion, He would rise again on the third day. They had argued with Him about this—especially Peter—but every time Jesus stood firm that this was how it had to be. And every time, His disciples stubbornly and steadfastly refused to believe Him. 

Now the time had come, and the risen Jesus had appeared in their midst, and their first, panicked thought was not: Wow! He really did rise from the dead! It was: Oh no, now, on top of everything else, we’re being haunted!

So Jesus invites them to look at the scars the nails had left in His hands and His feet, and touch Him. He said: Because a ghost does not have flesh and bones like I have. Ghosts don’t have substance; the risen Jesus does.

And now, my favorite part of the story, v41: But while they still were amazed and in disbelief because of their joy, he asked them, “Do you have anything here to eat?” So they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.

Their faith hadn’t quite caught up to their sight, or their joy—they could scarcely believe their own senses. So Jesus, who’s a master of piling grace upon grace, joy upon joy, wonder upon wonder, asked them for some food—and ate it! 

He didn’t need food to sustain His life, you understand. This was just further proof that He was not a ghost, but a resurrected Man, with a true body of flesh and bone. He ate food—chewed it with real teeth, swallowed it, and it went into a real human body. A glorified body, yes. An immortal and imperishable body, to be sure. But a body nonetheless.

Like I said at the beginning, this story has real implications—as real and substantial as the risen body of Christ—for past, present, and future.

Past, because it grounds our faith in an historical event, involving real people. Our faith is not a blind leap into the dark, but rests on the objective reality that a resurrected Man still has His flesh.

Present, because He still has His flesh, and communes with us as one Person to another. This is especially true as He meets us in the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.

And future, because His flesh and bone resurrection has secured our resurrection, and is the pattern for our own resurrection. In other words, seeing the resurrected Christ in Scripture gives us clues about what our own resurrection will be like, when He returns.

1 . What it means for our faith that Christ still has flesh and bones

So let’s talk just a little bit about the past aspect of Easter. What it means for our faith that Jesus still has flesh and bones. ¹

You see, Satan, and an unbelieving world, and even sometimes your own doubting flesh will try to undermine your faith, and trouble you, and convince you that Jesus was just a clever myth. Or He was just a great teacher, but certainly not God in the flesh.

How do we know that His disciples didn’t just share some psychotic delusion three days after He died, and build a mythology around it?

Well, in 1 Corinthians 15:6, St. Paul declared that after His resurrection, Christ appeared to over five hundred brothers and sisters at one time; most of them are still alive, but some have fallen asleep.

So according to Paul, Jesus had, in fact, appeared bodily to over five hundred other people, and most of them were still alive. Which meant, they could have gone and cross-examined hundreds of other witnesses who saw Jesus walking around, resurrected, with flesh and bones. Paul would have gladly given out their names and addresses to anyone who doubted.

When it comes to what I believe, I will take the five hundred-plus eyewitnesses over somebody’s modern speculation.

This is objective, historical fact that our faith rests upon. Notice that Luke didn’t just report that Jesus ate food, or simply fish—but specifically, it was broiled fish. That’s the kind of attention to detail that you’re only going to find when you’re talking about something that actually happened. 

In 1 Corinthians 15:14ff, St. Paul stated the implications if Christ has not been raised bodily: if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain … And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins … If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

A church historian has said: If Christ is risen, nothing else matters. And if Christ is not risen—nothing else matters. If Christ has His flesh and bones, then this is really the only fact that matters—we should rest all of our faith and hope on Him, and live for His glory. But if Christ has rotted away in a tomb somewhere—truly, nothing matters. The point of life is to seek and find whatever gratification we can from this life, because we’re going to die and rot.

But in fact, says Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:20—Christ has been raised from the dead, and he had 500 eyewitnesses to prove it.

Since Christ has flesh and bones, we can believe the Gospel, as He and His apostles proclaimed it. 

Jesus said: Truly I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not come under judgment but has passed from death to life (John 5:24). Because Jesus still has flesh and bones, you do not have to fear the Judgment Day. For all of us who are in Christ, our Judgment Day happened on a Cross one Friday, 2000 years ago.

St. Paul said Christ was handed over to death because of our trespasses and was raised to life because of our justification (Romans 4:25). You can be confident that by grace through faith you stand justified before God, because Jesus still has flesh and bones. And again, Romans 8:1: So then, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Because Jesus still has flesh and bones, there is right now no condemnation—none at all—for those who believe in Him.

Jesus also said: This is the will of him who sent me: that I should lose none of those he has given me, but raise them up on the Last Day (John 6:39). As the song we sing sometimes says: No guilt in life, no fear in death. The risen Christ will hold you fast, and raise you like He has been raised.

Your faith and your hope rest on upon the solid substance of Jesus’ resurrected body of flesh and bone, that ate broiled fish with His disciples, and was witnessed by over five hundred people.

2. What it means for the Lord’s Supper that Christ still has flesh and bones

Since the risen Jesus still has His flesh, when we gather at His table to eat the bread and drink the cup, we are communing with a living Christ. 

What’s more, the Incarnation didn’t end when Jesus ascended to heaven. What I mean is that Jesus didn’t stop being human—with flesh and bones when He went to heaven; not anymore than He stopped being God when He took on flesh and came to earth.

Paul says there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5). Christ is a glorified man at the right hand of the Father, interceding for His saints right now. That’s what qualifies Him to be the mediator between God and man—because He is both true God and true Man.

So when you come to the table, you have come to commune with the man Jesus Christ—your Mediator, your Redeemer, your Substitute on the cross.

When faith comes to life in you, and you are baptized into Christ, listen—that into Christ language is not just a metaphor! You have actually been joined to Christ. Ephesians 5:30 says we are members of his body. We have been made flesh of His flesh and bone of His bone. And so He nourishes us and cherishes us. And that’s exactly what He’s doing in the Lord’s Supper.

Because it says—listen—The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? (1 Corinthians 10:16). And a few verses later, v21, it’s called the cup and table of the Lord.

Do you see what this means? No matter what the setup looks like, it’s your crucified and resurrected Lord who’s the host of this meal. And it’s meant to nourish your soul and strengthen your faith—just like other meals nourish your body, and strengthen you for your work.

Here, we come and eat the flesh and drink the blood of Christ. We commune with Christ, and in Christ. He gives Himself to us through bread and wine, and draws us deeper into Him. The one who eats my flesh and drinks my blood, He says, remains in me, and I in him (John 6:56).

In the bread, we commune with the body of Christ, given for us. We meet with our Mediator. We are embraced by the hands that formed us, and were pierced for us. The One who was born in Bethlehem, the House of Bread; and had a manger—a feeding trough—for a crib, has become bread for the world, the bread of heaven who feeds our souls. 

In the cup, we commune with the blood of Christ, poured out for our sins. And so we satisfy the thirst of our souls with the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, which purifies our conscience from dead works to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14). Through the same Holy Spirit by which He offered Himself to God, He gives Himself to us. He brings His grace down from heaven to earth, and sanctifies our consciences to serve God without fear, in Him.

Let us gather now at His table, to share in the body and blood of Christ, our Mediator and Redeemer, in the bread and the wine. Let us gather to commune with our living Christ.

Meditation and Prayer for the Bread

First, the bread. 1 Corinthians 11:23-24: The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

Take a few moments to remember that Christ still has His flesh—our Mediator is a living Man. Go to Him and rest, take refuge in Him. Remember that you are joined to His body—you are flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone. He will nourish and protect you. Remember that He is for you.

Father, thank You for giving us Your only begotten Son, who lived for us, and died for us, and now lives again for us. Father, bless this bread, which nourishes our souls and sustains our faith. We pray this in the name of Your Son, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Meditation and Prayer for the Cup

And now, the cup. 1 Corinthians 11:25-26: In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.

Remember that by His blood, Christ has mediated a new covenant for all those who believe in Him. In this new covenant, God promises to forgive all the sins of His people through the blood of His Son; and to hear Christ as He intercedes for us in heaven; to accept our worship and our work, for these have been purified by Christ; and to raise us up with Christ at the last day.

So now take a few moments to proclaim Christ’s death for you. Remember the sins and shortcomings of this past week—things done and left undone, words spoken carelessly, thoughts you have had in your heart that are not becoming to the people of the Lord. But see the blood of Christ washing them away, just like the Red Sea that washed away the Pharaoh’s army.

Father, we hunger and thirst for righteousness, and You have given us the body and blood of Your Son, to sustain us with His righteousness, until He comes again. Father, may this cup we drink purify our consciences from dead works. May we remember that by the blood of Christ You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins. May we be assured that His blood continue to sanctify us until He returns. In Christ’s Name we pray, Amen.

3. What it means for our future that Christ still has flesh and bones

When the great 4th century preacher John Chrysostom preached his Easter sermon, he proclaimed: Let none lament his failings, forgiveness has risen from the tomb. Let none fear death, for the death of the Savior has set us free.

Remember what I said at the beginning. The resurrection of Christ is like a great stone cast into the pool of time, sending ripples into past, present, and future.

Let none lament his failings. Not our past rebellions, because they have been covered by His blood. Not our current struggles with sin, because the same blood forgives those. Not our future missteps, because the same grace will be there to cover them, too. Forgiveness has risen from the tomb. The resurrection is God’s testimony that Christ’s sacrifice is all-powerful and all-sufficient.

Let none fear death, for the death of the Savior has set us free. Christ has secured our eternal future, just as He has redeemed our past and sustains us in the present. 

1 Peter 1:3 says God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. In other words, because Jesus still has His flesh and bones, we now live in hope—not wishful thinking, but eager anticipation—that we shall be raised like Him.

We shall be like Him. That’s the wild, glorious, living, future-oriented hope of Easter. 

1 John  3:2 is one of my favorite passages about this, listen to this: Dear friends, we are children of God now—by faith in Jesus Christ, we have been given the right to be sons and daughters of God. 

But, it says, what we will be has not yet been revealed. We have not yet entered into the glory of Christ. We still live and struggle in fallen bodies, in a fallen world. Right now our life is hidden with God, in Christ—Colossians 3:3.

But even so, here is our living hope: We know that when he is revealed we will be like him. Immortal, imperishable, and incorruptible. Unable to die, unable to suffer, unable to sin. And, best of all, we will see him as he really is. Right now we only see Him by faith, you understand. But then we shall behold Him in all of His glory—all of His beauty and wisdom and virtue and goodness and truth. What did we hear Job say earlier? I will see God in my flesh. I will see him myself; my eyes will look at him. 

We will be like Him. We will not be disembodied spirits floating for eternity in an ethereal heaven. Will will have flesh and bone, as we heard from Luke today that Christ still has His flesh and bones; and we will live in a new heaven and new earth, where righteousness dwells. A world without sin, without death, without thorns, without tears, without aches and pains. A new heaven and new earth, where the word goodbye has been erased from the dictionary.

D.A. Carson once said, I’m not suffering from anything that a good resurrection can’t fix. When we behold glimpses of our resurrected Savior in Scripture, we know that’s true. We will become more real, more solid, more alive, more truly human than we have ever been, when we are made like Him. This creation, too—the natural world—will be made more solid, more beautiful, than it has ever been. When God created us, and created this universe, He looked upon what He had made, and said: It is very good. But in the resurrection, when all things are made new, God will look out over us, and over all things, and say: This is perfect!

We will be like Him. The risen Jesus ate broiled fish with His disciples. In John’s Gospel, He actually cooked breakfast for them. Also in John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene hugged Jesus. Why do you think the Gospel writers included all these seemingly trivial details about the resurrected Jesus?

Yes, it proves He really had raised from the dead. But it also gives us a foretaste of what we can hope for in eternity. Because Jesus still has His flesh and bones, He reveals something of our future to us.

Apparently, there’s still breakfast in glory. There’s still tables to sit around with our friends, still conversations to enjoy. There are still hugs in glory. But then there will never be another goodbye hug, you see. There will never be voices at the table you miss because they’re not there anymore.

Isaiah 65:17ff says that in the new heavens and new earth: The sound of weeping and crying will no longer be heard … People will build houses and live in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit … My chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands. There will be trees to plant, gardens to tend, feasts to enjoy, games to be played, songs to be sung, and dances to be danced—but all without any anxiety. Without frustration. Without fear or shame. Without ever stopping to wonder if you’re using your time wisely.

This is our future, because Jesus Christ still has His flesh and bones. We will do all of this in the light of His glory, all of heaven and earth reflecting His beauty, every song sung to the tune of His everlasting love for us, every dance patterned after the rhythms of His delight in us. Jesus Himself dwelling in our midst, we will live by the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 4:6).

Wendell Berry once dispensed a two-word nugget of wisdom when he said, Practice resurrection. Let’s live now in light of our glorious future, with a living hope, by faith that Jesus still has flesh and bones. Let us love one another, and our neighbors, without fear of giving too much or looking too foolish. Let’s live without the pressure of thinking we have to be impressive. Let go of the fear of missing out, because if we truly believe in a resurrection to eternal life, we understand that we don’t ever have to worry about missing out on anything. Let’s pray that we might live now in holiness and godliness, as [we] look forward to and hasten the coming of the day of God (2 Peter 3:12). As we sing to our Lord, may we remember that He is singing over us. May we work as those who believe the Lord’s promise that His chosen ones will fully enjoy the work of their hands.

Our hope is flesh and bone and broiled fish. Bodily resurrection, in a perfected world, life going on, with Christ in our midst. Let us live by this hope.

———————-

¹ Some get confused by this, because 1 Corinthians 15:45 says: So it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit (CSB); and v50 says: What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption (CSB).

Here’s the TL;DR version, but if you want to dig deeper, I go pretty in-depth below. The point of v50 isn’t that resurrection bodies don’t have flesh or aren’t physical; it’s that they’re not corrupt like our natural bodies, which are prone to disease, death, and decay; and thus not fit for eternal life; so they must be transformed and glorified like Christ’s resurrection body. The point of v45 isn’t that Jesus became an actual “spirit”–i.e., no longer material–when He ascended to heaven; but that like breath (Greek, pneuma), He has become the source of our eternal life.

Now, the Westminster Confession 1.7 gives crucial guidance to us as we study the Scriptures: All things in Scripture are not alike plain in themselves, nor alike clear unto all. This is affirmed by Scripture itself, and appropriately enough, where we have one apostle (Peter) stating that some things another apostle (Paul) has written can be difficult to navigate: He speaks about these things in all his letters. There are some things hard to understand in them. The untaught and unstable will twist them to their own destruction, as they also do with the rest of the Scriptures (2 Peter 3:16 CSB). Scripture, including Paul, teaches a bodily resurrection of the saints (Job 19:25-27; Daniel 12:2-3; John 5:28-29; Romans 8:21-23; 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; Philippians 3:21). Likewise–and this is vitally important–1 John 3:2 says: We know that when he appears, we will be like him (CSB); and in 1 Corinthians 15:20, Paul says: Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep (CSB).

When Scripture says we will be like him, and calls Christ the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep, this means that our resurrection will be patterned from His. In Scripture we see the resurrected Christ being seen and touched and even eating (Matthew 28:9; Luke 24:39-43; John 20:27; Acts 10:40-41; 13:33-37). Christ’s resurrection is physical, bodily. Like He says: a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have (Luke 24:39 KJV).

Likewise, Christ didn’t shed His physical human body when He ascended back to heaven. Paul says: there is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:5 CSB, emphasis mine); and elsewhere says this of His return: [God] has set a day when he is going to judge the world in righteousness by the man he has appointed. He has provided proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead (Acts 17:31 CSB, emphasis mine). Right now in heaven, Jesus is a man–that’s why He can continue to be the Mediator between God and man: because He is still true Man and true God, so He can lay His hands on both and draw them together. When He returns to judge the living and the dead, He will return as a man–the God-Man–in the same body that God raised from the dead. The body that He said still has flesh and bone (Luke 24:39).

So the question is not: How do we square bodily resurrection with those two verses?; but, In light of all the verses that clearly speak of the bodily resurrection of Christ, and that of His saints, which will be like His–how do we interpret those two verses?

First, v50: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption. The second clause interprets the first–this is a parallelism. Our current body–our present flesh and blood–is corrupt. It is subject to wear out and die and rot. It is not fit for glory. This is why Paul goes on to explain in the very next verses: We will not all fall asleep, 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 incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible body must be clothed with incorruptibility, and this mortal body must be clothed with immortality (1 Corinthians 15:51-53). These bodies of corruption will be transformed, made incorruptible. Remember again what Job said: Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh (CSB). In other words, even when disease and decay have destroyed Job’s corrupt body, he will be raised with an incorruptible body–one that still has flesh. John Gill’s comments here are helpful:

By flesh and blood is meant, not human nature as to the substance of it, or as consisting of flesh and blood, for that can and does inherit the kingdom of God; witness the human nature, or body of Christ, the bodies of the saints that rose after his resurrection, and those of Enoch and Elijah, who were translated body and soul to heaven; so that this passage makes nothing for those that deny the resurrection of the same body, and plead for a new and an aerial one: but the human nature, or body, so and so qualified, is here meant; either as corrupted with sin, for without holiness and righteousness no man shall see the Lord, or enter into and possess the kingdom of heaven; or flesh and blood, or an human body, as it is now supported in this animal life, with meat and drink, etc. and as it is frail and mortal, and subject to death.

Then, v45, which is a difficult verse indeed: So it is written, The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

One thing that will greatly help us is to look at this in light of the verse Paul is alluding to. Genesis 2:7 says: Then the Lord God formed the man out of the dust from the ground and breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and the man became a living being. This is our natural body; that is–even before the Fall, we still had to eat and rest to sustain it. That natural body was not immortal or imperishable; otherwise there would have been no need for the tree of life to grant immortality (Genesis 2:9; 3:22).

But where he says Christ–the last Adam–became a life-giving spirit, this does not mean that He was made of spirit, that He doesn’t have a physical body. We need also to look at the verses surrounding v45: sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body (v45). Spiritual doesn’t mean it’s made of spirit. The adjective spiritual — Greek pneumatikos — doesn’t refer to substance but to origin. Resurrection is from God, by the Holy Spirit (Romans 1:4; 8:11). Our natural bodies–the ones that are subject to death and decay–will be buried; but they will be resurrected by the same power of the Holy Spirit that raised Christ.

Now, vv47-49:

The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. Like the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; like the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

CSB

We have borne the image of the man of dust refers to the fallen nature we have inherited from Adam. This is confirmed by Genesis 5:3, which says: Adam was 130 years old when he fathered a son in his likeness, according to his image, and named him Seth (CSB, emphasis mine). We inherit from Adam bodies of death (Romans 7:24). We are corruptible–prone to sin; perishable–subject to disease and age and injury; and mortal–we die.

But when we are resurrected, we will bear the image of the man from heaven, that is, Christ. Again–He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body (Philippians 3:21 KJV); and: when he appears,  we will be like him (1 John 3:2 CSB). We shall be remade in Christ’s image. Thus: But all of us who reflect the Lord’s glory with an unveiled face are being transformed into his own image, from one degree of glory to another. This too is from the Lord, who is the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:18 EHV). By the power of the Holy Spirit, at His return, Christ will transform His saints to be completely conformed to the pattern of His resurrection, with glorified bodies like His.

So when it says Christ was made a life-giving spirit, it does not mean Christ became a spirit; or changed back into a spirit upon ascending to heaven. Again, such would contradict the plain teachings elsewhere that Christ is still a man in heaven (1 Timothy 2:5), and will return to judge mankind as a man (Acts 17:31). Rather, it is a bit of a play on words (pneuma, spirit, can also mean breath or wind) that Christ has become for His saints the source of our eternal life. Because, as He says: And just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so the Son also gives life to whom he wants … For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted to the Son to have life in himself (John 5:21, 26 CSB). And again, John 11:25, where Jesus says: I am the resurrection and the life. Christ Himself is the source of the saint’s resurrection and eternal life, just as the breath of God in Adam’s nostrils brought him to life in Genesis 2:7. Matthew Poole’s comments here are clarifying. He notes that Christ was made a life-giving Spirit:

upon his resurrection from the dead, when, though he had the same body, in respect of the substance of it, yet it differed in qualities, and was much more spiritual; with which body he ascended up into heaven, clothed with a power, as to quicken souls with a spiritual life, so also to quicken our mortal bodies at his second coming, when he shall raise the dead out of their graves.