I often encounter trinitarians that say all of the apostles believed in the bodily reserrection of Christ. They often point to isolated verses in the bible where Jesus is called a "man" after his reserrection and this they believe is proof positive. The seem to throw out all of the verses in the new testament that shows Jesus arose "in the spirit" (1 Pet 3:18). One verse I love to ask "BR"(bodily reserrectioners) to explain is Galatians 1:1 where the apostle Paul clearly shows that he is an apostle of Jesus not of men or a man but of Jesus. This would totally make no sense if Paul believed Jesus still had his fleshly body in heaven. Another scripture needing explaining is the verse in Galatians 3:26-29 where Paul says you are neither Jew, nor greek, nor male, nor female. This shows there is no gender in heaven and if Christ arose as a fleshly man than Paul lied in these verses. If Jesus arose in the same body he had before he died than all of his disciples would have recognized him especially Mary Magdeline but she thought he was the gardener.
Did the Apostle Paul teach and believe in the "bodily reserrection of Christ" doctrine?
by booker-t 23 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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sarahsmile
What Trinitarian church believes Jesus physical body is in heaven? Ask that church to verify this doctrine.Call them up.
Next, how important is it? Some keep old doctrine but members are not forced to believe them and they can still partake and get baptized. Acts is the only scrpture thay comes to mind.
Acts 1
Until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen:
And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their sight.
10 And while they looked stedfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel;
11 Which also said, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? this same Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven.
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Band on the Run
Every single Protestant seminary professor and priest/minister I have ever met believes from Jewish thought at the time of Jesus that Jesus was physically resurrected after his death - if he were resurrected. It is central to church doctrine. They believe that sometime during the ascension Jesus' body transformed to what Jesus was before the Incarnation.
Every single sold NT book I have ever read, that is not church related, states this with certainy. Not that he ascended into heaven. The apostles and first Christians were all Jews and they were not sophisticated with Greek notions. Not all Jews believed in physical resurrection. Saducees vs. Pharisees. The ones who believed in resurrection could not conceive of a Greek resurrection. Altho I watch Star Trek, I cannot conceive what certain life forms think. I thought they revised Star Trek's mission in later seasons to only certain class planets. Nonhumanoid or carbon based life is possible.
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mP
BoR
Every single Protestant seminary professor and priest/minister I have ever met believes from Jewish thought at the time of Jesus that Jesus was physically resurrected after his death - if he were resurrected.
mP:
And there are one billion mulsims that believe mohammad split the moon in two and flew on a horse to Jerusalem and then went to heaven.
Many priests are lying scum bags, just look at the pedophile problem.
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Honesty
Can anyone explain these verses to me?...
Colossians 2:9 - For in Him the entire fullness of God’s nature dwells bodily
Luke 24:39 - See; my hands and my feet: it is I myself; put your hands on me and make certain; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.
Revelation 1:17-18 - When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. He laid His right hand on me, and said, “Don’t be afraid! I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades .
Thanks.
1 Peter 3:18 For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, after being put to death in the fleshly realmbut made alive in the spiritual realm.
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barry
Our Lord came to this earth with all the physical defects of sin. He wasn't like adam 9 ft tall and as broard as a door. When the bible speaks of flesh it is refering to the effects of sin in many cases.
Jesus said himself he would be a sacrifice and in three days he would be ressurected. What about the empty tomb? What about Thomas who said he wanted to place on Jesus wounds?What about when Jesus saw his followers and he asked for fish to eat and declaired a spirit doesn't flesh and bones.
As Jesus body was changed into a spiritual body so we will be changed at the second comming it says in revelation our bodies will be changed into an incorruptual body.
Christianity relys on the ressurection of the body and can be found in the creeds.
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Rattigan350
This whole bodily resurrection makes no sense. They just take things literally too much without thinking.
How could he take his body to heaven? When asked that they say it is a glorifed body.
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Cold Steel
Booker-T: I often encounter trinitarians that say all of the apostles believed in the bodily resurrection of Christ. They often point to isolated verses in the bible where Jesus is called a “man” after his resurrection and this they believe is proof positive.
Sorry, Booker-T, but all the apostles believed in Jesus’ bodily resurrection. The reason is fourfold: 1) Jesus prophesied that if his enemies tore down his body (temple) that he would build it up again in three days; 2) they saw Jesus and saw that he had a body of flesh and bones (not blood, bones); 3) Jesus told them that he wasn’t a spirit, for, as he said, “a spirit hath not flesh and bone as ye see I have.” Finally, 4) he demonstrated to them that he wasn’t a spirit. He let them thrust their hands into his feet and hands, and into his side. Then he ate fish with them and shortly thereafter broke bread and blessed wine.
Thus, Jesus’ resurrection was prophesied; his disciples saw and witnessed that he had a body of flesh and bones. Jesus, himself, denied strenuously that he was a spirit and, in fact, demonstrated it to them.
By the way, I’m not a “Trinitarian” in the traditional sense; however, the scriptures tell us that Jesus was not Michael, the Archangel, but rather, the great Jehovah, the Savior, the Shepherd and Judge of the World. The Beginning and The End, and the great Intercessor between the Father (El, or Elyon) and man.
They seem to throw out all of the verses in the new testament that shows Jesus arose “in the spirit” (1 Pet 3:18).
Completely untrue. When Jesus was on the cross, he told the thief, “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” This paradise is not heaven, but a holding place. Origen, one of the earliest church fathers and one who was considered to have one foot in the first century church and the later church, wrote concerning Paradise: “After death,” he says, “I think the saints go to Paradise, a place of teaching, a school of the spirits in which everything they saw on earth will be made clear to them. Those who were pure in heart will progress more rapidly, reaching the kingdom of heaven by definite steps or degrees.”
Peter also records: “ For...this cause was the gospel preached also to them that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh, but live according to God in the spirit. ” (1 Peter 4:6) Thus, men die and are taught the Gospel of Christ as spirits. This is done so that afterwards, they may be judged in the same manner, or “according to” men in the flesh.
When Jesus was put to death in the flesh, his spirit departed and went to Paradise. There, he initiated the teaching of recalcitrant spirits who had perished in the ages before the Atonement became efficacious for them. Thus were the words of Isaiah fulfilled: “And they shall be gathered together, as prisoners are gathered in the pit, and shall be shut up in the prison, and after many days shall they be visited.” (Isa. 24:22) Also: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. (Isa. 61:2)
One verse I love to ask “BR” (bodily resurrectioners) to explain is Galatians 1:1 where the apostle Paul clearly shows that he is an apostle of Jesus not of men or a man but of Jesus. This would totally make no sense if Paul believed Jesus still had his fleshly body in heaven.
How do you arrive at that conclusion? Again, Jesus clearly wasn’t just a man; he was Yahweh, the Messiah, the Holy One of Israel, our Advocate with the Father. There is no evidence whatsoever that Jesus was resurrected as a spirit. If he had, he would have been a liar and a deceiver, and what possible reason would he have to mislead the apostles? Remember, Jesus “showed himself alive” after his resurrection, showing “many infallible proofs, being seen of them forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God: and, being assembled together with them, commanded them....” (Acts 1:3-4) Not only did they receive revelation via the Holy Spirit, they were receiving instructions directly from the Savior, who clearly was not a spirit.
Another scripture needing explaining is the verse in Galatians 3:26-29 where Paul says you are neither Jew, nor Greek, nor male, nor female. This shows there is no gender in heaven, and if Christ arose as a fleshly man than Paul lied in these verses.
This is a complete non sequitur.
For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.
If we take this in a strictly literal way, then we all absorbed spiritually into Jesus. We lose our individualities, our genders, our backgrounds, and we are somehow consolidated physically and spiritually into Jesus, becoming literally one with him. Of course this is ridiculous. Paul is simply saying that in the Gospel it doesn’t matter it you’re a king or a queen, or if you’re a laborer, or of the House of Israel or are a gentile or if you are male or female. Salvation is available to all because we are the children of God and co-heirs with Christ.
In the resurrection, not a hair on your head will be lost. When Jesus was resurrected, his body was gone! Where did it go? He was using it. It had gone from being a thing of clay to a being of unimaginable light and glory. Instead of flesh and blood, he was flesh and bone, with spirit instead of blood. And we become one with Christ in the same way that Christ is one with the Father.
If Jesus arose in the same body he had before he died then all of his disciples would have recognized him, especially Mary Magdalene but she thought he was the gardener.
There is no “if.” The angel announced, “He is not here...he has risen!” Again, where was his body if he had not risen?
If Mary did not recognize him, and if the apostles who saw him on the road, it is a monumental non sequitur to suppose it was because he was a spirit. How about the time Jesus angered the Jews by announcing that he was the one who spoke to the ancient patriarchs as Yahweh? When in a blind fury they sought to stone him, he vanished out of their sight. How do you suppose he did that? Was he a spirit then? Or perhaps he had the power to cause people who were looking at him to not see him. That would allow him to pass through the people without being detected. Perhaps, too, he intentionally clouded the minds of the apostles so they could not recognize him. Perhaps he wanted them to see him with their spiritual eyes, for they later said that when he opened the scriptures to them, “did not our hearts burn within us?”
The resurrection has a purpose. Each of us has a spirit within our body and perhaps, together, they work to a greater purpose. Jesus, after his resurrection, was a completely different being than he was before coming to Earth. We know that through the Atonement, we all receive our bodies back, glorified and perfected. Some are raised to greater glories than others, depending on how they lived their lives, and Paul likened it to the sun, moon, and stars. And even these have varying degrees of glory as we behold them on the earth. (See 1 Cor. 15)
So yes, the apostles were all believers in the bodily resurrection of Jesus.
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cofty
Instead of flesh and blood , he was flesh and bone , with spirit instead of blood - Cold Steel
So according to you Jesus has no blood.
Therefore Jesus has no heart which is simply a pump for blood.
He has no lungs which only exist to exchange oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood.
He also has no liver since it cleanses the blood and produces chemicals to process food. If he has no blood then he has no metabolism since that requires oxygen which is carried by blood.
It therefore follows that he has no need of food and so his body has no stomach or intestines or colon or anus. He also has no need of a bladder, kidneys or urethra - does he have a use for a penis?
How do his muscles work in the absence of oxygen. Muscle contraction depends on ATP which comes from food.
Waht sort of "body" is this exactly?
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Band on the Run
I don't mean to be rude. The bodily resurrection of Jesus is accepted as valid Christianity by members of other religfions. Not that it happend but as the fundamentalist form of Christianity. I researched this extensively in college and throughout the years. It shocks me that former Witnesses could maintain the belief that Jesus was a spirit after resurrection. Thomas demanded proof.
I've spent hundreds if not thousands of hours reading the academic literature and the Bible. The spirit body makes no sense. A few Christianities accepted it but not the host. It is a Gnostic belief. Only the Gnostics refused to have Jesus in a body while he was alive. You may be impressed with your research and honestly believe it. You are entitled to your view.
The physical resurrection has profound consequences pyschologically, socially, and theologically. Jesus is fully human and fully God according to Christian traditioin. Trinitarian triumphed for politcal and social reasons. The theology was secondary. The gospels emphasize his physicalilty. The road to Emmaus. Mary Magdalene. The Witnesses are wacko in their interpretation.
Jesus told and angered the Jewish authorities when he stated that if the Temple fell, God could make the very stones on the earth into his followers. It is not a casual, ordinary Jesus statement. It is powerful and important. No Jew at the time could comprehend a spiritual body resurrection. Russell had no say, neither did Rutherford. Jews emphasized physicality and humanity. The early Christians were all Jewish Christians. As I stated, a spiritual resurrection could not enter their minds. Stephen may have been different.
The Witnesses are an aberration of an aberration. The vasty majoirty of Christians believe in the physical resurrection. Jesus' humanity is necessary for Christianity. How can a spirit spook know what it is to be human? This fully God, fully human is what caused Jewish hatred of Christians. They threw them out of the synagogues, temples, and stoned some declarers of Jesus' humanity or godliness.
You are mistaken. What is nonChristian about the Trinity belief There is no scriptural suppport for either a Triniterian or Unitarian belief. None. We extrapolate for complicated reasons. You have no idea of first cenutry Judaism or any other culture. Of course, I only read what I read because a prof I trusted gave us reading lists. Christianity is hard to access without a trusted filter. It is complex. Too many idiots believe they hav einsight without knowing the languages, several cultures, and histories. The WT and Awake are the most basic examples of this.
Do you think the hare Krishnas in America are truly Hindu? NO way.
Quoitng isolated scriptures with no context or hisotry/culture or language acquistion is mistaken. I can understand it because I once did it. If you research in a more cohesive way, you would realize that the Witnesses are very wrong. Do they have a legal right to believe it" Absolutely. Your personal view is your personal view. You will convince no true Christian or legitimate scholar.
Jesus; physicality both during his life time and afterwards is paramount to basic Christianity. It is mere Christianity. No Christian will believe your isolated scriptures. I can prove any silly proposition by isolated scriptures.