We believe in both, because it is true that our bodies experience corruption after death. Once we die the body is corrupted, often becoming dust (although the line from Ash Wednesday is a poetic expression which is meant to remind us of the bodily death that awaits all of humanity). However the Christian belief in the Resurrection of the Body means that our bodies will be raised on the last day when Christ comes again in glory. This is a truth of faith, but until it happens we will not know the fine details of the hows and wherefore. As St. Paul says to the Corinthians: “But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. and what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel …What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable… the dead will be raised imperishable… For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.” (1 Cor 15:35-37, 42, 52, 53.). Ultimately, Christians are invited to believe that God, who was wondrously able to knit us together in our mothers’ wombs, will be able to resurrect our bodies again on the last day.
