Friday, November 1, 2024

Corporate Body View of the Resurrection

This is a view I’ve seen held by Full Preterists as an alternative way to explain how the General Resurrection of The Dead promised by 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 20 and other Passages is already Fulfilled.

Now it seems from those I’ve looked at so far to still functionally lead to the exact same Metaphysical conclusion, that our Individual promise of Immortality is as “Spirits” in “Heaven” not our current Fleshy Bodies being made Immortal.  However I could see the exact same Tactics being used by modern Sadducees to deny any kind of After Life at all.

The core argument is taking the Body of Christ Doctrine, particularly how it's expressed in 1 Corinthians 12 and insisting the “Body” discussed in 1 Corinthians 15 is only that Body not individual Bodies.

First of all it is a Lexical Fallacy to insist the word Body must still only refer to the same thing it did earlier, Paul is focusing on a different topic in Chapter 15.

But regardless of that what Paul means by all Believers being the Body of Christ is specifically our Physical Bodies, our Flesh.  That’s why his argument against Prostitution in 1 Corinthians 6:15-16 is that the Members of Christ should not be joined to a Harlot.  Each individual Body is a Member of the Body of Christ the same way our Limbs are Members of our individual bodies.  Romans 12:4-5 says the same thing.

The Body of Christ Doctrine is derived from the Bride of Christ Doctrine, we are One Flesh with Christ the same way Husband and Wife are One Flesh.

And it’s also tied to us being The Temple of God which Paul starts laying out in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 and returns to in Chapter 6:19-20.  In John 2:21 the individual Incarnate Body of Jesus is called “the Temple of His Body”.  In Paul  both each Individual body is the Temple of God and all of our Bodies are Collectively The Temple of God.  2 Peter 1:13-14 also refers to each individual body as a Tabernacle as does Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:1-4.

So The Corporate Body of Christ can only be said to be risen if Each and Every Individual Body is Risen.

They also focus on the fact that the word Body is only ever used in a singular form in 1 Corinthians 15.  This is a misunderstanding of how Language works, Paul is keeping most of the language Singular so each individual can feel like they are being individually spoken to on some level.  It is a message for everyone which means each individual.

To simply read 1 Corinthians 15 and try to force it to only be using the word Body in some legal sense and not about carnal bodies being buried and then risen is absurd.  That is not the natural impression any of this Language gives no matter how Paul used the word Body earlier.

No comments:

Post a Comment