Chapter 3. God’s Power Will Shine Forth in the Resurrection of Our Dust to Glory.
Chapter 3
1. The Apostle has shown in the clearest way that man was handed over to his weakness, lest being puffed up at any time, he would stray from the Truth. In his Second Letter to the Corinthians he says: To keep me from becoming too elated by the abundance of revelations a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, to harass me. Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness.” I will all the more gladly boast of my weakness, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. What then, someone will ask, “Did the Lord, therefore, wish his Apostle to be thus harassed and undergo such weakness?” “Yes,” says the Word; for power is made perfect in weakness, making him better who recognizes God’s power through his own weakness. For how would man have learned that he was weak and mortal by nature, but that God is immortal and powerful, unless he had learned by experience what is in the one and the other? Surely, to learn of his own weakness by endurance is not evil; rather, it is something good not to go astray in one’s nature. On the other hand, to have extolled himself against God and taken to himself a glory of his own in a presumptuous manner made man ungrateful and brought much evil on him, yet not so as to take away from him the Truth and the love, even the one toward his Maker. Rather, the experience of both impressed on him the true knowledge about God and man and increased his love toward God. But where there is a growth in love, there greater glory will be made perfect by God’s power for those who love him.
2. Those, therefore, reject God’s power and do not consider what the Word is, who look to the weakness of the flesh, but do not consider the power of him who raises the flesh from the dead. For if he does not give life to the mortal body and does not lead the perishable to imperishability, he is no longer the powerful God. But that he is powerful in all such things, we ought to understand from our own beginning, since God took the dust of the earth and made humans out of it. Indeed, it is much more difficult and incredible to give existence to nonexistent bones, nerves, veins, and the rest of the human composite, and to make man a sentient and rational animal, than to make whole again what had been made but was resolved into earth, on account of the reasons already given, though it had passed into the elements from which in the beginning man, who had as yet not been made, was made. To be sure, he who in the beginning, when he willed, gave existence to him who as yet was not, much more, when he wills, will restore those who at one time existed, to the life that is given by him.
The flesh, which in the beginning accepted God’s skill, will be found capable of receiving and accepting God’s power. The eye that sees, the ear that hears, the hand that touches and works, the sinews stretched tight and holding the limbs together, the arteries and veins, which are transits for blood and breath, the diverse entrails, and the blood that is the means of union between body and soul,—all these are different. What then? There is no end to enumerating the many members of man’s composition that was not made except by God’s multiple wisdom. But these members that partake of God’s art and wisdom also partake of his power.
3. The flesh, then, is not excluded from God’s art and wisdom and power. For this power, which bestows life, is made perfect in weakness, that is, in the flesh. Now those who assert that the flesh is not capable of the life given by God, let them tell us whether they say these things while they are at present living and partaking of life, or whether they will confess that they have absolutely nothing of life, but are dead even now. And if they are dead, how do they move and speak and do other things that are not the works of the dead but of the living? But if they are alive now, and if their entire body partakes of life, how do they dare say that flesh is not able to partake of life, since they profess to have life at present? That is just as if one would hold a sponge full of water, or a lamp full of light, and say that the sponge cannot partake of water; or the lamp of light. In the same manner, these men, too, assert that they are alive and, boastingly, are bearers of life in their members, but later contradict themselves and say that their members are not capable of receiving life. Now if the life that is temporary is so powerful to give life to our mortal members, though it is much weaker than that eternal life, why does the life that is more efficient and eternal not give life to the flesh that has already been exercised and accustomed to bear life?
Now, that flesh is capable of partaking of life is shown by the fact that it is living; for it lives as much as God wills it to live. And that God has power to give life to it is evident; for, since he gives life to us who live, and since the Lord has power to give life to his handiwork, and since flesh is capable of being given life, what else is there that would prevent the flesh from receiving imperishability, which is a long and unending life, given by God?