Jesu Easter News Today

Rather than a push from past causes, present effects are the result of God's draw from the future. When God raised the dead Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, God exerted the same power to redeem as God exerts to create. Jesus' resurrection is a prolepsis of the eschatological new creation. Jesus' Easter resurrection is a prolepsis of new creation

When God raised Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, God promised to raise you and me as well. Is resurrection the ultimate miracle?

“Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, ‘into Your hands I commit My spirit.’” Having said this, He breathed His last” (Luke 23:44-46).

When God raised Jesus from the dead on the first Easter, God promised to raise you and me at the future advent of the New Creation. Like a seemingly dead seed buried in the ground, our dead body, soul, and spirit will sprout and flower into a soma pneumatikon, a spiritual body in God's eternity. That's the Christian promise. Jesus' Easter resurrection is a prolepsis of our resurrection.

The afterlife begins with three days when the disembodied soul remains locally and in relationship to the surviving family. The three day stay is followed by the departure of the soul to eternity. Many ancient cultures, especially the Chumash Amerindians of California, report three days for the soul's localization. Might this be culturally important to the Christian story of Jesus Christ rising on the third day? Afterlife begins with 3 local days followed by departure of the soul to eternit...

Benedict XVI's career as a systematic theologian is well worth remembering. Here we look at his treatment of the soul in (1) the resurrection of the dead and in (2) the stem cell controversy. Let's review Benedict XVI's treatment of the soul in the resurrection and stem cell controversies.