What is resurrection, and how does God carry it out?

Resurrection, in this teaching, is not merely a future event but an ongoing, multi-stage spiritual process of restoration from spiritual death to spiritual life. It involves progressively separating from Satan and uniting with God, initially through faith and works, then through Jesus, and finally through the Lord of the Second Advent. This process enables spirits to mature from form spirits to life spirits and ultimately to divine spirits.

Understanding resurrection correctly transforms how we view life, death, and our spiritual journey. This teaching reveals that resurrection is not a singular, future event but an ongoing, multi-dimensional process in which believers participate even now.

The Biblical Foundation

The Bible presents resurrection in multiple, seemingly distinct dimensions. Jesus explicitly declared, “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die” (John 11:25). This statement points to His inherent power over death and His role as the source of eternal life. He further elaborated, “Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live” (John 5:25). The phrase "has now come" is crucial, indicating a present reality of spiritual awakening even before physical death. The Bible also speaks of two concepts of death: physical death, which is natural, and spiritual death, which is separation from God (Luke 9:60, Revelation 3:1). The death brought about by the Fall was spiritual death, not physical (Genesis 2:17).

Apostle Paul consistently echoed this understanding of a present spiritual resurrection. He instructed believers, “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). This implies a resurrection that has already taken place within the believer. He further explained this transformation through baptism: “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life” (Romans 6:4). Here, being "raised with Christ" means entering a new spiritual existence in this life. Yet, Scripture also speaks unequivocally of a future bodily resurrection, as detailed by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15, describing it as a transfigured, spiritual body. The Bible also refers to a general resurrection of the dead at Christ’s return.

Divine Principle's Clarification

The Divine Principle provides a clarifying framework by defining resurrection primarily as the process of being restored from spiritual death—separation from God and the influence of Satan—to spiritual life—a state of union with God. This understanding stems from the Genesis account where God warned Adam, “but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die” (Genesis 2:17). Adam did not physically die immediately after disobeying; rather, he experienced a spiritual death, losing his direct relationship and communion with God.

Therefore, resurrection is first and foremost about the restoration of this lost spiritual life and relationship. This restoration occurs progressively as individuals respond to God's word and actively engage in building a relationship with Him through the give and receive of life elements from God and vitality elements from one's physical self. This clarifies Jesus’ statement that the time "has now come" for the dead to hear and live (John 5:25); those who are spiritually dead come to life through hearing and responding to God's truth.

In God's providence, resurrection unfolds through various stages, corresponding to the progressive spiritual growth of individuals and humanity. Historically, after the Fall, there was no spiritual growth until the era of Abraham, where resurrection began through offerings. With Moses, it progressed through adherence to the Law, allowing people to become "form spirits" in the spirit world. In the New Testament Age, faith in Jesus and fulfilling one's portion of responsibility enabled 'life spirit' resurrection, leading to Paradise (Luke 23:43). At the Second Coming, the Messiah brings both spiritual and physical salvation, enabling people to achieve 'Divine Spirit' resurrection and enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Understanding the Deeper Meaning

When we integrate these biblical teachings, we grasp resurrection as a comprehensive, ongoing process of spiritual restoration. We are "dead" not fundamentally due to physical mortality, but because sin inherently separated us from God's life-giving essence, leading to a 'midway position' between God and Satan. Resurrection is the progressive overcoming of this deep-seated separation and the subjugation of Satan through 'conditions of indemnity'—reversing sin and selfishness.

This unified understanding fully explains Paul's assertion that we have already been "raised with Christ" (Colossians 3:1) in a spiritual sense, while simultaneously anticipating a future, ultimate resurrection. The spiritual reality and new life have already begun within us; their complete manifestation and the fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan await a future, culminating event.

This perspective also illuminates why our actions and character development are critically important in the resurrection life. For those in the spirit world, resurrection continues through cooperation with people on Earth (Matthew 18:18). Spirit persons who have not reached completion must descend to Earth to receive help from living individuals to fulfill their portion of responsibility. Old Testament saints, for instance, returned after Jesus' coming to receive help from believers to attain life spirit resurrection. Likewise, spirits in Paradise will return at the Second Advent to assist believers on Earth to attain Divine Love and become Divine Spirits. This is an invitation to engage fully in the ongoing work of restoration.

Why Resurrection Must Mean This

The reason resurrection cannot mean the reanimation of corpses is that it must undo the death the Fall actually caused. God told Adam that he would die in the day he ate of the fruit, yet Adam's body went on living for centuries afterwards. The death that occurred, then, was the severing of the relationship with God — life in the true sense — while physical life continued. Resurrection, as the reversal of that death, must therefore be the restoration of that relationship: a movement from the realm of Satan's dominion back into God's, which is why Jesus described believing as already possessing everlasting life and having “passed from death unto life” (John 5:24).

Two further observations confirm it. Jesus called a man spiritually unresponsive though physically alive when he told a disciple to “let the dead bury their dead” (Matthew 8:22), and Paul explained that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50) and that there is a natural body and a spiritual body (1 Corinthians 15:44). If eternal life depended on the recovery of physical bodies, those statements would be unintelligible, and the bodies dissolved into the earth over thousands of years would present God with an arbitrary technical problem rather than a providential one.

What Follows From It

Three consequences follow. First, resurrection is gradual rather than instantaneous, because a relationship is restored by growth: it proceeds through stages as truth and grace increase, which is why the process advances in history rather than occurring at a single stroke. Second, it happens on earth, since it is here that spirits grow and here that conditions can be established — which is why those in the spirit world take part by working with people who have physical bodies. Third, resurrection is therefore something to enter now rather than to await: the prodigal son's father said of a living man, “he was dead, and is alive again” (Luke 15:24), and that is precisely the vocabulary of resurrection applied to a change of heart and of position. The question is not whether one's body will rise but whether one's life is on God's side of the line today.

How God Carries Resurrection Out

Since resurrection is the restoration of a broken relationship with God, it proceeds the way any restored relationship proceeds — gradually, cooperatively, and through the lives of actual people. This is exactly the pattern Scripture shows. God does not pronounce humanity restored; he works through central figures, families and nations, each stage recovering a little more of what was lost, over a long history.

Two reasons make the process necessarily gradual. First, relationships are restored by growth, and growth has stages: a person estranged from God does not become mature in his love in an instant any more than an infant becomes an adult in an instant. Second, God will not perform the portion of responsibility entrusted to people, so each stage waits on a human response, and a failed response extends the course rather than cancelling it.

This is also why resurrection has levels rather than a single threshold, and why the providence advanced through ages—each age supplying more truth and more grace, so that people could grow further than the age before allowed. “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Proverbs 4:18). The work is cumulative, and every generation's faithfulness raises the level at which the next one begins.

Living the Principle

1. Recognize that your resurrection is happening now through your daily choices to separate from Satan and draw closer to God. 2. Advance your resurrection by consistently fulfilling your portion of responsibility with faith, love, and obedience, forming a love relationship with God. 3. Engage with God's word as the voice that calls the spiritually dead to life, guiding your spiritual growth through formation, growth, and completion stages. 4. Live as one already "raised with Christ" (Colossians 3:1), allowing this identity to transform your challenges and extend help to those in the spirit world.

These answers explain the Bible in the light of the Divine Principle, the teachings of Reverend Sun Myung Moon. .

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