I read an article recently that outlined what the world’s 5 major religions believed about the concept of a soul. It went through Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism and explained how they differed in their concepts of what could be called a “soul” (although even this term is native to Judaism and doesn’t exactly fit Buddhism and Hinduism).
One of the major questions that the article asked of each religious view was: What does this religion believe about the connection between body and soul? Conservative Judaism, Christianity, and Hinduism all basically believe in a reuniting of the soul with the body in some way. Hinduism is the odd one out in that the soul connects to a body that it has not previously inhabited. Judaism and Christianity both believe in the soul reconnecting to its formerly connected body-soul unit.
Of course there are versions of both Christianity and Judaism that are skeptical about the return to a embodied experience for the soul. The Sadducees in the New Testament held this skepticism, various later-emerging Christian bodies have shared this skepticism of the Sadducees. For them, our future and hope is all spiritual – all soul, no body.
But that doesn’t quite jibe with what Jesus reveals in Himself as He appears to His disciples. “Hey guys, look at this! I’ve got FEET!” (The Hebrew conception of a spiritual being didn’t have feet.) “Hey guys, got any food around here?” (And it doesn’t go “plop” right through Him.)
I remember some wise guy asking me, “So you’re a Christian, that means that you believe that when you die you go to heaven and you get a halo and wings and stuff, right?” Not exactly. We don’t become angels. Angels are a different species of creation. Also, we will not become hippopotami, as cool as that might be. Also, we don’t just “go to heaven,” but rather, we become like the revealed Christ. He has feet, we have feet. He eats fish, so you get to eat fish.
Easter is a great time for us to consider this stuff. It’s a great time for us to consider that while souls and spirits are important, bodies are too. God created them, God redeemed them, and God is sanctifying them. We have a specific hope – and that hope is Jesus, who has a body.