Chapter 5. The Old Testament Offers Clear Examples That God Can Raise Up Our Bodies to Eternal Life.
Chapter 5
1. Let these heretics read the Scriptures to learn that (our) bodies continued on for so long as it pleased God. They will find that some of our ancestors lived more than seven hundred, eight hundred, even nine hundred years. Their bodies attained length of days, and they participated in life, so long as God willed that they live. And what do we say about the following? Enoch, for example, because he was pleasing to God, was transferred in the body in which he pleased him. This revealed beforehand the transfer of the just. And Elijah, while he was in the substance of the created order, was assumed. Thus he prophesied the assumption of the spiritual men. Certainly, they received this assumption and transfer by the very hands by which they were fashioned in the beginning. For God’s hands had become accustomed in Adam to order and govern and bear their own handiwork, and to transfer it and place it where it pleased them. Where, then, was the first man placed? In paradise, as the Scripture says, And God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed. From there he was cast out into this world when he was disobedient. Wherefore the presbyters, who were the disciples of the apostles, say that those who were transferred were transferred there. Really, paradise was prepared for the just and for those who possess the Spirit. The Apostle Paul was also carried to it, and he heard ineffable words, ineffable as far as we are concerned. [The presbyters also say] that those who were transferred there remain there until the consummation, together awaiting the imperishability.
2. If anyone should think it impossible for men to live so long a time, and that Elijah was not assumed in the flesh but that his flesh was consumed in the fiery chariot, he should take note of the fact that Jonah was thrown out into the deep and swallowed into the whale’s belly but was again vomited up safe on the earth by God’s order. Likewise, Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael, who were thrown into the fiery furnace that had been heated sevenfold, were not harmed in the least, nor was any smoke of fire on them. God’s hand was present with them, and it wrought in them things unexpected and impossible to men’s nature. So what is strange if, serving the Father’s will, it wrought something unexpected in those who were transferred? Now, this (hand) is God’s Son. Scripture tells us Nebuchadnezzar said of him: Did we not cast three men into the fire? And I see four men walking in the midst of the fire and the appearance of the fourth is like the Son of Man.
So, neither the nature of any created thing nor the weakness of the flesh will be stronger than God’s will. For God is not subject to created things; no, they are subject to God, and all serve his will. For this reason the Lord said, What is impossible with men is possible with God. Just as it seems incredible and impossible to men who are now living and who are ignorant of God’s economy, that a man could live so many years, and yet our ancestors did live and those who were transferred are living as a type of the future length of days; and that some came out safe from the whale’s belly and from the fiery furnace, and yet they did come out, being led out, so to say, by God’s hand, in order to show his power. So at present, though some are ignorant of God’s power and promise, and deny his salvation, because they think it impossible for God to raise up the bodies and bestow on them perpetual continuance, nevertheless, the incredulity of such does not make void the faithfulness of God.