From: douglas.hayworth@perbio.com
Date: Wed Apr 30 2003 - 14:43:28 EDT
Don's comments are interesting. They touch on the
difficult-to-characterize relationship between body and spirit (not to
mention soul). Although the consequence of the fall was primarily
(exclusively?) loss of spiritual life in relationship to God, it was
important that Jesus rise again physically in order to demostrate his
conquering of spiritual death. Some of you bible scholars can correct me
if I'm wrong, but I think there was a belief in "ghosts" (disembodied
spirits) at least in Jesus' day (see the incident when Jesus walked on the
water), if . If Jesus had only appeared or risen as a spirit (disembodied
soul) while his human body remained in the grave, however much that might
have been sufficient to conquer death in the spiritual realm, no one would
have understood or believed the theological truth.
Just a thought.
Doug
"Don
Winterstein" To: "Robert Schneider" <rjschn39@bellsouth.net>, "Debbie Mann"
<dfwinterstein@m <deborahjmann@insightbb.com>, "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
sn.com> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: No death before the fall theology
asa-owner@lists.
calvin.edu
04/29/03 01:17
AM
Debbie wrote in part:
> the life that follows is
> certainly
> > not physical. The immortal life is spiritual.
>
Bob Schneider commented in part:
> Debbie's point about the discussion in 1 Cor. 15 is well taken. There
> Paul is wrestling with the mystery of the resurrection. In his mystical
> language he characterizes the resurrection body as a spiritual body,
making
> clear that the resurrection of the dead is not a physical resuscitation.
Many Christians, no doubt including the apostle Paul, believe that the
resurrected body will be like Christ's resurrected body. Jesus went out of
his way, by eating and asking people to touch him, to demonstrate that his
resurrected body was physical. Jesus said to his disciples(Luke 24:39),
"See my hands and my feet, that I am he. Feel me and see, because a spirit
does not have flesh and bones as you see I have." (My literal
translation.)
Paul in I Cor. 15 acknowledges the resurrected Christ as the "firstfruits,"
the one who was raised from the dead before any of us. Hence Paul would
have considered the resurrected Christ, as an already resurrected man, to
have already put on the "spiritual body" he claims the rest of us will have
after resurrection. So the spiritual body Paul talks about is physical;
it's just an improved version of what we now have.
In any case, what might a spiritual _body_ be if not something physical?
Spirits don't have bodies of any sort. And one could argue that we
wouldn't
truly be ourselves without a body of some sort.
Don
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Wed Apr 30 2003 - 14:55:05 EDT