It is equally certain that they preached that it occurred on the third day, counting from the Crucifixion.[271] This also is stated not only in the Gospels, but by St. Paul; who in one place bases his whole argument on the fact that the Body of Christ (unlike that of David) saw no corruption, a point also alluded to by St. Peter, and implying a Resurrection in a few days.[272] While if further evidence is required, the fact that this third day (the first day of the week) became the Lord's Day—the Christian Sunday—seems to put the matter beyond dispute.
[271] Sometimes described as after three days, but that the two expressions are intended to mean the same is clear from Matt. 27. 63-64, where Christ's saying that He would rise again after three days is given as the reason for guarding the sepulchre until the third day. In the same way after eight days evidently means on the eighth day (John 20. 26).
[272] 1 Cor. 15. 4; Acts 13. 35-37; 2. 31.
Once more it is certain that the Christians believed that this Resurrection was one of Christ's Body, not His Spirit. This again is clear not only from the Gospels, which all speak of the empty tomb; but also from St. Paul's Epistles. For when he says that Christ died, and was buried, and was raised on the third day, and appeared to Cephas, etc., he must mean Christ's Body (for a Spirit cannot be buried); and he must mean that it was the same Body that died and was buried, that was afterwards raised, and appeared to them, including himself.[273] Christ's being raised, it will be noticed, was distinct from, and previous to, His appearing to anyone, just as in the Gospels the empty tomb is always mentioned before any of the appearances.
[273] 1 Cor. 15. 3-5.
And even in the one case, where St. Paul alludes to what he saw as a heavenly vision, he refers to it in order to prove that it is not incredible that God should raise the dead;[274] which again shows that he thought it was a Body, for a Spirit cannot be raised from the dead. And his specifying the third day makes this (if possible) still plainer, for the life of the spirit after death does not commence on the third day; nor would it have prevented Christ's Body from seeing corruption.
[274] Acts 26. 19, 8.
From all this it is abundantly clear that St. Paul, like the Four Evangelists, and the other Apostles, believed in what is called the physical Resurrection, in the sense that Christ's Body was restored to life, and left the tomb. Though like them, he also believed that it was no longer a natural body, bound by the ordinary laws of nature, but that it had been partly changed as well, so that it shared to some extent the properties of spirits.
Nor is his statement that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, opposed to this.[275] For when he uses the same expression elsewhere (e.g., I conferred not with flesh and blood)[276] it is evidently not used in a literal sense. It does not mean flesh and blood, in the same way in which we might speak of bones and muscles. It means men. So his meaning here is probably that mere men—human beings as such—cannot inherit the future life of glory. Their bodies will first have to be changed, and made incorruptible; but they will still be bodies. And as just said, St. Paul is quite definite as to its being the Body of Christ that was buried, that was afterwards raised on the third day.
[275] Cor. 15. 50.