Not Close and Still No Cigar
November 17th, 2017
(Part One / Part Two / Part Three / Part Four)
(Part Five / Part Six / Part Seven / Part Eight)
Today I'll respond to Jim's post Jesus' Body Now: Flesh or Spirit?, wherein he summarizes his case, and perhaps adds a point or two he didn't previously make. (Note, this post, like the others, are more notes than systematic defense of the doctrine that Christ was raised human. If what I say is unclear, please let me know. I intend to present the case in more orderly fashion in the future.) Let's take a look:
Additionally, and not any less significant, Hebrews 10:10 reports that Jesus sacrificed his physical body—thus for him to take it back would be to cancel the salvific transaction to God. Another issue which cannot be stressed enough is the Atonement Day drama where the High Priest passed though the curtain from the Holy to the Most Holy on Atonement Day with only the blood and not the body of the sacrificed animal, thus, in fulfillment, Jesus presented the value of his sacrificed life and not his body when he passed though the greater spiritual curtain in the presence of the Almighty God Jehovah.—Hebrews 10:19, 20.
I've already noted that the analogy to OT sacrifices is wanting; to put it another way, Jim pushes it too far. I've already said what I wanted to say on that, so wont say anything further. However, I will say more about his claim that, if Jesus were raised up physically, the 'salvific transaction' he engaged in by his work on the cross would have been undone.[1] Let's start by seeing what Christ himself says on the matter:
John 10:17,18 - The reason the Father loves Me is that I lay down My life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again.
Compare what Jesus says about what he is laying down and what he is taking back up with what Jim says. He and I both agree that Jesus laid down his human life, and this Jesus surely meant, for he was a human when he said, 'My life'. But Jim claims that it was not this human life that Jesus would take up again. However, does this fit what Jesus says? I think not, for note that "it" in "I have authority to lay it down" refers to his life, which it is agreed is his human life. Thus Jesus indicates that he would be resurrected human. Indeed, how could he take up 'again' that which he surrenders unless it is the same thing, namely life as a human?
And yet it might be objected that what Jesus meant here is not 'life as a human', but something like 'life as abstracted from the kind of living thing he is, whether human or no'. And his taking up this again needn't mean that he became human again. (Even then, there are other reasons to say think that he did take up human life again.) But, then, Jim has a problem; specifically, his 'no-take-backs' principle: that should Jesus have taken back what he surrendered, then the 'salvific transaction' would be undone.
If Jesus sacrificed his life (in a human body) and took it up again (in a angel-like body), he took back that which he gave, right? And yet, Jim wants the atonement to go through. And this suggests that he should abandon the extra-biblical 'no-take-backs' principle. Doing this undermines his case against the physicality of Jesus' resurrection.
Nor does it make sense to think that the life he surrendered should be conceived of apart from the kind of being he was, namely human. Jesus surrenders his life - why? To save us. Hebrews notes that he surrendered his human body. So the human Jesus who said, 'I surrender my life and take it up again' gives his life, which is to say, his body, or his life as an embodied human. Since that is what he surrenders and that which is takes up again is the same as that which he surrendered, he follows that Jesus took up embodied human life again, his body was resurrected, his flesh did not see corruption.
I think Jim can find additional reason to reject this 'no-take-backs' in a Witness doctrine, namely, their claim that ordinary death is the sufficient and exhaustive punishment for a person's sins (prior to dying).[2] They claim that the wicked who die have paid for their sins, though, not that they thereby deserve a second chance at life. However, God will resurrect many of them again. Now, for those who are brought back to life, do the sins they've committed in this duration of life now cease to be paid for? Witnesses would maintain that they will not. So someone can pay for something with their human life, receive it again and still that which they paid for remains paid for - the the 'punitive transaction' is not undone. Well, why couldn't Jesus pay for the sins of the saved (and potentially anyone else who could have become saved) in this same way? Why must he not take up human life again?[3]
Not that this 'life-in-the-abstract' holds much water, since Scripture is quite clear that his flesh did not see corruption, and hence must remain to this day.
Jim also says:
An additional scripture popularly employed is Luke 24:39, where the resurrected Jesus said he is not a spirit but has “flesh and bones” after after miraculously appearing inside a locked room. Ones who conclude this means that Jesus was not a spirit also conclude that he also had no blood, and must therefore ignore this palpable and absurd contradiction of being alive as a man without any blood. However, when Jesus appeared in the locked room he indeed had blood as confirmed in Luke 24:39 and at 1 John 1:1 where his invited followers felt his flesh to confirm that he was not a vision. By feeling and examining his flesh they could doubtlessly confirm blue veins and that he had blood and was not bloodlessly blanched. This only makes sense if he was a spirit being materializing in the locked room. Jesus being understood as materializing into the locked room addresses his miraculous appearance, whereas the other interpretation does not and leaves it as an unresolved mystery of preposterous proportions.
"Flesh and bone" is just an idiom for saying 'I'm human.' And saying, "I'm not a spirit" means just that. People who somehow think that Jesus intend to convey the message 'I have no blood' aren't worth listening to on this matter; at least, no one who defends the physicality of Jesus' resurrection needs to take such a strange view.
Additionally, Jim can't say that Jesus had flesh, bones and blood - not strictly speaking. Why? Because if Jesus had all of that that would just be him as a human being after his resurrection. So if Jesus wasn't actually a human being, but a spirit being, it was only that he appeared as a human being. Specifically, he formed a faux-body, but which is a different, ontologically speaking, from an actual human body is from a pile of dust. Yet Jesus did have actual flesh, bones and blood and was a human, not a spirit.
Moreover, Jim shows himself to be lacking in imagination and prone to baseless incredulity. The only explanation as to how Jesus could appear behind locked doors without being in the room prior to the door was closed and locked is that he was an angelic-like spirit being that materialized a faux-body. Sure it is; more on that below.
Jim continues
Thus, ones who believe that Jesus has a physical body now in heaven must clarify if it is the one he received during his earthly sojourn or another physical body received at his resurrection. They must also specify how Jesus is able to exist with a physical body outside of earth’s protective atmosphere. Additionally, ones who insist that Jesus is able to retain his physical body that he received in Mary’s womb due to being “glorified” in some undefined sense are unable to specify any supporting scriptures showing how his physical body is glorified and thus preserved.
It was the body that he had on earth, he didn't have multiple bodies. If Jim can't imagine how God who conserves everything in being could preserve Jesus' body in heaven (which he merely asserts is naturally inimical to human - let alone immortal and incorruptible human - life), that says more about his lack of imagination than any defect in the traditional view.
Now, why does Jim think that I should have to give a description of how Jesus' human body was glorified and what he, as a glorified human, could do from the Scriptures? It suffices to show that (1) he was raised up a human being, (2) that the resurrection body is glorious, incorruptible, immortal and so so, (3) point out the various things the gospel writers describe Jesus as doing after his resurrection (and offer possible explanations as to how he did what they say he did).
Now, even given this, I admit, we don't know that much about what the Resurrection body will be like, but that isn't an argument against maintaining that it will be physical. (Additionally, we could ask the same question of him: what is an angel-like body like? How does a human body get transformed into one?[4])
Now, even given this, I admit, we don't know that much about what the Resurrection body will be like, but that isn't an argument against maintaining that it will be physical. (Additionally, we could ask the same question of him: what is an angel-like body like? How does a human body get transformed into one?[4])
Moving on, Jim says:
Lastly, one scripture that must be showcased is John 6:63, where Jesus answers his question in verse 62: “Then what if you see the Son of Man ascending where he was before?” The “before” is defined for us previously in John 6:38 as being heaven. He then answered that the spirit is life-giving but that “human nature is of no help!” (NET Bible) If that’s Jesus’ view of human nature in heaven, then why would he have one?
The fundamental problem is that Jim misunderstands what Jesus is saying here. Jim takes him to be describing the kind of body that he will have in his resurrection. But that is not what he is doing here. This can be seen when he says, "My words are spirit and life." Well, we aren't going to be made out of Jesus' words, are we? So he is not talking about the kind or composition of bodies the faithful will have. Rather he is describing how one attains to life, namely through his words which, following the rendering in the New International Version, are 'full of the Spirit' and hence give us (everlasting) life. This is true apart from the nature of the bodies with which we shall enjoy this life.
Jim concludes.
It appears to me that ones insisting otherwise, that Jesus retained his sacrificed Nazarene body are clinging to Jesus’ body when he said “Stop clinging to me,”[1] and are contradicting Jesus when he said that “the flesh is of no use at all” (NWT) “the flesh doesn’t help at all” (HCSB) “the flesh counts for nothing” (NIV) in heaven (per John 6:38). (John 20:17; 6:38, 62-63) He sacrificed his flesh (blood and the rest of his body) during the crucifixion, and by his own admission it is not currently needed in heaven. Thus, in order to obey Jesus’ direct command, we should not cling to it.
Now, perhaps Jim is only trying to add a nice rhetorical flourish to his post, and so doesn't actually think that those who maintain that Jesus was raised up as a human being are actually disobeying Christ's command to Mary to stop literally clinging to him. If so, whatever. If not, he's obviously misapplied the verse.
Of note here is that Jim implicitly affirms what I have to say about Jesus' present Jewishness as our High Priest. I said that since Jesus is presently a Judean, he must be humans, since Judeans are humans (and it doesn't make sense to talk about spirit beings being Judean). Why does he affirm this? Notice that he denies that Jesus has his Nazarene body. This body was also Judean. So he denies that Jesus is still a Judean, even as he denies that Jesus is still a Nazarene. But if that is so, he denies Paul's claim that 'we have a high priest from Judah'.
[1] See Jim's view on the cross here, where he differs from Witness teaching on the matter.
[2] Obviously, I don't think this is how retribution for sin works, but Jim does, and hence we can furnish an objection against his argument from other beliefs he is committed to, even if we don't believe it ourselves. In any event, this shows that the 'no-take-backs' argument isn't obvious, or held on independent reasons (that is, from Jim's aim to show that Jesus was not raised up as a human being).
[3] Indeed, if Jesus sacrificed his life, shouldn't Jim say that it would be impossible for the salvific transaction to go through if Jesus ever came back to life as anything?
[4] Since there are good reasons to suppose that humans are essentially 'rational animals', that is to say, essentially corporeal, physical beings, then it follows that a human being cannot become an immaterial being, that would just be for the human person to be annihilated and another (similar in some respects) spirit being to come into existence.
Written in San Dimas, California, published while I was in Spokane Valley, Washington.
