Re: Question for Clergy / resurrection/ escatology

(I'm not clergy -- but that won't stop me from putting in my two bits)
I remember cleaning dorm rooms one summer in between college years and hearing a
radio on in the background tuned to (J. Vernon McGee?) -- I probably don't have
the name correct. Anyway, I do remember being transfixed by his beautifally
drawn out southern fundamentalist drawl, and he happened to be pontificating on
the evils of cremation because he saw it as an attempt to thwart God's
resurrection plans. He assured his audience that despite such intolerable
practices, God would find each and every atom and put them all back together
again. Of course, if that was to be done anyway, then that leaves me unsure why
this or that practice would be so bad -- it wouldn't make any difference right?
 And even if nobody cremated we would still have the many war deaths and martyrs
burned at the stake all of whom went through cremation of sorts -- no choice of
their own.

But the whole question does leave me with a head-shaking feeling that some point
is being missed. To push these points this far makes it seem like we missed an
exit way back somewhere. It's sort of like musing on a literal hell -- so if
flesh is to burn eternally, will there be an infinite supply of oxygen, but even
if so how can something "burn" forever since the chemical definition involves a
consumption of fuel as it oxidizes, so if flesh is enduring forever then it
couldn't realy be 'burning' could it? Or in heaven we'll be feasting at a
banquet -- or will we really? Will transformed bodies need sustenance? Will
they be bodies minus reproductive activity? (no marriage in Heaven)

Secularists would enjoy pressing such points above to highlight absurdities of
the traditional belief. Some Christians of intellectual bent may view this as
an a priori display of the absurdity of literal translation, or the imposition
of our own understandings of temporal existence onto something beyond our
comprehension.

Isn't it enough to affirm that Jesus' resurrected body is reality -- indeed THE
reality by which other realities will fade away in comparison. If people use
the code word "physical" to highlight the reality of something, then by all
means, his resurrected body is physical. If we are inclined like others here to
 allow some mystery with it and call it a 'bodily' resurrection that is a
transformation into glorious immortality, then that sounds much more reasonable
to me. But to begin to delve scientifically into what that may mean will simply
lead to more frustration. I think the point of the gospel message is that
Jesus is and was real and he is alive. I'm still struggling myself between a
traditional dualism and the monism which I suspect is espoused by some here.

--merv

Quoting drsyme@cablespeed.com:

> If the correct interpretation of the resurrection of
> believers is that the self same body will be raised out of
> the grave, in the same way that Christs body was raised,
> how do you counsel people regarding things such as
> cremation, donating organs, terminal illness, and
> amputation?
>
> I am asking this question in all seriousness. If the same
> body is going to be raised how can this ocurr if the body
> was cremated and scattered in the ocean? Surely that
> "body" would be incorporated into other things, even other
> people over time. If someone has a progressive illness,
> would they be better off dying quickly to avoid further
> deterioration; or if someone needs an amputation to save
> their life, would they be better off dying from gangrene
> but still have all their limbs for eternity? If you are a
> cadaveric organ donor and they harvest your heart, lungs,
> liver, etc after you die, what happens after you are
> raised? There are many other implications to this idea,
> and frankly it is foreign to me.
>
> I must have missed the class that taught that our self
> same bodies will be raised after death. I never had the
> understanding that the self same body will be raised after
> death, so when I came to understand the preterist view, I
> quickly went from accepting partial preterism, (after I
> read RC Sproals "The Last Days According to Jesus.") to
> full preterism, because the biggest objection the partial
> preterist have with preterists is the nature of the
> resurrection body. But I already was believing along the
> same lines as the preterists, long before I knew what
> preterism was.
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Received on Thu Apr 20 17:09:27 2006