If Jesus was raised bodily from a subsequently-empty tomb, then took his glorified body with him to heaven when he ascended, why doesn’t the same thing happen to all Christians who are qualified for salvation at their deaths?
Hello friend.
I have been to a Unitarian Univerisalist service and it was very warm and welcoming
To your question. Something that may hint at the answer is that, in the Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox, and therefore ancient and traditional Christian understanding), Christ’s body’s is glorified in Heaven…
and so is His own mother’s. Both of these individuals lived completely sinless lives: Christ because he was God and Mary because she was especially graced to be a fitting mother for the redeemer. Early Christians referred to Mary as the “New Eve” – just as Paul in the New Testament refers to Jesus as the “New Adam.”
So God is completely capable of assuming our human bodies into Heaven and glorifying them, as he did to the Virgin Mary. That his happened to her is hinted at in Christian texts but also in the fact that no early Christians claim to have her relics. But I think there is something noteworthy in the connection between sinlessness and the privilege of being assumed into Heaven.
A more “practical” reason is that if people were being raised all over the world whenever they died, this would give overwhelming evidence of the Christian God and would be, ultimately, pressure to conversion. People would not be turning to God out of love and true freedom. In effect, God would be writing in the sky “I exist.”
