Jesus' Resurrection: Physical or Spiritual (1 Cor. 15:44)? | Highlight

In his recent debate with Dennis MacDonald at Washburn University, Dr. Licona clarifies some of the nuances in Paul's view of the resurrection; specifically the nature of our bodies.

#JesusResurrection #mikelicona

[tractordriver]

I had to look up Licona”s take on this passage of 1 Corinthians after hearing James Tabor mocking a physical resurrection.

[dalethomas]

I wonder if the contrast Paul is getting at are matters of processes by which individual human bodies are created and then will be re-created. In the first sense, human bodies are sown by the natural way (i.e. via sexual intercourse), but in the eschaton, human bodies will be re-created (i.e. resurrected) not via the natural manner but via the power of the Spirit.

[WhereWhatHuh]

The apostle Paul was a close friend and companion of Luke, who clearly taught and believed that the resurrection was physical. Paul also knew and met John and Peter, both of whom, in their respective gospels (Peter as recorded by John Mark), recite a physical resurrection of Jesus. To say that he meant something completely different from the natural reading of 1 Cor. 15:3-8 is a stretch, at the very least?

[annabanman]

Can you please do a video about the 10 virgins?

[introvertedchristian]

Psyche (pronounced Sue Kay) was what I named my cat. But I digress. I think the real trouble is when Paul says the last Adam (Jesus) is a life-giving spirit.

[kiwihans]

Paul had a vision of heaven, yet told Timothy, speaking of God "Who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light WHICH NO MAN CAN APPROACH UNTO, WHICH NO MAN HATH SEEN, NOR CAN SEE..." ( 1 Tim 6:16 ) The notion that Jesus & the saints are all going up to heaven to sit round God's throne as PHYSICAL persons is proposterous! Naive! and lacking in what the bible actually teaches! HEAVEN IS A SPIRIT REALM! Christ now is the 'exact reflection of God's Glory'. If he is in a human body, then God thr Father is also a MAN!

[The-F.R.E.E.-J.]

Interesting, much food for thought here.
Question for you, Mike Licona, do you believe we experience a resurrection when we are saved, by Christ, in this life?

[kiwihans]

If we believe the truth of the 'last supper' & hence the 'communion' its clear that Jsus used both bread and WINE to sybolised not just his 'body' but also his BLOOD. TheTorah taught Jesus & his apostles that 'The soul of the life is in the blood' ( Lev 17:11 KJV) Thus Jesus total physical life, his body & soul died on the stake, "given on your behalf". "He poured out his very SOUL (Nephesh) unto death" Isa 53:12. Matt 20:28). Then he was "raised alive in the Spirit" just as the saints will be! ( 1 Peter 3:18. 1 Cor 15)

[kiwihans]

Since God told Moses "No man can see me and live" A mere PHYSICAL being, even if without sin, could not bear for an instant of time to actually 'behold the face of my Father'!" ( Jesus said this with reference to the ANGELS, who are SPIRIT creatures!) Our loving heavenly Father has "Given us, the sons of men the EARTH, but the heavens belongs to God ( "God is a SPIRIT" Jesus said. John 4:23, 24) ( See psm 115:116)

[kiwihans]

Its clear from the NT that Jesus "gave up" not just his body but his blood as well since he SAID this at the last supper! This was the RANSOM that he paid for our sins! ( 1 Tim 2:5 ). Jesus revealed that he was to fulfill ISA 53:12 "He poured out his SOUL unto death by saying "The son of man came to give his SOUL as a ransom in exchange for many" ( Matt 20:28 uses the greek 'physke =soul' in the oldest MSS's of the NT). Hence Peter's mention "He was raised in spirit" agrees with the fact that Jesus laid down, he GAVE UP his human life, his body, his blood, his 'soul' as a ransom to redeem sinful mankind! A ransom is not taken back which would NULIFY the procedure of reclaiming that which was lost! He needed to become a spirit again to return to heaven where only spirits live. ( see 1 Cor 15:50) The 'physical' appearances for the 40 days before his ascension were 'materialisations' as had happened with angels in the OT.

[JeanSmith-szuu]

Paul and Peter never taught physical resurrection!

[kiwihans]

1 Tim 2:5, 6 " For there is One God, and there is one mediator between God & men, Jesus Christ, who GAVE himselfas a RANSOM for all..." RANSOM = Greek 'Lutron' An equivelent price paid for a captive' ( See W.E.Vine's greek dictionary of NT words, page 247) So he gave his human life, never to take it back again! At 1 Cor 15:45 "Thus is is written; "The first man Adam became a living being: thr SECOND ADAM became a LIFE GIVING SPIRIT". Thus the perfect man Jesus Christ gave his perfect human life for the perfect human life that ADAM LOST! Thus when Jesus died, he "paid the price" "This is my body which is to be GIVEN for you behalf" A true "Corresponding equivelent RANSOM. So how then could he pay the ransom price and then TAKE IT BACK AGAIN? No, As Peter testified "He was put the death IN THE FLESH & then made alive IN THE SPIRIT. He is now a glorious Spirit with his Spirit Father in heaven, a spirit realm! The world "beholds him no more" ( John 14:19). Amen!

[kiwihans]

Matt 20:28; "The Son of man came not to be ministered to but to minister AND TO SURRENDER HIS SOUL ( Greek Psyke) AS A RANSOM FOR MANY" ( NEB ). Jesus gave up his Physical body & soul ( His body = the bread, his Soull= the wine at the last supper. ) as a RAMSOM for us! ( see Isa 53:12). Then as Peter stated "He was put to death in thr FLESH and made alive in the SPIRIT'. He reutned to heaven in whgich "Flesh and blood cannot inherit God's Kingdom" ( 1 PET 3:18 & Cor 15:45). This the BIBLE teaching but not the 'orthodox' church dogma!

[AstariahJW]

Jesus said flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God

So how else was jesus able to ascend back to heaven ?

Jesus was able to form into a human body but was still a spirit being . With this spiritial body he was able to disappear and reappear and was able to go through lock doors

A human could not do that. He never did that before his death . This was after his resurrection

[georgeh.]

1 Cor 15 where the creed was listed contains apocryphal material. As Alvar Ellegard argued in his book (100 years before Christ), if Ireneaus knew the creed in 1 Cor 15 at the time, he would have used it as an argument against the Marcionites as per Against the Heresies 3:13. It is quite strange he never mentions the passage that would have immediately won him the point against the Marcionites he was so eager to make the case against. (Embarrasing fact: the Marcionites were known as the Christians back then. The term Christian was coined by Marcion!).. As for the problematic 1 Cor 15, Marcion's verision lacks the word received and thus making the creed part of a revelation to Paul and not a tradition as some believe. Marcion's version is more consistent with Galations 1 where Paul claims that his gospel has no human instruction and that he received his gospel from no earlier superiors! Interpolations and even outright forgeries like the pastoral epistels, whatever was attributed to Peter and apocryphal writings were extremely common back then. Luke mentions that there where many gospels in circulation at the time of writing his! Christianity was not even a monolith in its earliest stage. You got different competing factions and some resorted to distorting claims and forging texts as Walter Bauer, Bart Ehrman, and Robert Eisenmann have shown. All Kinds of Skepticism should be applied when approaching any Christian document.
Early Jewish Christians denounced Paul as a fraud as Eisemann has shown in his book (James the Brother of Jesus) and was referred to as the "spouter of lies" and the "arch-heretic". In the letter of Peter to James he described as "the man who is my enemy". Pious Fraud was extremely ubiquitous at the time (see Philiapians 1:18, 1 Cor 9:19-22, Romans 3:7, 2 Cor 12:16, ). According to Heinrich Graetz in his book the (History of the Jews, p 368), early Jewish Christians such as the Ebionites espoused the disciples yet repudiated Paul as false apostle with absurd and unlawful teachings to appeal to the heathen and the gentiles. They Called him Simon Magus ! if Paul was so convincing then why was he opposed and loathed by the Jewish Christians who were followers of Jesus and the disciples? What did those people see? what was the origin of their faith?
Paul of Tarsus who was rejected as Simon Magus by early Jewish Christians and denounced as a fraud with vested interest, never allegedly saw Jesus in the two inconsistent narratives in the book of Acts. He only saw a vision but the others did not. Interestingly, Paul never mentions this incident recorded in the books of Acts in his letters and only mentions a revelation within himself. He is the formulator of what became Catholicism and its 16th century offshoot known as modern evangelicalism. As a contemporary of Jesus, there is hardly any reason that he never met Jesus even though they lived around the same time! He never joined the ministry of Jesus, never heard from a historical Jesus, yet he preached based on inner revelations! He also preaches what abrogates the Hebrew Bible something Jesus warned against. However, as a controversial self-proclaimed apostle he saw a vision and not a historical Jesus whom he never met before. As Raymond Brown puts it the word "seen" does not necessitate a physical appearance. Either way, it was an inner revelation and not a true historical encounter. The whole thing in 1 Cor 15 where he describes the resurrection reads like a masterpiece of obfuscation. No one would have bothered with this spiritual body business and enigmatic unearthly body claims had he met Jesus, chatted and had dinner with him before the ascension. This, if anything, is evidence against any claim of a physical resurrection. This is strengthened by the fact that Paul nowhere mentions the empty tomb even while preaching the resurrection. It seems very unlikely, that Paul would leave out this crucial piece of apology had he knew about it. Had there been an empty tomb it would have been venerated as shrine to this day as the birth of Pauline Christianity. Everyone seemed to have forgotten about it. The empty tomb is an apologetic invention (Isaiah 53:9) just as the conflicting final words attributed to Jesus are. Those statements taken out of context from the Hebrew Bible were not recorded directly from Jesus' mouth but were apologetic inventions to make him look like he was fulfilling prophecies. Paul contends in 1 Cor 15, what is sown is a natural body but what was raised is spiritual body by which Jesus became a vivifying spirit! who would ever utter anything like this if there was an unequivocal, crystal clear and indisputable plain resurrection. Probably this is why he was championed by Marcionites and Gnostics but repudiated as the 'spouter of lies' by the early Jewish Christians! Whether he was Simon Magus as the early Jewish Christians called him, or a false apostle like Marcion and other self-proclaimed apostles like Joseph Smith, or a fund raiser who wanted social status in a growing movement or someone who had some sort of vested interest, or an ill-informed zealot it is all moot. One thing for sure, take whatever this self proclaimed apostle who never met a historical Jesus says with several grains of salt.

[kiwihans]

On his resurrection! Jesus appeared in a 'body' but the fact he wasnt recognised often by close disciples shows it was a MATERIALISATION. He had RETURNED to the glorious SPIRIT he was before he came to earth ( see John 17:5). Both John & Luke testify that all these appearances were by means of 'PROOFS' & 'SIGNS'! . John 20:30 "And by many OTHER SIGNS" ( Jesus had just appeared through a locked door to the disciples!) Acts 1:3 "Many POSITIVE PROOFS" Why needed if he was in the SAME BODY?

[kiwihans]

Tell me; If Jesus was raised in the SAME body that died, why did Mary, the two travellers & his disciples not recognise him till he performed a typical action? He suddenly appeared, through a locked door. He dissapeared in an instant e.t.c Not the exxperience of a PHYSICAL human!. Remember angels appeared as men, they ate food, people assumed they were human! ( see Gen 18 & 19) Also during those 40 days Jesus "went off and spoke to the SPIRITS in prison" He need to be such himself to do that ( 1 Peter 3:19).

[kiwihans]

The fact that during his PHYSICAL life on earth Jesus became 'tired', and was 'asleep in the boat' e.t.c indicates he had PHYSICAL needs which were provided on the EARTH! He had OXYGEN to breath. He had FOOD to eat, which grew in the fields. He had WATER to drink from wells e.t.c. So are we to believe that inthe mighty heaven where the great |Creator of the entire universe dwells, there are all these PHYSICAL things? Are there fields where food is grown? Do heaven dwellers have toilets? Beds to sleep on? e.t.c its NONSENCE!