Suppose that a body is nearly consumed in a burning building, and just a small quantity of remains is left and gathered up and buried in a cemetery. Where will the body of that person be raised from the dead, in the cemetery or where the building stood?
M. M. M. We do not know where the body of such a person will rise from the dead. It does not make any difference. It may be neither at the burning building nor at the cemetery. What about all those who are cast into the sea and eaten by fishes? The sea will give up its dead. That is, those who lost their lives there will come again, and those who lost their lives by fire will live again. The resurrection is essentially a new creation. The words of the apostle in 1 Corinthians 15 are very definite: "Thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind; but God giveth it a body even as it pleased Him, and to each seed a body of its own." God will take the character of that individual in the resurrection day and clothe it with flesh and blood, and hold its personal identity by the character of the individual, so that the person that went down a mortal, dying, soulless body, if in Christ, will come up a "spiritual body." We need not worry over God's power. It was over these things that the Sadducees caviled, and the reply of Jesus to them was, "Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God." We have the Scripture promise, we have the power of God to restore.