Resurrection-Body or Spirit?

I had always understood that resurrection meant bodily resurrection. One of those things obvious to me like the Trinity; Father, Son, Holy Spirit. In early Christianity, there were a lot of debates about the latter. How could three things exist in one thing simultaneously? For me, it just is, I just accept it and understand, mind to heart to soul, this is true.

The Gnostics posited that Jesus was a spirit body manifesting itself in the material world. To me, that makes no sense. To make the idea even more incomprehensible is the spirit body of Jesus imparted some kind of esoteric knowledge, gnosis (Greek). What that secret knowledge leads to is a way out of the material world.

Once accomplished, according to this idea, you become a spirit body, you escape the physical, material world. The physical world is evil, the spirit world is good. The Church Fathers found this heretical. I agree. It’s clear to me Jesus is exactly what He said He is. What He said is clear and means exactly what He said. No big secret here.

When I said I had always understood that resurrection meant bodily resurrection means just that, I’m surprised to find out that a majority of Christians believe, like the Gnostics, that resurrection is spiritual resurrection, the body is separated from the spirit. I’m thinking, really? How did that happen?

It’s been infiltrating Christianity for a long time. For about a hundred years, give or take, the idea that being resurrected means leaving matter/material/physical behind, separating from it has been growing. It’s an escape from materiality. From Houston Baptist University, a guy named Arthur Travis, in 1974 wrote: “The fact is, we shall not live in physical bodies after death…we shall not need or desire the things associated with our present physical bodies, simply because we shall not possess physical bodies in heaven.” So seriously wrong. 

In the late 1990’s Time Magazine had an article stating a finding the two thirds of Americans did not believe they would have bodies after they were resurrected. It wasn’t clear to me if that was just Americans or American Christians, but either way, it’s disconcerting to me. There was a poll, Scripps Howard/Ohio University of “born again’ Christians, about 60% answered a question about resurrection, stating that it was a bodily resurrection. The rest, just a spirit was resurrected. It should be 100% of Christians should know beyond a shadow of a doubt resurrection is bodily.

It turns out many if not most of congregations are not taught about resurrection; the fact of resurrection has devolved into a belief like that of the Gnostics. Of course Secularists point out that Christians have “evolved” and don’t believe in bodily resurrection any more. From a book by Brian Innes Death and the Afterlife: “…current orthodox Christianity no longer holds to the belief in physical resurrection, preferring the concept of the eternal existence of the soul, although some creeds still cling to the old ideas.”

Of course the old ideas are traditional, orthodox Christianity, and any way to diminish those ideas is a good thing. Sadly, many people claiming to be Christians agree more and more with Secularists, and are less and less aware of scripture and the insights of the church fathers. 

Yet, in the face of all evidence. We celebrate Easter, that  there was the bodily resurrection of Christ. After His resurrection people touched Him, He talked, ate, drank, and on the road to Emmaus, Christ walked with the two men and was obviously at least semi-corporeal. We will have bodies like that when we are resurrected. 

There are a lot of ancient Greek words that were misunderstood or mistranslated that have (partially) led to this confusion of what resurrection entails. Words meaning the soul, and not the body, got mixed up. For example “psychikos” was translated to mean physical when in fact ancient Greek speakers understood it to mean soul. It just became a mess.

I had read that at one time Pastors were more local theologians, personal theologians to their congregations. It got to be the Pastors ended up doing a lot of home visitations, taking care of church business and the like, that they were having to keep paring back their religious studies. That was the main contributor to the formation of the Diaconate; to free up the Pastor for the important thing, the religion. Keep the main thing the main thing if you will. Would that Pastors could go back to being local theologians, and maybe we wouldn’t have guys like Baptist Arthur Travis giving out wrong information. I hear what a lot of Pastors are saying and doing, and just get flummoxed. I’m just a layman, and good grief, there are so many Pastors violating scripture in deed and speech and what they teach.

Between incorrect translations, secular influence, congregations that have not been correctly taught, the pressure on Pastors, what resurrection really is has been distorted so much it doesn’t bear much resemblance to what it really is.

When I look at the bodily resurrection of Christ, and all the things Paul said about resurrection, it cements absolutely that we have a body after death. Heaven is a place God has designed, not for just spiritual beings to float around, but there still are challenges and growth, always growing closer to God, but when bodily resurrected, we will be in His presence. There is a plan and a purpose in heaven, and resurrected bodies to accomplish God’s purpose, joy and glory for all eternity. 

The Empty Tomb

Now on the first day of the week Mary Magdalene went to the tomb early, while it was still dark, and saw that the stone had been taken away from the tomb. Then she ran and came to Simon Peter, and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved, and said to them, "They have taken away the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid Him." Peter therefore went out, and the other disciple, and were going to the tomb. So they both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. And he, stooping down and looking in, saw the linen cloths lying there; yet he did not go in. Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went into the tomb; and he saw the linen cloths lying there, and the handkerchief that had been around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but folded together in a place by itself. Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed. For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise again from the dead. Then the disciples went away again to their own homes. But Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the tomb. And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. Then they said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping?" She said to them, "Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him." Now when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. Jesus said to her, "Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?" She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, "Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away." Jesus said to her, "Mary!" She turned and said to Him, "Rabboni!" (which is to say, Teacher). Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.' " Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord, and that He had spoken these things to her. Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you." When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, "Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you." And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, "We have seen the Lord." So he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe." And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!" Then He said to Thomas, "Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing." And Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my God!" Jesus said to him, "Thomas, because you have seen Me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name. John 20

Final Thoughts on Easter at the End of the Day

From "Simply Christian" by N T Wright: "...when Jesus rose again God's whole new creation emerged from the tomb, introducing a world full of new potential and possibility. Indeed, precisely because part of that new possibility is for human beings themselves to be revived and renewed, the resurrection of Jesus doesn't leave us as passive, helpless spectators. We find ourselves lifted up, set on our feet, given new breath in our lungs, and commissioned to go and make new creation happen in the world.

"That is, indeed, the interpretation of the resurrection which fits most closely the view of Jesus' life and work... If it is the case that Israel's vocation was to be the people through whom the one God would rescue his beloved creation; if it is the case that Jesus believed himself, as God's Messiah, to be bearing Israel's vocation in himself; and if it really is true that in going to his death he took upon himself, and in some sense exhausted the full weight of the world's evil--then clearly there is indeed a task waiting to be done. The music he wrote must now be performed. The early disciples saw this, and got on with it. When Jesus emerged from the tomb, justice, spirituality, relationship, and beauty rose with him. Something has happened in and through Jesus as a result of which the world is a different place, a place where heaven and earth have been joined forever. God's future has arrived in the present. Instead of mere echoes, we hear the voice itself; a voice which speaks of rescue from evil and death, and hence of new creation."

I was filled with the Spirit today, once again, revived, refreshed and renewed. We must all ensure that we let God breathe through us, so we can perform His music, continuing the spirituality, relationships and beauty from His sacrifice and emergence from the tomb.