Resurrection

The resurrection of the dead prophesied in the Bible and the Qur’an holds out the promise of a blessed future life with God. Resurrection is not simply a matter of the soul’s natural transition at death from this world into the afterlife. It is God’s saving act to raise the soul from the realm of death to life eternal.

In resurrection, we gain not simply a new opportunity to live; we gain a new quality of life. Father Moon teaches that we are raised spiritually from a hellish existence within the realm of death to a blessed existence in the bosom of God.

Resurrection requires some condition on our part to claim the new life that God offers: dying to self, confirmed faith, even martyrdom. This is the “death” to self that severs our ties with Satan, in order that we may more completely relate with God.

Just as Jesus died on the cross as a precondition to his resurrection, so we too may face a trial. Jesus’ triumph over seeming defeat at the hands of the
Romans demonstrates that God can turn defeat and even death into victory and life.

Scripture speaks of a Day of Resurrection in the end times, when all the souls of the righteous will be raised up to heaven. The Bible speaks of the 144,000 saints of the “first resurrection.” This means that even in the afterlife, spirits are languishing in darkness, oppressed by evil conditions until the future day of their liberation.

When the Messiah comes and defeats and binds Satan in prison, on that day all souls in heaven and earth will taste the freedom of resurrection and new life. But as Father Moon makes clear, the purpose of the first resurrection is not to reward certain believers with eternal glory at everyone else’s expense.

Rather, the saints at the first resurrection will join in the struggle to defeat all the powers of evil, until, in the words of Paul, “the last enemy to be destroyed is death,” that is, until not one soul remains in the realm of death.