The Spiritual Body -- Physical or Non-Physical?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Scott Hutchinson

Here is a interesting read.http://www.christianorigins.com/resbody.html

Good points:

the language Paul uses to describe the resurrection--most notably "soma"--emphasizes the physical nature of the resurrected person. Finally, Paul's belief that Christians immediately went to be with Jesus upon their death, but still awaited a "resurrection" demonstrates that the resurrection being discussed was a physical one.

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1. 1 Corinthians 15

Perhaps the best known of Paul's statements about resurrection, 1 Corinthians 15 has been used by both sides of the debate. In the first set of verses, Paul discusses the resurrection appearances of Jesus to Peter, James, the Twelve, the 500, and to Paul. He then stresses the connection between Jesus' resurrection and that of the believers. The reason Paul is discussing these doctrines, which he stresses is what he originally taught them upon the founding of their church, is because his doctrine of the resurrection, or at least some part of it, has met skepticism in the Corinthian church.

Co 15:12 Now if Christ is preached, that He has been raised from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?

This rather remarkable context should alert us to the fact that Paul has been teaching of a physical resurrection. Paul is writing to a predominantly Greek church. If Paul was merely speaking of a non-physical resurrection (which, to a Jew, is something of a contradiction of terms), it is doubtful that he would have met with such skepticism. As discussed above, the Greeks already believed in the immortality of the human soul. Their skepticism was reserved for the Jewish belief in a physical resurrection. Yet, in this letter, Paul is clearly addressing Greek-oriented skepticism in his teaching of the resurrection. Why would such skepticism arise? Because the Corinthian church's background denied, indeed did not have any place for, a bodily resurrection. It would have had far less trouble accepting Paul's doctrine of the resurrection if that doctrine emphasized a purely spiritual phenomenon

As Craig Blomberg explains:

"At any rate, the position of some in the Corinthian church is specified in verse 12 (How can some of you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?"), and it is to this challenge that Paul responds. By denying the resurrection, the Corinthians were almost certainly not denying life after death, virtually everyone in the ancient world believed in that. Rather, they would have been disputing the Jewish and Christian doctrine of bodily resurrection and endorsing one of the more Greek forms of belief that limited the afterlife to disembodied immortality of the soul (cf. 2 Tim. 2:17-18)." 1 Corinthians, Craig Blomberg, 294-95.

1Co 15:35-38 But someone will say, "How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?" You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.

Paul again and again uses the term "soma" to describe what is resurrected. The use of this term, meant to imply the physical, establishes Paul's belief in the physical resurrection of Jesus and of Christians.

Additionally, that Greek skepticism of physical resurrection was at the heart of the problem becomes clear as Paul moves on to address another question raised by those who reject his doctrine of the resurrection--what kind of body would a "resurrected body" be? The question is not about life after death (easily accepted by Greeks as a "spiritual resurrection"), but the idea of a physical resurrection itself was absurd to the questioner. Again, the fact that Paul is having to argue what kind of "soma" was raised strongly suggests that he has previously taught, and currently defending, the doctrine of a physical resurrection.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Scott Hutchinson

Here is a interesting read.http://www.christianorigins.com/resbody.html

The writer of the study that Bro Hutchinson presented said the same thing I have been saying all along.

It is anachronistic to conclude that the use of the term "spiritual" to modify the term "body" renders the body immaterial or nonphysical. The body is sown (dies) as a soma pyschikon but is raised as a soma pneumatikon. That Paul does not intend pyschikon to mean, simply, physical, is clear.

In 1 Cor. 2:14-15, Paul distinguishes between the "pyschikos" person and the "pneumatikos" person. The difference is not between a physical and a nonphysical person. Rather, it is between the "natural" man and the "spiritual" man. The difference is not materiality, but acceptance of the workings of the spirit of God. The natural man is common and unable to understand the things of God. The spiritual man, while a physical being, is able to understand the things of God.

But what really clinches the understanding that calling the soma "spiritual" does not imply nonphysicality is Paul's use of the term "pneumatikoi" in 1 Corinthians 10.

1Co 10:1-5 For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.

Paul speaks of the Israelites following Moses in the wilderness as eating "spiritual" food," drinking "spiritual" drink, and getting the drink from a "spiritual" rock. 1 Cor. 10:3-4. This drink and food was, of course, material, but it was also spiritual because its source was God. ("for they were drinking from a spiritual rock, which followed them; and the rock was Christ"). Paul uses the word similarly here.

"In v. 3 Paul calls the manna 'spiritual' good, by which he probably means food miraculously provided by the Spirit of God, not food with a heavenly taste or texture. Nor indeed was the water spiritual in character. It was, rather, spiritually provided just as the rock was spiritually enabled to give water." Ben Witherington, Conflict and Community in Corinth, at 219.

So too with our bodies. Our present bodies come from the earth and are ruled by fleshly passions, but our future bodies will be a result of the working of the Spirit of God. Thus, they will be spiritual bodies.

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by Scott Hutchinson

Here is a interesting read.http://www.christianorigins.com/resbody.html

There is also the good point of how full preterists often claim the resurrection cannot be physical because "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom."

As I have stated again and again, the following Greek Scholar explains this does not mean there is no physical resurrection.

Furthermore, it is naive to take the reference to "flesh and blood" to mean, merely, physicality or materiality.

Why then does he say 'flesh and blood cannot inherit God's kingdom'? Ever since the second century doubters have used this clause to question whether Paul really believed in the resurrection of the body. In fact, the second half of verse 50 already explains, in Hebraic parallelism with the first half, more or less what he means, as Paul's regular use of 'flesh' would indicate: 'flesh and blood' is a way of referring to ordinary, corruptible, decaying human existence. It does not simply mean, as it has so often been taken to mean, 'physical humanity' in the normal modern sense, but 'the present physical humanity (as opposed to the future), which is subject to decay and death.' The referent of the phrase is not the presently dead but the presently living, who need not to be raised but to be changed; and this brings us back to the dual focus of verses 53 and 54. Both categories of humans need to acquire the new, transformed type of body.

N.T. Wright, The Resurrection of the Son of God, at 359.

This Greek scholar came to the same conclusions I came from in my own personal studies just by studying the context.

Flesh must CHANGE in order to inherit the Kingdom. As it is, flesh is mortal and THAT is why it cannot inherit the kingdom. Its change will render it immortal. And something that is altered is the same thing, so that in the resurrection the body that was in the grave is gone as a result, and is living again, JUST AS JESUS EXPERIENCED.

[peter83]

ψυχικος before christ was used to the "spiritual" person unlike σαρκικος "carnal"
(aristotelis describes two natures soul and body,they did not knew about spirit)
but in new testament in many passages like JUDE 19 use ψυχικος to describe a person carnal or a person who folows his own soul and no the spirit.Almost always when you read in the bible the word carnal in greek is ψυχικος psyhikos :a person that lives with his own soul desires.