Homer wrote:Hi Melontes,
I have been following most of your posts and am unsure of what you believe regarding the future state of the resurrected. It is my understanding that we will have a spiritual body that will have also some sort of physicality.
Consider the following, particularly the underlined parts:
1 Corinthians 15:20-23 (NKJV):
20. But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming.
Corinthians 15:35-55 (NKJV):
35. But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” 36. Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies. 37. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other grain. 38. But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body. 39. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. 40. There are also celestial bodies and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. 41. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. 42. So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 43. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. 44. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. 45. And so it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46. However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward the spiritual. 47. The first man was of the earth, made of dust; the second Man is the Lord from heaven. 48. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust; and as is the heavenly Man, so also are those who are heavenly. 49. And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man.
50. Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed— 52. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55. “ O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”
Paul asks the question regarding what kind of body we will have in the resurrection, and the answer appears to be that we will have a body like (or of the same kind) as Jesus' resurrected body. The "firstfruits" comparison would seem to nail that down. The following crop is of the same kind as the firstfruit. The seed produces a plant similar to the plant it came from. And the following would seem to further nail it down:
Luke 24:36-43 (NKJV):
36. Now as they said these things, Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and said to them, “Peace to you.” 37. But they were terrified and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit. 38. And He said to them, “Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39. Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.” 40. When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. 41. But while they still did not believe for joy, and marveled, He said to them, “Have you any food here?” 42. So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. 43 And He took it and ate in their presence.
I have long considered the fact that He consumed food as an action He took to prove the physicality of His (and our) resurrected body. And it seems to me we have a promise of eating with Him in that future eschaton.
Is your view concerning our resurrected body different than mine? If so, I would be interested in any scriptures that might support your ideas. (Hope this isn't to far off the subject of the thread)
God bless, Homer
It looks like there are no off-topic subjects in this thread. Our apologies to Doug if this is so...
I can only answer in snippet form. To develop each is something that has been accomplished by several authors a long time ago...
Yes, my view of the resurrection is quite different. I am sure we have not yet shed our futuristic teachings, and in particular, the dispensational view of "physical" fulfillments...
Many desire a "physical" end to this planet and an end of the this "age" with only a heavenly existence for those that made it. However, the "end" spoken of in the Bible has
NOTHING to do with the end of the planet or an end of history or an end of time. This is what has really messed us up...
The "end" is strictly the
last or latter days period of the old covenant age - the "time of the end" as Daniel says...
The OT is written to fulfill the hope of the Jews. The OT also gives little snippets here and there as to how the Gentiles would become co-heirs of the same promise to the Jews. That promise is the resurrection of the Jews. People point to the "dead bones" prophecy of Ezekiel and say, "See, it must be a physical resurrection!" But what about the bodies buried thousands of years ago that have
completely disintegrated (no bones)? Does Ezekiel apply to them too? It is simply figurative language very common to the prophets talking about the re-establishment of the Jews from the dead. It is a promise to old covenant Jews and no one else. Gentiles just squeeze in by the hair of their chinny chin chins... Without the hope of Israel (as Paul referred to it) being fulfilled (past tense), we, as Gentiles, can not become heirs. Therefore, the promise must already be fulfilled to Israel!!! Which brings me to the most abused passage in Scripture (aside from the time statements) - 1 Corinthains 15. Now, Homer, if you say you have been following my posts, then you must have encountered the post where I talk of the
present passive verbs ("being" verbs) in 1 Corinthians 15. Because of a futurist bias of a "physical" resurrection (which obviously has not happened), those verbs have been translated with a "sort of" future view. You will find that when you translate those verbs correctly, it is phrases like this that change things: "the dead BEING raised" -
a process already happening! The resurrection of Israel was underway...but it was not physical resurrections.
The "body" that is raised is Christ's body - the body of Christ - the church - the NEW COVENANT BODY. It is a resurrection from death unto life WHILE STILL ALIVE! This same resurrection was the reason why the Pharisees and Sadducees wanted Paul dead - the Sadducees because they didn't believe in the resurrection, and the Pharisees because they were looking for "physical" fulfillments. Paul's view of the resurrection displeased both groups just as mine (Paul's) displeases most Christians. We are obsessed by physical fulfillments and base our entire eschatological structure on a PRESUPPOSED
NATURE of events.
The Jews missed their Messiah (even though He stood right in front of them) because they PRESUPPOSED a physical kingdom, a physical leader, a physical throne and a release from physical bondage (Rome). Dispensationalists are still looking for the same fulfillments except for the "bondage" one...Most Christians are still looking for physical fulfillments in regard to the 2nd coming. Most base their objections on Acts 1:11 where they say, "See, Christ left in a physical body, therefore He must return in one too." But the text states no such thing; the view is "inserted." Look again at the Phrase "shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven." The manner is in strict relation to two
verbs (sorry for the emphasis but it is necessary. The angel is not talking about the nature of Christ's body; he is talking about MANNER - how He comes in comparison as to how He left. If I drove up to your house and popped in for a visit and at the end of the visit I ran to my car jumped in (convertible top), started the car, rammed the clutch, hammered down on the gas pedal, and popped the clutch squealing down your driveway, (the tires smoking and such) and then rammed it into second gear and squealed some more, how would you say my manner of leaving was? Would you instantly say, "Oh, yes. His manner was that he left in a physical body." That is exactly what we are dealing with here.
First of all, the angels said "
as ye have seen him go into heaven," but He was hidden from sight (by a cloud) wasn't He? In other words, His coming could easily be inferred as one not visible. Second of all, A cloud received in out of their sight. It could also be easily stated that His coming would be in a cloud. And third of all, His coming is to be as the glory of the Father (MT 16:27) because all judgment had been committed unto Him (John 5:27). We already have a precedent for previous days of the LORD in the OT. Not one of them involved a physical and visible deity. In every one of them, God used either people or insects to take care of His judgment. The day of the Lord in 70 AD matches this pattern PERFECTLY, and why shouldn't it?
The resurrection is of a spiritual nature as Christ Himself said (John 5:24). When individuals "believe" they are passed from death unto life. This is the aspect of redemption most often left out. People are waiting for the redemption of their body. The dead, decaying physical corpse has NOTHING to do with redemption. This is a complete carry-over of a wrong view of original sin...
In the day that Adam ate he would surely die.
In the day that Adam ate he would know both good and evil.
In the day that he did eat he did die and he knew good and evil. What most propose is that Adam just "started" to die and that he would eventually die some 900 or so years later. This makes me ask, "Did Adam also just "start" to know good and evil and would eventually completely know good and evil?" The answer is clearly no - at least, I think it is clear. Adam did die that day and he was physically ousted from the Garden as an object lesson. However, Adam died SPIRITUALLY
that day as in being separated from the
presence of God (which btw, is what the "parousia" essentially means). He was kicked out from the garden to demonstrate that spiritual REALITY. So if one errors in the foundation of sin, they error in the redemption of the sin.
I am fully, 100% redeemed RIGHT NOW because Christ has become sin for me and the curse of sin
HAS BEEN LIFTED (past tense) in Him. I am not waiting to "see" if I have been redeemed after I physically die. That is probably one of the biggest difference between full-preterism and partial -preterism - we have a fully, realized hope whereas most have an unrealized hope.
Every Christian author who is honest with himself realizes that the 1st century generation fully expected Christ to "appear" again the second time within their generation just as Jesus said (Mt 24:34). There are literally hundreds of time statements to this effect. However, all these have had to be explained away because a PHYSICAL NATURE of eschatological events is what is expected.
So, if one realizes that the hope of Israel is the resurrection, and that because Israel has had its hope fulfilled, then the Gentiles can be brought into that same hope, one is well on their way to understanding the NT.
The entire NT is devoted to the exchange and transition of covenants (from old to new), the new inaugurated at the cross and the old finally and completely vanquished in 70 AD with the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple. It is totally a Jewish story from beginning to end. Imagine two very tall capitalized letter "I"'s: the first "I" on the left indicating Calvary and the second on the right representing 70 AD. The space in between is 40 years (a biblical generation match exactly the time of the wilderness wanderings before the "physical" promised land was reached after a "purging" of the unbelievers) Draw a line from the
bottom of the first "I" to the top of the second "I". Draw a second line from the top of the first "I" to the bottom of the second "I". You should have a rectangular "X" pattern. Label the first line "New Covenant." Label the second line "Old Covenant." This pictorial representation shows how the "new" gradually began and eventually achieved fullness with the coming of the Lord to end the "age." It also show the gradual decline of the old covenant (made of no effect at the cross) to its eventual and total demise in 70 AD to bring judgment upon the unbelieving Jews who tight-fistedly held on to the old covenant as the means of salvation. These people completely missed the typology of the old ceremonial system as pointing to Christ their Messiah.
Now look up Hebrews 1:2, Hebrews 1:11, Hebrews 8:13, Hebrews 9:26-28, Hebrews 10:37
Why does Paul refer to the "elements" (Galatians 4:3, 9; Colossians 2:8, 20; Hebrews 5:12) (Strongs 4747, stoichea) as "abstract" things dealing with religion, teaching, etc. and Peter' "elements" (2 Peter 3:10, 12) somehow have to be completely UNRELATED to Paul's "elements" despite Peter's mention of these characteristics of "end" time events as being in ALL of Paul's epistles (2 Peter 3:15). Peter's "elements" have nothing to do with the composition of the cosmos, or similarly related; they do however, have lots to do with the old covenant economy that was soon to be destroyed. It was "the end of all things" (1 Peter 4:7) that was "AT HAND" in Peter's day, not 2,000+ years away in some unknown future.
We have 2 Jerusalems - old and new
We have 2 heaven and earths - old and new
We have 2 covenants - old and new
We have 2 bodies - OC body of Adam and NC body in Christ
We have 2 temples - old covenant physical temple and the temple in Christ. Christ is the cornerstone of that temple and we are the lively stones.
We have 2priests - OC priest who governed the physical temple and Christians who are priset and kings by their "own" right.
We have 2 sacrifices - physical sacrifices in temple worship and sacrifices of praise and service in the spiritual temple (Christ)
The entire old covenant economy was but a shadow of Jesus Christ. Everything is fulfilled in HIM. The old has gone and the new is here.
It has absolutely nothing to do with physical fulfillments - these "physical" things existed only as a type of "things to come" - which is Jesus Christ our Lord.
Anyway, this is how I look at the Bible. Covenants and people...not planets.
And just one thing, those who are looking for an end of sin can only find it in Jesus Christ - the new covenant. It was He who abolished death (2 Timothy 1:10).
And if you ever wonder why that if Christ is the first fruits of the resurrection, why all the others who had been raised before would not be part of the resurrection? After all, they were raised from "physical" death weren't they? Answer: it is because being raised from death unto life does not concern itself with the physical realm. If Christ's resurrection was not from spiritual death (separation from God - "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" - Mt 27:46), but only physical death, there is no way he could be considered the "first fruits." Christ was the first fruits because He was the first to be raised from spiritual death. The REALITY of that resurrection was physically demonstrated by his visible bodily reunion with His earthly body. There would be no other way to "prove" his resurrection from (spiritual) death if He was not reunited with His body. They all would have thought His mission was a hopeless wreck. Again, this stems from the Garden of Eden and the sin that Adam died and the sin that the second Adam came to conquer. The seed did bruise the serpent's head and the nearness of this time (70 AD) is represented in Romans 16:20...that is
IF you believe "shortly" means shortly...
Anyway, I am just one big blabbermouth. Have a safe holiday season...
