Tertullian · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But even setting aside interpretations of this kind, which apply 'flesh and blood' to their works, it will still be possible to vindicate for the resurrection the very substances themselves, understood in no other than their plain sense. For resurrection is not denied outright to flesh and blood; what is denied to resurrection is the kingdom of God — for there is also a resurrection unto judgment. Indeed the general resurrection of the flesh is confirmed precisely in the exception made of a special case: for in the very statement of the condition into which it will not rise, the condition into which it will rise is implied. And so, while the distinction of resurrections, made according to merits, concerns the deeds of the substance and not its kind, it becomes clear from this too that flesh and blood are barred from the kingdom of God in the name of guilt, not of substance, yet rise again in the name of their form, to judgment, precisely because they will not rise to the kingdom. I will say it again: 'Flesh and blood cannot possess the kingdom of God as an inheritance' — rightly, when alone and by themselves, to show that spirit is still necessary within them. For it is the Spirit who gives life unto the kingdom of God; the flesh profits nothing — yet something else can profit it — namely the spirit, and, working through that spirit, the deeds the spirit produces as well. All flesh and blood, then, rise equally, each in its own quality; but those destined to enter the kingdom of God must clothe themselves with the strength of incorruption and immortality, lacking which no one can enter the kingdom of God, before they are able to lay hold of it. Rightly, then, flesh and blood, as we have said, fail on their own to lay hold of the kingdom of God. But since this corruptible thing — the flesh — must be swallowed up by incorruption, and this mortal thing — the blood — by immortality, after the resurrection, by way of transformation, then rightly, once transformed and swallowed up, flesh and blood can possess the kingdom of God as an inheritance — yet not without first having been raised. There are those who would have 'flesh and blood' taken to mean Judaism, on account of circumcision — itself likewise a stranger to the kingdom of God, both because it is reckoned to the old order and because it is marked with this very label elsewhere too by the apostle, who, after the Son of God was revealed in him for preaching him among the nations, did not immediately confer with 'flesh and blood' — that is, with circumcision, that is, with Judaism — as he writes to the Galatians.