Chapter XXVI.
Moreover, it is impious to doubt the value of our hairs, which the Lord has numbered (Matthew 10:30). They have been counted in vain if they are eventually to perish, but they do not perish, because we will be raised in the likeness of the Lord Christ with all our members. For if the almighty God showed His power in the fiery furnace, which consumes everything it receives, by preserving the hairs of the three young men untouched (Daniel 3:50), will He not raise our hairs in the resurrection? He will certainly restore without any increase or decrease. Therefore, in the resurrection of the dead, there will be no variation or difference, just as now the weakness of the flesh is fragile in us, which is weighed down by the burden of itself, which is dyed, defiled, blinded, injured, wounded, healed, dies, corrupts, and is reduced to dust and ashes; and yet after all these things, on the day of judgment, it will be restored in the simple glory of the first Adam and the second. Therefore, the true resurrection of the dead in the flesh will occur, and there will be a diversity of sexes without the work of flesh and blood. The Lord says, 'There will come an hour when all who are in the tombs will hear the voice of the Son of God and will come forth' (John 5:28-29). They will hear with their ears and come forth with their feet, just like Lazarus and all those whom the Savior raised (John 11:44). Therefore, those who were brought into the tombs will come forth from the tombs. So all flesh will come not only from the earth, but also from the sea and the rivers; so that they may see the salvation of God (Tertullian, De Resurrectione Carnis 31). For He will command the fish of the sea, and the rivers, and the beasts of the earth, and the birds of the sky; and the bones and flesh of all the dead will come forth; so that some may rise to eternal life, and others to everlasting shame and confusion. Then the righteous will see the punishments and tortures of the wicked; for their worm will not die, and their fire will not be extinguished, and they will be a spectacle to all flesh (Isaiah 66:24). Therefore, since we have this hope, truly as we have exhibited our members to serve uncleanness and iniquity unto iniquity (Rom. VI, 13); so let us exhibit them to serve righteousness unto sanctification of life: that rising from the dead, we may walk in the newness of life, that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh, by reason of his Spirit dwelling in us (II Cor. III, 18). It is therefore just, and truly just, that as we have always carried about in our body the dying of Jesus (II Cor. IV, 12), his life also should be manifested in our body. Therefore, stripping off, as the Apostle says (Colossians 3:9), the old man with his deeds, let us not seek the tunic of error and sin; so that we may put on the new, who is Christ (Ephesians 4:24), imitating his bride saying at night: I have taken off my tunic, how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet, how shall I defile them? (Song of Solomon 5:3).