Pearce’s Potshots #56: Paul & Jesus’ Resurrection | Dave Armstrong – Patheos

Atheist anti-theist Jonathan M. S. Pearce is the main writer on the blog,A Tippling Philosopher.HisAbout pagestates: Pearce is a philosopher, author, blogger, public speaker and teacher from Hampshire in the UK. He specialises in philosophy of religion, but likes to turnhis hand to science, psychology, politics and anything involved in investigating reality.

This is a reply to his post,A Spiritual Body Resurrection vs Corporeal Resurrection (12-9-21). His words will be in blue.

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I have had another interview with Derek Lambert of MythVision in the series where we are working through my bookThe Resurrection: A Critical Examination of the Easter Story[UK]. This latest episode (8) concentrated on the conflict between Paul, who believed in a two-body spiritual resurrection thesis, as opposed to the Gospels, who argue against Paul for a re-animated corpse resurrection. Of course, Pauls claims from 1 Corinthians and elsewhere explain why he doesnt mention an empty tomb anywhere because there would be no empty tomb as the earthly body would remain in situ.

The Gospels fundamentally contradict Paul precisely because they are an overt counter-argument against Pauls theology, and the related Gnostic position of a full-on spiritual resurrection.

Jonathan seems to maintain (from what I can tell in his brief statements) that Pauls reference to a spiritual body is to a pure spirit, with no physical body. This is immediately absurd, since spirit cannot have an additional description of body. A body is physical, and spirits arent physical; they are immaterial.

Evangelical G. Shane Morris gives a good refutation of this Gnostic-influenced thinking in his article,Jesus Has a Physical Body Forever (And So Will We):

Theres a common misconception in the Christian rank and file that Jesus resurrected body was something other than a real, physical body with flesh and bones, and that our resurrected bodies will likewise be something other than or somehow less solid than our bodies are now. . . .

Christians enduring hope has always been what Paul said the creation itself groans for: the redemption of our bodies. (Romans 8:23) This is what it means to swallow up death in victory. A spiritual resurrection of any kind isnt resurrection. Its a euphemistic redescription of death.

Second, the term spiritual body in 1 Corinthians 15:44 does not, in Pauls original use, mean what the phrase seems to imply in English. [N. T.] Wright points out that to the original audience, a spiritual body understood as an immaterial body would be a contradiction in terms. There is no such thing. You might as well talk about solid mist or dry water. What Paul is doing, in context, is contrasting a body of flesh (which is the most common New Testament metonym for fallen humanity) with the body of the Spiritthat is, a body empowered and animated by the Holy Spirit. The Jews and Greeks had words for immaterial beings.

If Paul had meant for us to expect a non-physical resurrection, he could have spoken of ghosts, or spirits. He did not. For a man of his background, resurrection meant only one thing: To get up out of the grave, body and all, and walk again.Jesus left behind an empty grave devoid of flesh and bones. He took them with Him. And so will we. (1 John 3:2)

James Bishopadds:

Paul was, prior to his conversion, a Pharisee. Pharisees held to a physicalresurrection (see: Jewish War 3.374, 2.163; 4Q521; 1QH 14.34; 4Q 385-391; Genesis Rabbah 14.5; Leviticus Rabbah 14.9). For instance, one leading scholar by the name of NT Wright, in his 700 page volume, argues that the resurrection in pagan, Jewish, and Christian cultures meant a physical and bodily resurrection (2). Paul held the same view (cf. 1 Corinthians 6:14; Romans 8:11; Philippians 3:20-21). . . .

As [N. T.] Wright articulates: Until second century Christianity, the language of resurrection had been thought by pagan, Jew, and Christian as some kind of return to bodily and this-worldly life [The Resurrection of the Son of God, 2003, p. 83].

The context of 1 Corinthians 15 further bolsters this view:

1 Corinthians 15:35-44(RSV) But some one will ask, How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come? [36] You foolish man! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. [37] And what you sow is not the body which is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. [38] But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. [39] For not all flesh is alike, but there is one kind for men, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. [40] There are celestial bodies and there are terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. [41] There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. [42] So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. [43] It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.[44] It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.

1 Corinthians 15:53-54For this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.[54] When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: Death is swallowed up in victory.

Does Jonathan think that Paul thought the moon was a spirit and not physical? Its absurd.In 1 Corinthians 15 Paul uses the Greek wordegiro (usually raised in English) 19 times, referring to resurrection, either of Jesus (15:4, 12-17, 20) or of the general resurrection of human beings (15:29, 32, 35, 42-44, 52). The same word is used in the gospels of the raising of the young girl who had died. Sheremained human, with her body, after being raised. Jesus held her hand when she was raised:

Matthew 9:18, 23-25While he was thus speaking to them, behold, a ruler came in and knelt before him, saying, My daughter has just died; but come and lay your hand on her, and she will live. . . .[23] And when Jesus came to the rulers house, and saw the flute players, and the crowd making a tumult,[24] he said, Depart; for the girl is not dead but sleeping. And they laughed at him.[25] But when the crowd had been put outside, he went in and took her by the hand, and the girlarose[egiro].

In John 12, the word is applied to Lazarus three times (12:1, 9, 17: raised from the dead and raised him from the dead: RSV). In John 12:2, the risen Lazarus is referred to, sitting at the table, eating supper with Jesus: obviously a physical being. This is what the wordmeans: a body being physically raised and restored after it had died.

Jesus was obviously also still in a physical body after He was resurrected, but it was a spiritual body, and so He could walk through walls (which modern physics tells us is actually physicallypossible, in additional dimensions and what-not). He ate fish with His disciples, told Thomas to put his hand in His wounds, which were still visible; was touched by Mary Magdalene, broke bread with the two disciples on the way to Emmaus, etc.

Norman Geisler and Thomas Howe offer further explanation inthe following excerpttheir book,When Critics Ask: A Popular Handbook on Bible Difficulties(Wheaton, Illinois: Victor Books, 1992):

[N]otice the parallelism mentioned by Paul:

The complete context indicates that spiritual (pneumatikos) could be translated supernatural in contrast to natural. This is made clear by the parallels of perishable and imperishable and corruptible and incorruptible. In fact, this same Greek word (pneumatikos) is translated supernatural in1 Corinthians 10:4when it speaks of the supernatural rock that followed them in the wilderness (RSV).

Second, the word spiritual (pneumatikos) in 1 Corinthians refers to material objects. Paul spoke of the spiritual rock that followed Israel in the wilderness from which they got spiritual drink (1 Cor. 10:4). But the OT story (Ex. 17;Num. 20) reveals that it was a physical rock from which they got literal water to drink. But the actual water they drank from that material rock was produced supernaturally. When Jesus supernaturally made bread for the five thousand (John 6), He made literal bread. However, this literal, material bread could have been called spiritual bread (because of its supernatural source) in the same way that the literal manna given to Israel is called spiritual food (1 Cor. 10:3).

Further, when Paul spoke about a spiritual man (1 Cor. 2:15) he obviously did not mean an invisible, immaterial man with no corporeal body. He was, as a matter of fact, speaking of a flesh and blood human being whose life was lived by the supernatural power of God. He was referring to a literal person whose life was Spirit directed. A spiritual man is one who is taught by the Spirit and who receives the things that come from the Spirit of God (1 Cor. 2:1314).

To summarize Pauls doctrine of the general resurrection, I cite the section on that topic in the entry,Resurrectionin theInternational Standard Bible Encyclopedia:

As the believer then passes into a condition of glory, his body must be altered for the new conditions (1Corinthians 15:50;Philippians 3:21); it becomes a spiritual body, belonging to the realm of the spirit (not spiritual in opposition to material). Nature shows us how different bodies can befrom the body of the sun to the bodies of the lowest animals the kind depends merely on the creative will of God (1Corinthians 15:38-41). Nor is the idea of a change in the body of the same thing unfamiliar: look at the difference in the body of a grain of wheat at its sowing and after it is grown! (1Corinthians 15:37).

Just so, I am sown or sent into the world (probably not buried) with one kind of body, but my resurrection will see me with a body adapted to my life with Christ and God (1Corinthians 15:42-44). If I am still alive at the Parousia, this new body shall be clothed upon my present body (1Corinthians 15:53,54;2Corinthians 5:2-4) otherwise I shall be raised in it (1Corinthians 15:52). This body exists already in the heavens (2Corinthians 5:1,2), and when it is clothed upon me the natural functions of the present body will be abolished (1Corinthians 6:13). Yet a motive for refraining from impurity is to keep undefiled the body that is to rise (1Corinthians 6:13,14).

Moreover, Paul describes our own resurrected bodies as like that of Jesus:

Romans 6:5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.

Philippians 3:20-21. . .a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,[21] who will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power which enables him even to subject all things to himself.

Paul talks about our resurrection bodies, which we put on being imperishable. In other words, hes saying that according to natural law, physical bodies perish and die, but spiritual, resurrected bodies do not. Hes not talking about spirits. If it were a transformation of a physical body into a spirit, he wouldnt use the terminology of raised either: because that refers to physical bodies, which died, and are now raised.

Nor would he refer to a spiritual body: he would have simply referred to a spirit (which the New Testamentdoes many times). The two are not at all identical. The whole point was Jesus conquering physical death, which applies to physical bodies, not spirits.The Gospel of Matthew exhibits the same understanding of resurrected bodies of the dead:

Matthew 27:52the tombs also were opened, and manybodiesof the saints who had fallen asleep were raised,

Here is another passage from Paul that plainly refer to bodily resurrection:

Romans 8:22-23We know that the whole creation has been groaning in travail together until now;[23] and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for adoption as sons, the redemption of ourbodies.

Case closed. Jonathan is wrong yet again about what the Bible (agree or disagree)teaches. Its amazing how often that happens.

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Summary: Atheist Jonathan MS Pearce wrongly contends that Paul denied that Jesus Resurrection entailed His having a glorified physical body after He rose from the dead.

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Pearce's Potshots #56: Paul & Jesus' Resurrection | Dave Armstrong - Patheos