The Body of Christ, Discovered For You?

[PrincepsAmerica]

But I was talking only about Paul's views, not those of the authors of the Gospels, and Paul does not anywhere say that the risen Christ ate anything, only that he was "seen". Indeed, in verse 8 he says that he, Paul, saw the risen Christ; but Acts 9:3-4 describes this event as involving only a bright light and a voice, and no body at all.

I don't know why you say that nouns are stronger than adjectives; that isn't a doctrine I've ever heard before. If you examine this passage you'll see that in verses 39-49 Paul presents a series of contrasts. His point is that bodies differ, not that they are the same. The bodies of the stars are fundamentally different in kind from the bodies of animals. Earthly bodies are corrupt, dishonourable, and physical; resurrection bodies are incorruptible, honourable, and spiritual. Physical bodies derive from Adam and are earthly, spiritual bodies derive from Christ and are heavenly. To say that Paul's point in verse 44 is that of continuity between the mortal body and the resurrection body is to miss completely his entire argument. It revolves around discontinuity, not continuity. And the whole purpose of the argument is to attack those who raise crude questions about the nature of the resurrection body (verse 35). And the conclusion of the argument is that physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (verse 50).

It seems that in drawing the contrast he could be illustrating the spiritual differences between the two, wherein the spiritual has complete control over the material in the body as opposed to our fallen bodies, wherein the material is dominant thanks to Adam. It does not seem to mean the Christ's resurrection was not physical, as in fully sensible. It seem if they saw him, it would be kind of arbitrary to only be able to sense his body in two ways and not the other three. In fact Thomas' incident though part of the later Gospels seems to make that point explicitly. Perhaps Paul, having never touched Jesus when he saw him, guessed that he wasn't material. Even so I would still say he doesn't preclude the later descriptions of his material manifestation.

 

[Nylan]

It seems that in drawing the contrast he could be illustrating the spiritual differences between the two, wherein the spiritual has complete control over the material in the body as opposed to our fallen bodies, wherein the material is dominant thanks to Adam.

IMHO

It is a body that cannot die, that is free from disability, that is pure, that is in it's prime (rather than being as old as you were when you died), etc.

 

[PrincepsAmerica]

IMHO

It is a body that cannot die, that is free from disability, that is pure, that is in it's prime (rather than being as old as you were when you died), etc.

Yes that would be implied in what I said.

 

[Nylan]

Yes that would be implied in what I said.

I thought so, but I wasn't sure

so I just stated what i believed to play it safe

 

[Plotinus]

It seems that in drawing the contrast he could be illustrating the spiritual differences between the two, wherein the spiritual has complete control over the material in the body as opposed to our fallen bodies, wherein the material is dominant thanks to Adam. It does not seem to mean the Christ's resurrection was not physical, as in fully sensible. It seem if they saw him, it would be kind of arbitrary to only be able to sense his body in two ways and not the other three. In fact Thomas' incident though part of the later Gospels seems to make that point explicitly. Perhaps Paul, having never touched Jesus when he saw him, guessed that he wasn't material. Even so I would still say he doesn't preclude the later descriptions of his material manifestation.

But if Paul simply means that both bodies are physical, but one is more spiritual than the other, why would he oppose "physical" to "spiritual"? By saying that the one is "physical" and the other "spiritual" he seems to say that these are mutually exclusive categories, just as "dishonourable" and "honourable", or "corruptible" and "incorruptible", are.

To be honest, these questions are notoriously hard to answer, primarily because it's pretty obvious that Paul just wasn't thinking in the terms implied by later writers. I don't think it particularly crossed his mind to wonder whether the physical corpse of Jesus literally came to life and walked about. If you were to go back in time and ask him whether it did, he might well say it did, but in fact no-one did ask him that. Equally, I think that if, during Paul's lifetime, Jesus' body had been found and unmistakably shown to be genuine, it wouldn't have bothered him particularly, but again, that never happened and Paul did not have to make the decision that such an event would force upon him. Paul's concern in the passage cited is to defend the reality of the resurrection of believers at the end of time; he does that by defending the reality of Christ's own resurrection, which is the prototype for everyone else's; and his comments about the nature of the resurrection body are really designed to preclude speculation about it, not to describe it.