What Christ assumes, He redeems, He assumed our nature, soul and body, to return to its proper conditions that which was created by our Father. No half measures are possible. No merely spiritual resurrection is possible where Christ has risen bodily from the grave for us. Our Lord promises to lose nothing handed over to Him by our Father, so He rises bodily to indicate to us that we will be raised in body and soul, complete and whole, except without sin on that great Last Day. He feeds us on the bread of His flesh so that we who feed on it might receive from it the antidote to death and the promise of resurrection of the flesh.

“Jesus says ‘I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will but the will of Him who sent Me’ (John 6:38). What is that will? This is the will of Him who sent Me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given Me, but raise it up on the last day’ (v 39). Now, what had Christ received from the Father but that which He had Himself put on? Man, of course, in His flesh and soul. Therefore, He will not allow either of those parts that He has received to perish; neither a large portion nor the least part of either. If the flesh is, as our opponents slightingly think, but a poor part, then the flesh is safe, because not even a fraction of man is to perish. Therefore, no larger portion of man is in equally safe keeping with Him.

“If, however, Jesus does not also raise the flesh on the Last Day, then He would permit not only a fraction of man to perish but also (as I will venture to say, in consideration of so important a part) almost the whole of him. But when Jesus repeats His words with increased emphasis, ‘For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes should have eternal life, and I will raise Him up on the last day’ (v 40) He asserts the full extent of the resurrection, He assigns to each nature the benefit that is suited to its services. To the flesh, for by it the Son was seen. To the soul, for by it He was believed… How could we be blessed, if we were to perish in any part of us?” (Tertullian “On the Resurrection of the Flesh”, 34

quoted in “A Year with the Church Fathers” Scott Murray p 178