Steven Carr

1 Corinthians 15

But some will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?
You fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die



Paul certainly preached a bodily resurrection.


A spiritual body is still a body.


But his conception of a spiritual body was entirely different to the Gospels conception of a flesh and blood body which could eat food and still had wounds.


The Corinthians were querying the resurrection of the dead, although they accepted the resurrection of Jesus. Paul calls them idiots.


This could not be because they believed instead in the immortality of the soul.


Or else Paul would have corrected that wrong belief. But when he says they were idiots, he does not attack them for believing that the body died, but the soul lived on.


Dead bodies rot or are burned or eaten and vanish. They could hardly have been ‘idiots’ for wondering how God could transform a body that had vanished into a spiritual body. They realised God can transform water into wine, but you are by no means an ‘idiot’ for wondering how God can transform water into wine , when there is no water.


If the Corinthians were fools for doubting the resurrection of the dead, then they must have completely missed the point by wondering how God could transformed a decayed, rotting corpse into a living thing. Such questions must have been utterly irrelevant (which explains why Paul never addresses them.)


He calls them idiots for thinking the body died, and so could not be resurrected, when they did not realise that there were two bodies.


Of course the fleshly body dies, says Paul, but there is also a spiritual body. There is a body given to us by God to replace the flesh and blood body which perishes and can be destroyed.


Paul regards us being composed of ‘spirit’ (pneuma) , ’life’ (psyche) and body ‘soma’. As many have pointed out, there is no idea of a soul in Paul’s thought. God breathed life (psyche) into a body (as he did with Adam) and this body is then alive. Before then it was dust. After death, when it has lost its life or ‘psyche’, it will return to dust.


A natural body will lose its life (because of sin). When you die, your body no longer has ‘psyche’ - no longer has life.


People who rely on the ‘psyche’ - life -, have a psyhicon, or natural body, and that will perish. There is no hope in a natural body. Such people are not in Christ and have no pneuma – spirit.


However , those with spirit (pneuma), also have a spiritual (pneumatic) body, and this will be given to us at the resurrection (2 Cor. 5 explains that it is already prepared for us in Heaven). This is what Paul has hope in. Not in the visible body , which will perish, but in the invisible, which is eternal.


Our visible bodies are dominated by ‘psyche’ – life, and life will be lost.


But there is also ‘pneuma’, and this cannot be lost , as it is already in Christ.



Just as ‘psyche’ cannot exist by itself, and needs a body, ‘spirit’ cannot exist by itself and needs a body. Paul says again and again that a spiritual body is a body.


Hence all of Paul’s talk of 2 bodies – a natural and a spiritual body, and his berating the Corinthians for not realising that there was no problem in the decay and rotting of natural bodies, as that was to be expected.

judge

Says who?

You need to demonstrate this not just assert it.

Where do the gospels mention a flesh and blood body of Jesus post resurrection?
I think you will find they mention flesh and bone not flesh and blood.

Steven Carr

Wow! What an amazing quibble. You mean there was no blood in the resurrected Jesus. He must have looked quite pale.

judge

Apparently not. The term "flesh and blood" is used many times in the bible.

The tern flesh and bone appears as well (or similar terms)

They mean different things. Check it out if you doubt it.

Every where in the gospels we see that the resurrected Jesus was quite different.
He vanishes from their sight. He is not recognized. He is said to be in "different form" in Marks gospel.

His body is clearly different.

Read mark chapter 16. He appears in a different form!

guy_683930

So what's marrow then? It is blood that is within bones. So is it some kind of special bones that do not have marrow in them? Or how about the periosteum? It is blood vessels that are within bones. Is it lacking that as well?

CJD

Warning! These texts are not meant to be read like biological textbooks!

chapka

To be honest, I'm not exactly sure what this argument is about. But Luke at least makes it pretty clear that we're not talking about a "spiritual body" here:

CJD

Besides, no one in mainstream academia argues that the body now and the body then (as described in both the gospels and Paul's letters) are exactly the same. But both are clearly tangible. The choice is not between visible body and invisible body; the choice is between corruptible flesh and incorruptible flesh. For all your posting on this matter, Steven, you are absolutely unable to discredit this when taking the pertinent writings into account (incidentally, that's what this argument is about).

CJD

guy_683930

That's funny, because at least according to church tradition, Luke was a doctor and it SHOULD read like a biological texbook IF he was a doctor. Also, CJD, you are right they don't read the same. But they are SO different that it makes one wonder if Paul, and all the early christians, had a non-physical resurrection in mind and over time it evolved into a physical resurrection. I would argue that because in 1 Peter 3:18:

This makes the Petrine tradition which supposedly spread the tradition of the physical resurrection argue for a spiritual resurrection!

jakejonesiv

Richard Carrier has a good discussion of the Spiritual Body of Christ in The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond The Grave edited by Robert Price and Jeffery Jay Lowder.

This is a very good book, highly recommended.

Jake Jones