In the past when debating the Resurrection we look forward to, I have stressed to it as being the same as Jesus Resurrection under an assumption that that itself proves it to be Bodily. But now I know some people think Jesus Resurrection was not a Bodily one. So I need to address that.
His Tomb was empty, that should be all I need to say. I know some might teach something like his physical body was disintegrated, I think I heard the JWs teach that. But that is illogical, if The Gospel itself in your view is of us being liberated from this physical shell, why wouldn't the Gospel narrative make clear it existed separately post Resurrection?
One YouTube video I watched (it's one of those that annoyingly has no voice over) claims that the text of the Gospel proves Jesus was already out of the Tomb before the Stone was rolled away.
1. I believe our Post Resurrection bodies may well have abilities our current ones don't, that they won't be limited to three Dimensions anymore. In fact Jesus seemingly showed such capabilities pre-Resurrection, like in the scene where a crowd if about to push him off a cliff but he then somehow just walks away, or in John 7 where he seems to show up out of nowhere during Tabernacles.
2. Regardless the narrative doesn't say that. Again why even roll the stone away if you think the narrative wanted to tell us it wasn't even necessary?
Mark 16, Luke 24 and John 20's account all clearly say the Stone was already rolled away before the Women came within view of it, that's three witnesses. Only Matthew 28 seemingly says different, but the problem there is Matthew 28 verses 1-7 probably takes place over a longer period of time then a casual reading leads one to assume.
Matthew 28:1 does not say the women already arrived at the Tomb, it's recording them heading for it. Between Matthew 28 verses 4 and 5 is probably when Jesus walked out of the Tomb, as well as the women first arriving at it as the other accounts of this Sunday morning record.
If Matthew was our only account that would maybe be a contrived interpretation of what it says. But Matthew isn't our only account, we need two or three witnesses to build doctrine, and 3 out of 4 Gospels make it unambiguously clear that the Stone had been rolled away for awhile before the women arrived. And if you're a Christian who accepts the consensus of Secular Scholars, the first 8 verses of Mark 16 are the oldest account of these events.
And don't think the women need to have seen this event for it be recorded. In fact the text of Matthew 28 itself emphasizes the guards as being the ones who saw the stone rolled away.
It's interesting that only Matthew records this, Matthew was a former tax collector, which means he probably had some contacts within the local Roman government in Judea. So it's easy to imagine why this event only Roman soldiers saw would have reached Matthew's ears before any of the other Gospel writers. I suspect the same about it only being Matthew who mentions Pilate's Wife and her dream.
The Resurrected Jesus eat Bread on the Road to Emmaus. He showed people His wounds, and offered to let Thomas but his fingers inside them. Revelation 5 described him currently while at the right hand of the Father as "a Lamb as it had been slain", Revelation 1 and Zechariah 12 imply he'll still have the wounds following His Second Coming.
Some might wonder given how different I seem to think our Post-Resurrection bodies will be, what's even the point of stressing it as Physical rather then just Spiritual? If I think we might have the ability to walk through walls and stuff, isn't it semantics at that point?
First of all I've talked about what I think the New Heaven and New Earth will be like on my Prophecy Blog.
Secondly, the key point is I believe it was in Genesis 3 things went wrong, and the Restoration we await is to the conditions of Genesis 2. While Gnostics think Genesis 2 is where things went wrong. I've shown on this Blog that the New Testament says Genesis 3 is where things went wrong.
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