A Word on Immortality

Have we confused immortality with resurrection? Samuel Clemmons was quoted as saying, “The news of my death has been greatly exaggerated.” Of course he was responding to a newspaper account that he had died. How curious it would be to see our own obituary in the press. Interestingly, this is not at all unlike Clemons’s fictional character of Huck Fin who faked his own death and attended his own funeral.

I wonder if the news of our lives may have also suffered the same illness as Clemons’s death of having been greatly exaggerated. Our culture seems to expect, even demand, a reality of immortality apart from any relationship with God. To be immortal is to stand over and above the trials of time and history. The immortal human life transcends all earthly powers and, if we are honest, perhaps even God. I find many funerals primarily concerned with offering a sense of human immortality, a kind of disembodiment of the Spirit, rather than sharing the reality of physical death and resurrection as offered through Jesus Christ.

1 Corinthians 15 offers, “We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed…the mortal puts on immortality…” The mortal life here celebrated is the created life, both physical and spiritual, even in a fallen and sinful state. The immortal life being “put on” by the change of accepting new life in Christ is also both physical and spiritual. The immortality of Jesus Christ is accepted and appropriated during the change. Simply put, our immortality is the resurrection immortality of our God. Note the key operative here is God. Without God we are left with good deeds and kind words offering a kind of temporary buffer against meaninglessness. However we are also without real power to hold back the dark night of the soul. Neither are we able to consistently view and understand the body and soul as still together in one package, one person.

Resurrection offers both the immortality of God and the final oneness of Body and Spirit. This is the final resolution and wholeness we seek. Here, in resurrection, we find true immortality of both body and soul.