On A Plateau overlooking the modern city of Cairo, Egypt, stand three of the most magnificent and mysterious structures ever built by man, the great Pyramids of Giza. The largest of these is attributed to the Pharaoh Khufu’ who is said to have built it as his burial chamber some 4,500 years ago.
The statistics on this awesome structure defy the imagination. The Khufu Pyramid stands almost 50 stories tall and is assembled from 2,300,000 limestone building blocks weighing an average of two and one-half tons each. The support slabs in the main burial chamber weigh upwards of 80 tons and the accuracy of placement is astonishing. The base of the Pyramid is almost a perfect square and is aligned to within a small fraction of a degree to true north compass heading.’
It is estimated that it took 32 years to build the Khufu Pyramid using anywhere from twenty to one hundred thousand workers.’ No one knows exactly how they built such enormous structures, let alone how they could finish their task within the lifetime of the Pharaoh. Yet one thing is for certain, erecting such an edifice, even with modern construction equipment, would pose a nearly impossible challenge for any modern engineering company.
Why were such incredible structures built? What could have motivated not only the Pharaoh, but also the entire nation of Egypt, to mobilize virtually all its resources for extended periods of time to create such stupendous monuments. The answer appears to lie in the Egyptian religion and their belief in a resurrection of the body.4
The Egyptian belief
We know that the Egyptians went through extraordinary efforts to preserve the bodies of dead Pharaohs and other notable people. This procedure is known as mummification, with examples currently exhibited in many museums around the world. Both Jacob (Gen. 50:2,3) and Joseph (Gen. 50:26) were embalmed after the Egyptian custom even though we can be sure that nothing else of the Egyptian religion was involved in the case of these two patriarchs. Their embalming was done strictly to preserve them for eventual burial in the “promised land.”
On the other hand, the ancient Egyptian belief in an afterlife was intimately connected to the preservation of the body and the eventual interment of the Pharaoh in a Pyramid. The Pyramid was supposed to be a place of transformation from death to eternal life in another world. The spirit, or Ka, of the Pharaoh was supposedly reunited with his rejuvenated body in the Pyramid and then passed on to eternal life in another world parallel to our own. Moreover, Pharaoh was thought to be the firstfruits of the dead who would eventually be the means for a death to life transformation for all Egyptians.’
This would explain why the resources of an entire nation could be sacrificed to create such great structures. It is possible that the Pyramids, and the Egyptian cult religious beliefs associated with them, were but a perversion of a more ancient truth understood by Noah and revealed in our Bibles.
Resurrection to eternal life
The age of Pyramid building eventually ended and the mysterious religious practices associated with them have long been forgotten except possibly in Hollywood where blockbuster “Mummy” movies crop up from time to time. Nevertheless, the Pyramids, just as the monumental European cathedrals of the Middle Ages, or even the skyscrapers of modern times, stand as a testament of men’s faith in massive structures as symbols of something greater than themselves.
Yet the truth concerning things eternal lies not in works of brick, stone and mortar or steel, but rather in a tabernacle of the spirit. This spiritual temple has been under construction by the Lord through the ages and continues to this very day and beyond (Eph. 2:21; I Pet. 2:5).
The complete destruction of the body and consciousness of a person in the grave with the promise, for the righteous, of eventually being restored again to live forever is the central theme of the scriptures. It is the most important doctrine taught by Moses and the prophets, central to the gospel of Jesus Christ and confirmed in the various apostolic writings. It is incredible to realize that it was already doubted by some in the Christian community of the first century A.D. (I Cor. 15:12), and is as completely perverted in the world today as it was when the cult beliefs of the Egyptians inspired the construction of the Pyramids.
The resurrection and glorification of Jesus Christ is the greatest miracle ever performed and it was a forerunner of the even greater miracles yet to come (I Cor. 15:21). This is a miracle we all hope and pray we will personally experience. If there is nothing immortal in us now, and our bodies and consciousness are both destroyed utterly in the grave, what then is the mechanism that will restore us to life? The answer starts with Job.
Early revelation
The book of Job is regarded as the most ancient writing in the Scriptures, possibly predating Moses by many centuries. Job tells us, For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God (Job 19:25, 26).6
It is clear Job had no thought of mummification to preserve his body, nor did he think that any human edifice could serve as a place of transformation to eternal life. The cure for the complete decay of the body resulting from the “dust to dust” pronouncement in Eden (Gen. 3:19) was a redeemer.
There is absolutely nothing immortal about our present nature; we are all like sheep laid in the grave (Psa. 49:14). It was through this redeemer that Job expected the miracle of renewal to be performed, and it would not occur at the time of his death but in some distant future period styled at the latter day.
The book of life
We first glimpse the manner of this transfer from death to life when the LORD God told Moses: Whosoever hath sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book. (Ex.32:33). Apparently the Lord is keeping a book (scroll) which has a complete record of our existence. Those Israelites who had committed unrepentant sins will have their entry removed from the book. Being “blotted out” is the metaphor used, in ancient times before erasers, whiteout, and computer deletion. Obliterating a mistake in a manuscript was done by taking pen to page and literally scratching through the offending word with more ink until just an ugly blackened spot remained. A black blotch seems a fitting metaphor for a life wasted.
The Psalmist draws a similar image for the destruction of the wicked: Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous (Psa. 69:28). (There are analogous comments in Rev. 3:5, 13:8, 17:8, and 21:27.)
This theme is carried on further in the book of Daniel where the prophet says: thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book (Dan. 12:1). Daniel also reveals there is apparently more than one book in which records are being kept when he says, the judgment was set, and the books were opened (7:10). Note the plural use of the word “book” here which is faithfully repeated in the New Testament in Revelation 20:12. There is apparently “a” book (singular) which is styled the “book of life” containing the records of the righteous, whereas there are a number of books (plural) keeping the accounts of those who will be raised to judgment and found wanting.
This theme of a book of remembrance of the faithful was preached by our Lord Jesus Christ when he said to his disciples rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven (Luke 10:20). To complete the picture we should also note that the apostle Paul wrote words in a very similar vein when he told the Philippians that their names were written in the book of life (Phil. 4:3; cp. Mal. 3:16). It is clear from these passages that salvation is not universal and since the records of the unfaithful must number more than the faithful we can conclude that the righteous scarcely be saved (I Peter 4:18).
Recreating the person
That God has a complete recording of every human life ever lived on this planet is a daunting idea, but it is one completely within the realm of reasonable thought; all that is needed is sufficient “memory” capacity.
What exactly is written in these books out of which responsible men and women will be judged? Amazingly, we are not left in the dark about the answer to this question. Instead of the scriptures telling us to believe on “blind” faith that God can and will raise the dead, and we need not trouble ourselves about the details, in fact the Bible takes quite the opposite approach. The apostle Paul explains the mechanism of resurrection to the Corinthians in logical scientific detail. The picture is so remarkably drawn that one can only conclude no one living two thousand years ago could have imagined these insights written by Paul unless the Lord God had inspired him. It is false religion that seeks to hide behind “blind” faith, if we are to remain a religion that makes sense, and not nonsense, then we must never shrink from reason.
Basically two things are needed for a person to be resurrected with exactly the same physical and mental identity they had in this life. The first is a body exactly replicating our mortal frame, but with a different energizing principle so that it could never be harmed or subject to decay. The second requirement is a complete implanting of “memory and consciousness” of everything we ever felt, said or thought.
The Egyptians recognized that both “body” and “thoughts” comprised a human existence. Hence they went to enormous lengths to preserve the body in mummification. We have seen how they believed that somehow the thoughts and consciousness of what made someone human were immortal and could be reunited with the preserved body after death by transformation in a Pyramid to go on to another world of existence. These Egyptian pagan beliefs continue in many roughly equivalent forms even to this present day.’
However, the Bible plainly says the soul that sinneth, it shall die (Ezek. 18:4,20), hence there is nothing immortal about us now. When we die, all our thoughts perish with our bodies. There will be a day of judgment when we will be held accountable for every idle word we have spoken in this life (Matt. 12:36). We can conclude that the book of life must contain the record of all our thoughts and deeds and this knowledge will be implanted in the consciousness of our resurrected bodies. Those who are not resurrected will simply be as if they never were (Psa. 49).
The key to recreation
What about the “body” of the resurrection? The apostle Paul raises the question: How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? (I Cor. 15:35). The Apostle then goes on to spell out the mechanism of the resurrection of the body in exquisite detail. Paul explains: But God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body (I Cor. 15:38). The key here was this extraordinary idea that a human being was derived from a “seed.” It is only in relatively recent times that we can appreciate how marvelous was this concept, put forth by the Apostle almost 2,000 years ago, that a “seed” holds the essence of our physical bodily existence!
Every life form on this planet, including mankind, originates from a microscopic cell containing the co-mingled DNA of his or her parents. The DNA is the chemical code contained in the “seed” or “cell” that programs the growth of a human being from conception to adulthood. The DNA of each individual is absolutely unique and no two people on this planet have identical DNA codes, not even siblings from multiple births. Every single cell in an individual contains his/her uniquely characteristic DNA code and that is why forensic scientists can identify unambiguously a person from a miniscule sample of his/her blood, hair, skin, saliva or whatever. In principle, given a single cell of any person, scientists can recreate a body absolutely identical to that individual. This is apparently what transpired recently with the birth of the sheep called “Dolly” which was cloned from the DNA of a single cell without benefit of fertilization. The process has now been repeated a number of other times with lower animal species.’
Naturally, the cloning of a human being raises serious ethical and spiritual questions which are racking the scientific as well as the political communities. It is not the purpose of the present article to address the cloning question, but rather to focus on the fact that each of us is the result of an absolutely unique chemical code which records in minute detail the mechanism for creating the exact body that we possess. There is no one else on this planet who looks exactly the same as the author (fortunately!). Unique family characteristics can be seen over and over again as passed on through the DNA code. The Hapsburg monarchs were especially known for their big noses, and coincidentally so are the Bilellos.
It is certainly within the realm of possibility that the apostle was telling us, in his own words, that the “seed,” or in modern parlance the unique DNA code, is engraved in the book of life. From this information the Lord God can certainly recreate our bodies exactly as they were in this life. Remarkably, this means that the corporal body that we may someday regain will not be the body of old age and infirmity, but can be recreated at whatever age God chooses. Since our Lord Jesus died and was resurrected in his early thirties, it is quite possible that that is exactly what He has in mind for us regardless of whether we perished younger or older.
This recreated body, which can be reconstituted from the recorded DNA code, will also have implanted in its consciousness every memory, all smells, and every taste – in short, every nuance that made an individual uniquely what he or she was. This process is straightforward and completely within the realm of scientific understanding today even as it should have been in the first century. The only thing that we know more about today is the nature of the DNA code that is contained within the seed. Nevertheless, surely even in the first century A.D., and down through the ages, reasonable people could have grasped the main thrust of the argument that the Apostle was making, namely; that God has a unique physical and mental record of each individual and can resurrect that person based on that information if He so chooses.
A remarkable miracle
While recent cloning experiments have hinted at possibilities, they in no way diminish the miracle that will occur at the time of the resurrection. To resurrect the responsible at the day of judgment requires that millions of people through the ages be restored to life. The information density required to recreate the bodies and consciousness of so many people is larger than the storage capacity of the entire known universe.’
Thus, even if we had the means of recording the DNA code and noting every conscious and hidden thought of past lives (which we don’t), we would not have the means for storing it. It is simply beyond the capacity not only of a large computer, but also that of all the supercomputer networks we could ever hope to build. It is only through the power of the Lord God Almighty and His son Jesus the Christ that the miracle of resurrection can and will be performed.
In that day it will be said by immortal men and women: 0 death, where is thy sting? 0 grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (I Cor. 15:55-57).
This concludes the series on “Miracles”
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One