1 Pet 3:18 & 1 Cor. 15:45--resurrection

by M.J. 25 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  M.J.

  In citing 1 Pet 3:18, the WTS says Christ being made alive "in the spirit" means he became a spirit. But does being raised "in the spirit" mean the same as being raised "as a spirit"?

  My thought is that in the NT, when one is "in" something or someone, it describes the realm that person is in. "In Christ", "in sin", "in Adam", "in Spirit", "In God" (1 Jo 3:24), etc. I don't think 1 Pet 3:18, therefore, is a very convincing verse to prove Christ wasn't raised bodily.

  1 Cor. 15:45 says Adam became a living soul, and the "last Adam" became a life-giving spirit.

  Is this in reference to his resurrection body?

  Is Paul offering a sort of "middle ground" argument toward docetic-leaning Corinthians by stating that the resurrection body is transformed into a spirit?

  Or is the common orthodox position likely, that Christ's body was indeed raised and transformed to something supernatural and "spiritual" but not itself a spirit?
• 

  moggy lover

  Hi, You have raised some interesting points that become entangled with both theology and Greek grammar, and how one untangles this is the product of interpretive problems. Let's take your Scripture citations seperately:

  1 As far as 1P3:18 is concerned the problem is that we do not have the word "in" [Greek EN] occuring at this text. as a look at the KIT will show, the text has the word Pneuma" [Spirit] in a particular grammatical form called the "Dative" construction.This construction allows the word "Pneuma" to be written as "Pneuma-ti" and then there follows the tangle of trying to translate this one word. In English the Dative construction can be expressed with the use of four seperate words called "modal auxillaries" These four are: "in" "by" "for" or "to" so in this case at this text we have four possibilities: "in the Spirit" "by the Spirit" "for the Spirit" and "to the Spirit" [Don't let the presence of the article distract you. The dative always implies the article For instance "ev Arche" in Greek is most naturally expressed as "In the Beginninig in English]

  Since the word "to" suggests an indirect object, almost all translators reject the translation of "to the Spirit" here, this despite the KIT insisting on using "to" in the interlinear. Since "for" suggests a reflexive action, that too is almost universally rejected.

  This leaves us with the two options of "by" and "in" So which is the correct usage here? Translators are almost equally divided, although a larger percentage favour the latter. The KJV, NIV NKJV and even one once published by the WTS, the Emphatic Diaglott says "by". In fact the NWT has itself translated "Pneumati" with "By" at Mar 2:8, so they can hardly complain if someone does so here. If "by" is the preferred translation, then the meaning is clear: That the Holy Spirit, as God, raised Jesus from the dead. Naturally, the WTS leadership would rather have their most precious limbs torn away, than bend the knee to that concept.

  So they stick with the alternative. But no one would be so reckless as to state that the dative construction can be rendered with "As" hence implying that Christ was resurrected "AS" a spirit. As you have shown, being "In the spirit", like being "In love" does not negate the idea of physicalality. The WT leadership state that had Jesus taken up His body of flesh and blood, then this would have negated His ransom, since He is taking something back, that He had already given. This can easily be refuted in at least two ways: He also ransomed us with His life, not just His blood, so had Jesus taken His life back as well, that too, would negate the ransom. Another point is that it appears that Jesus did not take His blood back. When He was crucified, He spilled His blood for us, and that indicates that it fulfilled its purpose. When He was resurrected, there is no indication that His resurrected body had blood in it. We know His new body contained "flesh" and "bones" [Lu 24:39] Now, 1P3:18, indicates that there was a third elrment in the resurrection body, and that is "spirit" To use an illustration, If you cut Jesus' skin before He died, the element that would have poured out would have been blood, but now with the Resurrection body, if you happened, theoretically, to cut His skin, the element that would pour out will be "spirit". It is this element that makes the Resurrection body such a marvellous intrument.

  It is trans dimensional in that it exists outside the restraints of physical laws. Jesus appeared in a closed room. He did'nt "walk" through walls, as the WTS leadership so ignorantly claims. He just existed there. He chose to appear and then chose to disappear. In the Assension, He lifted away from the sight of His disciples, and then He was in heaven. He did not "travel" there. He just was. It is this marvellous body that can exist in heaven as well. It is a body of "flesh" "bones" and "spirit" and you know what? Paul tells us that that body is one that is promised to all believers. Not just an ignorant 144k! [Phi 3:21]

  This new kind of body, of which we know nothing, is called a "glorious" body by the NWT translator, "Body of glory" by others like NASV It is what awaits believers. Imagine a body that can hear in a transdimensioal state, that can see clours far beyond the physical spectrum!

  This is what the NWS leadership is robbing their followers of.

  2 Now in the light of the above, yes - there is a sense in which Jesus is a spirit. But that is not all He is. The entire context of 1Cor 15 is talking about the resurrection of the body. The WTS leadership disputes this because the word "body" is not mentioned in the section of vss 42 - 58. Well,actually it is, but in a different way. For instance, 1Cor 15:53 says "That which is mortal must take on immortality" What is "That which is mortal"? Ro 8:11 refers this to the BODY. The Bible nowhere talks about resurrected " ghosts" or even "spirits" So the resurrection that Jesus experienced was that mentioned in 1Cor 15. His "mortal" body [it was "mortal" since it could be killed] took on immortality, and the process that allowed that was that He was imbued with "spirit" . Being the first to taste of this phenomenon, He became "life giving" also to us. So, being a "life giving" spirit, did not inhibit His being flesh as well.

  It is this resurrected body that will be seen again when He returns, in visible form.

  It is this body that all believers will enjoy throughout all eternity. They will exist on earth, if need be, as well in the most Holy of heaven, and anywhere in all spatial creation. Christ promises nothing less for all who believe.

  Cheers
• 

  Leolaia

  M.J. .... It is important to emphasize that the belief of resurrection in Judaism and early Christianity always concerns a restored, embodied person. Although in Platonism the highest form of existence was a blessed disembodied existence (with the soul released from the prison of the body), the Semitic view was one that saw life (manifested through the "breath of life") as possible only through corporeality. There is some sort of shadowy existence in death (cf. the Rephaim in the OT), but such existence is NOT life. To oversimplify a bit, the conservative Sadducees believed that there was no return to embodied life after death (see Ecclesiastes 9), so they did not believe in the resurrection. The Pharisees hoped for a return to life after death, and hoped for the body to restored in the resuurection (see 2 Maccabees 7:10-14, in which the martyr declares that "it was heaven that gave me these limbs ... from him I hope to receive them again"). The Pharisees also believed in a sort of intermediate existence of the person between death and resurrection, and a final judgment of the reconstituted person (leading to eternal blessedness or eternal punishment). Hellenized Jews moreover acquired some notion of the immortality of the soul (see Wisdom and Philo of Alexandria), and the Essenes in particular combined immortality with the resurrection belief, such that the person in the intermediate state was a full-fledged spirit (pneuma) or soul (psukhé), tho lacking in physical form (cf. Josephus; compare 2 Corinthians 5 and Revelation 6:9-11). There are many references in Jewish literature of an eternal existence in spirit form, but this is never called resurrection per se. At the same time, the resurrection body was often characterized in spiritual terms, as similar to the splendor/glory/immortality/etc. of angels. While the older belief was one merely of a restored fleshly body, the common Essene view was that the resurrected would have a superior glorified body (cf. 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, etc.). Similarly, I should point about that the angels were not thought of as bodiless either.

  Paul's view in 1 Corinthians 15 was very close to the Enochic/Essene belief. He clearly states that there is a resurrection body (soma), but it is a body that lacks the perishability, frailty, and lesser glory of the fleshly body. The resurrected would have a soma pneumatikos "spiritual body" that bears similaritiy with other heavenly bodies in terms of incorruptibility, glory, immortality, etc. In no sense did Paul construe the resurrected as bodiless. They simply have a different kind of body, just as the fishes, animals, plants, etc. have different kinds of bodies between themselves. Thus the resurrection body was not "flesh and blood" (i.e. flesh), it was something else. It is also important to recognize that Paul was trying to explain the resurrection belief to Gentiles in Corinth who have a Hellenistic background, who may find the idea of a future resurrection as odd -- if not repugnant (from the Platonic point of view). In his later 2 Corinthians, Paul makes greater concessions to the Platonic belief; he maintains the belief in resurrection while adopting more of a Platonic anthropology (e.g. that the body is the tent of the person, that a person becomes "naked" and "away from the body" when he dies, that a person can visit heaven "outside of the body", etc.).

  As for 1 Peter 3:18, the phrasing is ambiguous whether pneumati refers to the mode in which Jesus was "made alive" (zóopoiétheis) or the agent that was responsible for making him alive. In the case of the latter, reference to the "Spirit" would be appropriate; in the case of the former, the reference would be to "spirit" as a mode of existence. Since the verse has an overt antithesis between sarki "[in] the flesh" and pneumati, I would not otherwise favor the reading that sees the pneumati as referring to the agent of the resurrection (as "flesh" would not have the same sense in the parallel). But it is important to realize that the antithesis is not between pneuma and soma but between pneuma and sarx "flesh". If the author had said that Jesus was put to death in the body and raised in the spirit, then the antithesis would imply that Jesus was not raised bodily but as an asomatic spirit. But since the author states that Jesus was killed in the flesh and raised in the spirit, this would suggest a thought very close to that of Paul: that Jesus was not raised in a fleshly existence, but in a spiritual existence. Paul views the spiritual body as transformed from the fleshly body (see 1 Corinthians 15:51, Philippians 3:20-21), whereas the author of 1 Peter is not explicit on this point. The docetic belief, on the other hand, was that Jesus was asomatos "bodiless" in his postmortem appearances (Ignatius, Smyrnaeans 2:1, who also uses the term "demonic," as the demons were spiritual beings who were popularly viewed as bodiless; cf. the quasi-docetic description of Jesus in Mark 16:12). To strengthen his anti-docetic stance, Ignatius did not merely say that Jesus was raised in the body -- he was raised "in the flesh" so that he had "flesh and blood". Paul's description of the resurrection body was much closer to that of docetic view (i.e. some form of spiritual, rather than fleshly, existence), but was clearly distinct from it by positing a real "body" that the resurrected will have.

  Hope this helps!
• 

  Narkissos

  Imo the "body" of the resurrected Jesus in Pauline christology (which differs from Luke's) is not just another "spiritual body" (sôma pneumatikon) like, besides or amongst the (future) "spiritual bodies" (sômata pneumatika)of the resurrected believers. To Paul (and much of post-Pauline literature, in which I would include 1 Peter as well as Ephesians), the resurrected "body" of Jesus is explicitly and consistently described as the church itself, animated by the Spirit (which can equally be called Jesus' or God's, compare Galatians 4:6 with Romans 8:14). The Pauline treatment of both baptism and the Eucharist (implying respectively integration into, and participation in, the one body of Christ Romans 6, 1 Corinthians 10--11) actually confirms rather than infirms this view. So the resurrected Jesus can be identified either to that (ecclesiastical) body or to the Spirit animating it (1 Corinthians 15:45; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:17). This is the case because, in Pauline thought, Jesus is no mere man, but the heavenly Son of God sharing the likeness of flesh/humanity (Romans 8:3; Philippians 2:7) to lead the elect out of earthly, mortal, corruptible humanity to the heavenly, immortal, incorruptible divine status of God's children. Jesus, in this perspective, is not just one "sample" of man in need of an individual body -- not anymore than Adam in contemporary Jewish thought is only the first "sample" of man. Just as being human is being in Adam, part of the "eternal" Adam (not merely a "descendent of the first 'historical' man"), being saved as a child of God is being in Jesus in a very strong, mythical (in the best sense of the word) sense.

  From this perspective, I believe that the later Gnostic and docetic views (in spite of their evolution) have at least as much in common with Paul than the later "orthodox" (i.e. anti-Gnostic and anti-docetic) doctrine of the "resurrection of the flesh" (which Paul clearly opposes in advance, 1 Corinthians 15:50), especially as far as Jesus is concerned (as in the apparition stories insisting on Jesus' fleshly body). Of course the WT misses both.
• 

  M.J.

  Hi,

  I just now am checking back on this. Thanks to all of you for the excellent, thoughtful answers. I need a bit more time to digest it all! Espeically Narkissos' post!

  First thought, though is that in any case where the WT really misses on this is in their insistance that the physical soma is discarded rather than revived and transformed.
• 

  M.J.

  At the same time, the resurrection body was often characterized in spiritual terms, as similar to the splendor/glory/immortality/etc. of angels. While the older belief was one merely of a restored fleshly body, the common Essene view was that the resurrected would have a superior glorified body (cf. 1 Enoch, 2 Baruch, etc.). Similarly, I should point about that the angels were not thought of as bodiless either.

  Ok, ok. So counter to the assertion by the WTS that angels somehow "materialized" a body when visiting earth, a common Jewish perception was that angels already had a body which could appear to man and exhibit physical qualities. The ressurection body, argued Paul, will become similar to this kind of body...in other words, a "spiritual body". This is in contrast with those referred to as "spirits", or those without a body, which most commonly referred to demons, etc. (and a few times, people).

  I looked up "pneuma" throughout the NT and it seemed to show that references to "sprits" were generally distinct from references to angels...Luke 24:37, Acts 23:8,9...not sure what Paul's talking aobut in 1 Cor 12:10..Hbr 1:7?, 1 Pe 3:19.

  So I suppose what the WT is doing here is introducing a concept that a "spirit" and "spiritual body" (or any heaven dweller) is in the immaterial realm, in contrast to a material body which belongs to the physical realm. Thus the whole question is centered on material/immaterial.

  What I'm thinking here is that in the minds of 1st century Jews (or Paul at least), existence wasn't really classified in this manner. The question was more centered on mortality/immortality...with Hellenistic disembodied existence thrown in the mix. Sound right?
• 

  Leolaia

  M.J...As I hinted in my brief summary, the Jewish and Christian conceptualization of the nature of spiritual beings (whether those created as such, or those in the resurrection) was complex and varied, and thus I had to simplify somewhat. I think of pneuma as a much broader term than aggelos, and includes both incorporeal and corporeal spiritual beings. Throughout much Jewish and earsly Christian literature, the demons were characterized as bodiless spirits -- as the Nephilim had both the immortality of angels and the perishability of flesh, and when their bodies died during the Flood, "evil spirits have come out of their bodies" (1 Enoch 15:9), which seek new bodies to inhabit ever since (cf. Matthew 12:43-45, Mark 5:9-13). Some of the lesser spirits in God's service were also thought of as incorporeal (such as the seraphim), in contrast to the higher angels which have different forms. But there are imho many clear references to angels having some form of body that is comparable to the resurrection body. The following passage compares the transformation of flesh into a spiritual body in the resurrection (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:51, Philippians 3:20-21) to the transformation of angelic bodies (consisting of the "substance of light") into flesh:

  "For he who sees God cannot live. For the excess of light dissolves the flesh (sarka) of him who sees; unless by the secret power of God the flesh be changed into the nature of light (hé sarx eis phusin trapéi phótos), so that it can see light, or the substance of light be changed into flesh (hé tou phótos ousia eis sarka trapéi), so that it can be seen by flesh. For the power to see the Father, without undergoing any change, belongs to the Son alone. But the just shall also in like manner behold God; for in the resurrection of the dead, when they have been changed, as far as their bodies (ta somata) are concerned, into light, and become equal to the angels (isaggeloi genóntai), they shall be able to see him. Finally, then, if any angel (aggelon) be sent that be may he seen by a man, he is changed into flesh (trepetai eis sarka), that he may be able to be seen by flesh" (Pseudo-Clementines, Homily 17.16).

  This is quite different from the JW belief that angels merely "materialized" bodies. The likening of the bodies of the resurrected dead to the angels can be found in other places in apocalyptic literature, which frequently uses the metaphor "robe" to refer to the heavenly body adopted by the dead. According to the Ascension of Isaiah, faithful men of old like Enoch and Elijah, who had been taken up into heaven, were "stripped of their robes of the flesh and I saw them in their robes of above, and they were like the angels who stand there in great glory", (9:9), and similarly the "spirits" of those who are currently dead "do not receive their robes until the Lord Christ ascends and they ascend with him, then indeed they will receive their robes and their thrones and their crowns" (v. 17-18). A close parallel can be found in the description of Enoch's ascension into heaven, in which God instructs Michael: "Go, and extract Enoch from his earthly clothing and anoint him with my delightful oil, and put him into the clothes of my glory" (2 Enoch 22:8), and when this had been done, Enoch declared: "I looked at myself, and I had become like one of the glorious ones, and there was no observable difference" (v. 10). These statements are close in concept to the Pauline characterization of the resurrection as a reclothing with a soma pneumatikos (1 Corinthians 15:53-54), which at the same time involves a transformation of the body of flesh. See also 2 Baruch 51, which claims that those judged righteous "will be glorified by transformations ... into the splendor of angels" and, seeing the world "now invisible to them", they "will live in the heights of that world and they will be like the angels and be equal to the stars" (v. 3, 5, 10).

  There are a few sources however which imply that all angels are incorporeal. The most striking is Recension A of the Testament of Abraham, which makes the claim that "all the heavenly spirits are incorporeal (panta ta epourania pneumata huparkhousin asómata), and they neither eat nor drink" (4:9). This holds true for Michael the archangel, who is humorously depicted as asking God how he was supposed to appear before Abraham as a man when he lacks the ability to accept his hospitality. God informs him that he will send an invisible devouring spirit, who would consume the food and drink on Michael's behalf, creating the appearance of Michael's humanity. This is a clearly docetic conception of angelic incarnation. A similar scenario plays out in Tobit, which presents Raphael as similarly faking the ability to eat: "All these days I merely appeared to you (óptanomen humin) and did not eat or drink, but you were seeing a vision" (12:19). Michael also instantly vanishes in another part of the story in Recension A (Testament of Abraham 8:1). Moreover, this version of the story does not assume resurrection; at death, the soul of Abraham is simply taken up into Paradise where the tents of the patriarchs will reside "in his bosom, where there is no toil, no grief, no moaning, but peace and exultation and endless life" (20:14). This tradition thus is closer to the immortality of the soul than the belief in the resurrection. Recension B, however, lacks all the docetic touches of A and does assume a future resurrection: "You will be taken up into the heavens while your body remains on the earth until seven thousand ages are fulfilled. For then all flesh will be raised" (Testament of Abraham 7:15-16; recension B).

  The second-century Christian writer Theodotus went into the other direction and claimed that even demons were embodied:

  "The demons are said to be incorporeal (ta daimonia asómata eirétai), but not because they have no bodies (oukh hós sóma mé ekhonta) since even they have shape (skhéma) and are, therefore, capable of feeling punishment. They are said to be incorporeal because, in comparison with the spiritual bodies (sómatón pneumatikón) which are saved, they are a shade (skia onta). And the angels are bodies (hoi aggeloi sómata eisin); at any rate they are seen" (Clement of Alexandria, Excerpta ex Theodoto, 1.14)

  As for reembodiment in the resurrection, here are some other interesting statements. The first is from a legend of the resurrection of Jeremiah:

  "They did not bury him but remained in a circle around his tabernacle for three days, saying, 'At what hour is he going to rise (anasténai)?' After three days, his soul came into his body (meta de treis hémeras eisélthen hé psukhé autou eis to sóma autou) and he lifted up his voice" (4 Baruch 9:14).

  And here is a discourse from Josephus:

  "[Righteous] people depart from this life in accordance with the law of nature, thus repaying what God had lent them ... their souls (hai psukhai) remain without blemish, and obedient, and receive the most holy place in heaven (ouranion ton hagiótaton). From there, when the ages come round again, they come back to live in holy bodies (sómasin). But when people lay hands upon themselves in a fit of madness, the darker regions of Hades receive their souls (tas psukhas)" (Bellum Judaicum, 3.374-375).

  Does this help answer some of your questions?
• 

  Narkissos

  It may be interesting to note that "resurrect" in the NT corresponds to two distinct lexical "families", egeirô and anistèmi. While their semantic fields largely overlap and they are often used interchangeably, the marginal difference of their basic meanings (close to the difference between "wake up" and "rise up") still favours a slight nuance, or rather a different angle -- the former subjective (with a stress on "consciousness" as in "being awake"), the latter objective (with more obvious bodily implications).

  Paul's own vocabulary for "resurrection" is almost exclusively the former (egeirô, "wake up"); the substantive anastasis belongs mostly to pre-Pauline tradition. In 1 Corinthians 15, as the Jewish belief of (bodily) resurrection (anastasis, v. 12f) is being challenged as an absurdity to the Greek mind, he tries (dangerously and not very convincingly imo) to have the two appear logically inseparable, by making anastasis the material condition of egersis as it were. Only in this context does he venture into the difficult notions of "spiritual bodies" vs. "flesh and blood" (which would probably have left many unsatisfied among both the Greeks and the Jews).

  Assuming that 1 Corinthians 15 and Romans 5 were written in that order, I think it is illuminating to note what Paul leaves out when he comes back to the Adam/Christ parallelism.
• 

  Leolaia

  With respect to Adam/Christ parallelism in Paul, there is a very interesting observation by Orlov that the glorification of Enoch in 2 Enoch (involving his transformation into the form of angels) is intended to be the counterpoint to the experience of Adam in the tradition represented in the Greek Life of Adam and Eve, in a rather similar manner that Christ is the counterpoint of Adam in the Pauline tradition. As the conception of Enoch in2 Enoch lies somewhere between the Parables of Enoch (1 Enoch 37-71) (which presents Enoch as the Son of Man) and 3 Enoch (in which Enoch is presented as Metatron and the "lesser YHWH"), we find a glorified Enoch who "stands in front of the face of the Lord for eternity" and who "carried away the sin of mankind" (2 Enoch 64:5, 67:2).

  I forgot to mention that as early as the Animal Apocalpse, we have a description of Moses becoming transformed into an angel (i.e. sheep -> man) on account of his experience of coming into God's presence on Mount Sinai, for, as the Israelites declared, "We are not able to stand before the presence of our Lord and to look at him" (1 Enoch 89:31, 36). This account is interpretive of Exodus 34:29-35, which describes Moses' appearance as radiant with glory after he came down from the mountain.
• 

  M.J.

  Thanks!

  I guess the WT isn't totally out of line by making a distinction between "flesh" and that which is possessed by "spiritual beings".

  The big picture's clearer now.

  If one holds to inerrancy of scripture, it seems the choice would be to either hold on to the gospels' account of Christ's resurrected flesh and reinterpret Paul & Peter's statements which suggest the resurrection body is not "flesh". I've heard it argued that "flesh and blood" is an idiom for natural, fallen man (as in Matt 16:17, Gal 1:16, Eph 6:12), which was the gist of what Paul meant in 1:Cor 15:50. Or you could go the opposite route and state that in the gospels, Christ changed the substance of his body back into flesh for demonstration purposes, which I think is a bit dubious. In any case, I suppose the precise substance of the body couldn't be as important as the fact that it is resurrected, and the WT definition of resurrection comes out of nowhere.

  I finally got around to focusing on your first post, Narkissos.

  So the resurrected Jesus can be identified either to that (ecclesiastical ) body or to the Spirit animating it (1 Corinthians 15:45; cf. 2 Corinthians 3:17)

  Unfortunately the NWT sticks "Jehovah" in 2 Cor 3:17...

  So in other words, 1 Cor 15:45 is not oriented toward identifying either Adam or Christ as individuals qualitatively, but instead is a figurative description concerning the big picture contrast between fallen humanity and adoption into the divine status of God's children. I'll have to chew on this one more, but it's a great thought.

  I'm not done analyzing your posts yet...