GakuseiDon

It's not my rewrite. It seems to be the favoured interpretation, though possibly they are Christians or non-Christians locked into a historicist paradigm.

Well, can you tell me what Paul means again in 15:42 please? What exactly is being sown (put into the earth?) in corruption if not the physical body?

1 Cor 15:35 But someone will say, "How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?"

1 Cor 15:42 So also is the resurrection of the dead, sown in corruption, raised in incorruption.


Finally, are you aware of anyone ever using "resurrection of the dead" to NOT mean a physical resurrection?

Steven Carr

The dead bodies are sown in corruption, and the dead are raised in spiritual bodies. But one body does not turn into another.

We shed one set of clothes and receive another, or to use another of Paul's favourite analogies, we leave one dwelling place and enter another.

Paul says 'If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body'. Note the also.

Paul thinks we will have a body made of spirit. 'The last Adam became a life-giving spirit'.

GakuseiDon

Romans 7 doesn't seem to imply that. Paul says:

21 I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good.
22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.
23 But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
24 O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?

The "body of death" are his members warring against the law of his mind, causing sin. How is this relevent to the topic of resurrection?

Are you saying that Paul is literally telling the Corinthinians to hand the guy over to Satan for his flesh's destruction? Or that Paul is telling them to kill the guy? I couldn't find anyone supporting such an interpretation. They suggest that Paul is simply telling them to excommunicate the guy, removing him from the church's protection and thus subject to Satan.

If it is talking about excommunication, then it has nothing to do with "the fate of the flesh". I can't see how this passage touches on the resurrection at all in that case. Can you expand on this, please?

Since (in my view) Paul believed the body was transformed into a glorified version which obviously weren't on view at the time, I can't see how this passage helps you.

Steve, some of your points are rambling and not well thought out. Perhaps your main purpose is to show that Paul and the Gospels are at odds with each other over the resurrection? (Maybe JPH said that they weren't or something). If so, I would agree. But I'm really only concerned with Paul's internal consistency on this belief.

Steven Carr

Has anybody ever used 'circumcision' to NOT mean a physical circumcision?

Romans 2
No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code.

How do you circumcise the heart?

Philippians 3

2Watch out for those dogs, those men who do evil, those mutilators of the flesh. 3For it is we who are the circumcision, we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh

Paul has no confidence in the flesh.

Why, when it will be the material that God will use to create our glorified bodies?


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CARR

1 Cor. 5:5 'hand this man over to Satan for the destruction of his flesh, so that his spirit may be saved on the day of the Lord'.

How does this touch on the resurrection? You can't at all see how it does?

Do you see the words 'saved on the day of the Lord'?

And can you see the word 'spirit'? That is what will be saved on the day of the Lord.

And can you see the phrase 'body will be saved on the day of the Lord'?

Clivedurdle

This verse I think completely messes up the traditional salvation story! If it is to do with excommunication, that means allowing someone to continue sinning outside the communion of the church is Ok - their spirit will still be saved on the day of the Lord!

I am getting the very strong impression that Paul was definitely not preaching a gospel that has any relationship to the traditional understanding we have now!

I am seeing as in a glass darkly:

The purpose of the church is to carry out gnostic and alchemic rituals - centred on the the eucharist - to cause the coming of the Christ - who has not been and is spiritual and has been seen in visions.

That it does not matter if people fall away - their spirits will be saved on the day of the lord (god is omnipotent) - their are more than enough people to continue the eucharist ritual.

We have a record of this guy going around to groups saying things that have no relationship at all to Gospels-Acts but is directly related to Didache, gnostic and alchemic and messianic thinking.

Christ has died once for all in the heavens and "Christ is Risen" - NOT AN EARTHLY JESUS!

This is a religion that is preaching that everyone is saved, Satan has our fleshly bodies, so why worry about marriage - unless ye burn, etc - it is pragmatic, temporary stuff (obey your masters, submit to your husbands) awaiting the coming of the Christ in Glory! Satan has the classic role of god's servant, tempting us now. Yup there are thousands of loose threads, but that is because this set of beliefs are that - a set of beliefs!

mikem

[QUOTE]I've no problem with the Greek. If you check my posts, you'll seeI put bible quotes in bold as a matter of course.

When Paul speaks of his "body of death" he is referring to his sinful and corrupt nature. In verse 18 he says that nothing good dwells within him, that is in his flesh. Paul often uses this word to denote human nature in rebellion against God's Spirit. (See Romans 8:5,6). The whole of chapter 7 is about the struggle experienced by the believer wanting to be controlled by God's spirit, and being pulled down by the corrupt flesh. It is in this context that 7:25 should be read. Paul is not talking about the resurrection, but about being freed from the power of sin.

Paul often speaks of both redemption and being redeemed. In Ephesians 1:7, he speaks of redemption through the blood of Christ. The controlling metaphor behind the NT usage of redemption is that of a price being paid for our freedom. See also Romans 3:24, 25, where the same thought is made even more explicit. In Romans 8:23, Paul means the same thing. He is talking about our future salvation, when what is now true of our souls, will be made true of our bodies. He sets this in the context of the whole physical creation being transformed.

This is a straightforward non-metaphorical use of the word. The author of Hebrews is unknown, and most scholars think it was highly unlikely to be Paul. The way the word is used is hardly the "very opposite of resurrection". The subject of the passage is heroes of the faith, and resurrection is mentioned only in connection with the hope entertained by those who were willing to die for their faith. It says nothing about the mode of resurrection.

I go back to the point I made in an earlier post, which is that it is the context that determines the meaning of a word, and not it's literal dictionary definition that determines the meaning of the context. There is no literal dictionary definition anyway, because the writers did not leave us dictionaries to show what words meant. Scholars compare how different writers used a given word, which gives us a general working meaning, but frequently there are several meanings which can slide into one another.

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Previous posts indicate why I cannot agree with this.

Luther said that in reading the Bible, a goods rule of thumb was to interpret ambiguous passages in the light of more straightforward passages. Paul is elsewhere quite clear that the body is to be raised, and this passage does not contradict that. Note that Paul does not say "body", he says "flesh", which elsewhere refers to the corrupt part of human nature. The negative goal of excommunication is hopefully to lead the wrongdoer to the extinction of his impure desires, and positively that he would return to the fold chastened, and therby this restoration would ensure his salvation. I don't think any more needs to be read into this. Paul in 2 Corinthians 12:7 refers to being given "a thorn in the flesh", a "messenger of Satan", to keep him from being too elated. I think Paul's reference to "being handed over to Satan", is likewise metaphorical. I think that for him the notion was connected with suffering that would lead to salvation. 2 corinthians 2: 5 - 11 supports this interpretation I think.

In 2 Corinthians 2: 5- 11 Paul addresses the Corinthians on this matter again, telling them that the wrongdoer should now be forgiven and restored "or he may be overwhelmed by excessive sorrow"verse 7. It would appear that this person had now repented, but that the majority were still excluding him. In this passage Paul indicates that the purpose of punishment (excommunication) was meant to be remedial.

The is nothing here to deny a physical resurrection. This is not what this passage is about. The distinction here is between the things that are unimportant, and the things that really matter. In the previous verses he spoke in terms of weights: lightness of affliction/eternal weight of glory Paul is using vivid imagery to speak about the future life. Paul is saying that the present life, which they can "see", is nothing compared with the future heavenly glory, which they hope for, but cannot yet "see". It is a similar though to 1 Corinthians 13:12 "Now we se in a glass, darkly, but then face to face".

Clivedurdle

Mikem, your response uses the terms "redemption through the blood of Christ', "ambiguous" and "flesh".

I don't think you missed all the earler MJ discussion, but blood and flesh are seriously ambiguous terms, no matter Luther pretending they are not and stating a very clear comment is ambiguous!

Look seriously at the eucharist as practised by the Catholic Church. The wine is believed to literally become the blood of Christ - protestants have diluted forms.

Paul seriously thought because of his and others' visions, because someone had invented some alchemic rituals and they thought they had gnosis that they were able to cause the coming of the Christ!

It is all there in the New Testament, church history and suppression of the heresies and current church practice! What is needed is to be clear about what is and is not ambiguous!

GakuseiDon

The equivalent in this case would be "does anyone use 'circumcision of the heart' literally"? "Resurrect" by itself can be used metaphorically, e.g. "resurrecting a career". But "resurrection of the dead" seems to have always referred to a physical resurrection" AFAICS.

As you say, it is the flesh that causes temptation that Paul has no confidence in. Elsewhere he describes the body as a "temple":

1 Cor 6:18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's.

As I mentioned earlier, the Christian idea of a physical resurrection was attacked by the pagans for centuries afterwards. The question (as I see it) was to how to make the body acceptable. Paul uses a process of transformation, i.e. the physical body becomes a spiritual one (as per his "we shall all be changed" passage), while the later Christians saw the flesh itself as somehow being purified. In both cases, the body is redeemed, as Paul says in Romans 8: "we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body".

Nope, I don't see how this relates to a resurrection, and now I think I can partly see your confusion. "Resurrection" means that something dies and that something gets raised again. In the "Ghost Whisperer" series on TV, the large-chested woman (I can't remember her name off hand) doesn't call the spirits that she sees as "resurrections of the dead". There is no resurrection -- the body dies, but the spirit continues and eventually goes into the "white light" and disappears.

What is being resurrected in 1 Cor 5:5? That a spirit is being saved DOESN'T make it a resurrection.

How about:
1Th 5:23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.