The Apostles' Creed

The Resurrection of the Body and the Life Everlasting

The creed ends where the Christian story ends, in hope: the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting. Our destiny is not merely a soul drifting in the clouds but the raising of the whole person, body and soul, to live forever with God in a renewed creation. Because Jesus rose bodily, all who are his will rise too. Death is not the last word; life everlasting is.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.1 Corinthians 15:52 (KJV)

What this line confesses

The creed's final hope is bold and physical: the resurrection of the body. Christians do not merely believe that the soul survives death, true as that is. We believe that at the last day God will raise the dead bodily, that the whole person will live again, transformed and glorified, never to die. And this leads to life everlasting, unending life with God in a new heaven and a new earth.

This is a richer hope than mere survival. It affirms that the body, which God made and called good, matters to him and shares in salvation. It affirms that this world is not thrown away but redeemed. The end of the story is not escape from the material world but its renewal, and a people raised imperishable to enjoy God forever in a creation set free from death and decay.

Its biblical basis

Paul describes the moment: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. He grounds it entirely in Christ, the firstfruits of them that slept; because he rose bodily, his people will rise bodily too. This mortal must put on immortality, and death will be swallowed up in victory.

Jesus himself said, I am the resurrection, and the life, and promised that all who are in the graves shall hear his voice and come forth. Revelation shows the goal: a new heaven and a new earth, the holy city, and God dwelling with his people, who will wipe away all tears, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying. The creed ends on this note because Scripture does.

Why it mattered: against despising the body

This line stood against a deep current in the ancient world. Greek philosophy commonly taught that the body is a prison and the goal is for the soul to escape it forever. On that view a bodily resurrection was not a hope but a horror. Some teachers in the early church absorbed this, denying the resurrection of the body and reducing it to a spiritual idea.

The creed answers with unembarrassed hope: the resurrection of the body. God does not discard what he made; he raises and redeems it. This matters because it honors the whole person and the whole creation, and because it makes the Christian hope concrete rather than vague. We do not look merely to float away as spirits. We look for the day when the dead are raised, when these very selves are made new and imperishable, and when death is destroyed forever.

What the resurrection body will be like

People naturally ask what a raised body will be. Paul answers with the picture of a seed. You sow a bare grain, and God gives it a body far more glorious than the seed that went into the ground; so it is with the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in weakness and corruption and raised in power and incorruption, sown a natural body and raised a spiritual body, no longer subject to sickness, aging, or death.

Two things are held together in that picture: continuity and transformation. It is truly you who will rise, the same person, not a stranger, just as the risen Jesus was recognized by his friends and still bore the marks of the nails. Yet you will be gloriously changed, your body made like his glorious body, fit at last for a life that never ends. Scripture speaks of these things in pictures and does not satisfy all our curiosity, but it gives us more than enough for hope.

This hope belongs to a renewed world, not an escape from the world. The Bible's last vision is not of souls leaving earth but of heaven coming down, a new heaven and a new earth where God dwells with his people, where he wipes away every tear, and where there is no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor pain. The resurrection of the body is the promise that the whole creation, and you within it, will be set free from decay and made new in the presence of God forever.

Comfort for those who grieve

No line of the creed is more precious at a graveside than this one. When Christians bury those they love who died in the Lord, they do not gather as those who have no hope. They grieve, and grief is right, for death is a real enemy and love feels its loss. But their sorrow is lit from within by a promise: the dead in Christ shall rise, and we shall be together with the Lord.

Paul wrote these very words to comfort a grieving church, telling them to encourage one another with the truth of the resurrection. Death, for the believer, is not a full stop but a comma; not a wall but a door. Those who have fallen asleep in Jesus are not lost, and the parting is not forever. What looks like the end is, in God's hands, only until the resurrection.

This hope does not make us cold to loss; it makes us brave in the face of it. We can weep at the grave, as Jesus himself wept, and still say, in the same breath, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. To confess the resurrection of the body is to look death in the face and speak past it, to the morning when the trumpet sounds and the dead are raised to die no more.

What it means for us

This closing confession fills the whole of life with hope. Because the body will be raised, what you do in the body matters, and no faithfulness is wasted; your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Because there is life everlasting, the losses and sufferings of this age are real but not final, light and momentary next to the glory to come.

And when you stand at the grave of someone you love who died in Christ, this line is your comfort. You do not say a final goodbye; you say, until the resurrection. The story does not end in a tomb but in the raising of the dead and a life that never ends, in the presence of the Lord who conquered death. The creed closes, as the whole Bible closes, with the sure and living hope of everlasting life, and it invites you to make that hope your own.

This is where the whole creed has been leading, and where it now turns to you. The story does not end in a grave, for anyone who belongs to Christ, but in the raising of the dead and a life that never ends in the presence of God. That hope can be yours, not earned but received, through the risen Lord who is himself the resurrection and the life. He conquered death first so that you would not have to fear it, and he holds out to you, today, the offer of everlasting life. Come and see the One who turns the grave into a doorway.

A note for all traditions: the creeds are not a fourth authority above Scripture but a faithful summary of it. Christians hold them in different ways, some reciting them weekly in worship and others rarely, yet the faith they confess is broadly shared across the church. Where believers differ on secondary matters, the creeds mark the ancient center that unites us: one God, and one Lord Jesus Christ, crucified and risen.

Related: The forgiveness of sins · The Apostles' Creed explained · Who is Jesus? · The Christian creeds