The ancient Jewish and early Christian idea of personal resurrection represented a new emphasis on individuals and the importance of embodied existence beyond the mere survival or enhancement of the soul, although there was debate about the precise nature of the post-resurrection body. Some seem to have supposed it would be a new body of flesh and bones, closely linked to the corpse in the grave but not liable to decay or death. Others imagined a body more like that of an angel. But whatever its precise nature, the hope of resurrection reflected a strongly holistic view of the person as requiring some sort of body to be complete. With ancient Jews, early Christians saw resurrection as an act of God, a divine gift of radically new life, not an expression of some inherent immortality of the soul. That is, the dead don’t rise by themselves; they are raised by God and will experience resurrection collectively as one of the events that comprise God’s future redemption of the world and vindication of the righteous.
- Larry Hurtado, “The Curious Idea of the Resurrection”

This morning in the Romans Bible study that I’m part of, we went through the latter half of Romans 8. This passage sticks out like a sore thumb for people who want to emphasize some sort of spiritual existence after death. How can we exist as disembodied spirits when in the resurrection of the dead we are given new bodies?

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
- Romans 8:19-25, ESV (emphasis mine)

The idea of a soul is an innovation of the pagan gnosticism that was prevalent in the culture surrounding the early church. This sort of gnosticism stresses that the spirit is good (true), but that the body is not good (false). Christianity has a holistic sort of view of all these things: both the body and spirit are good, and both will be redeemed. Those who are in Christ Jesus have already experienced the redemption of the spirit. No longer are we spiritually dead and living in sin; instead, we have been made alive by the Spirit of God in the atonement of Jesus on the cross by the will of the Father. But we still wait and look forward, as all creation does, to the redemption of our bodies. It is not the body that is bad, but the indwelling sin that has also corrupted all creation and that causes creation to look on longingly for our glorification. It is in the hope of the redemption of the body that we look on towards Jesus, because in this we receive our glorification, and this points to Jesus receiving all glory and honor for his power and dominion.