In part one of this two-part series, we looked at the assertion by some, maybe many in mainstream Christianity, who believe that Jesus’ resurrected body was physical and that this same, physical Jesus ascended to Heaven, from where He will one day return to Earth.
Let us continue to look at evidence that proves otherwise.
We read Christ’s words and action in Luke 24:39:
“‘Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.’”
As we said in the previous instalment, the Roman Catholic Church “explains”: “Christ makes it plain to His disciples that He does have a physical body; He is not a disembodied spirit.”
Again, as pointed out before, this “explanation” overlooks that Spirit beings do have form and shape—they are not “disembodied” spirits, but their bodies are composed of Spirit.
There is plenty of evidence of angels taking on the form of a human being so that they could be seen, as we know that a flesh and blood human being can’t see a Spirit being unless it materialises itself. The question has been asked and answered as to “How many times do angels appear in the Bible? More than a dozen times in the New Testament, and a dozen or so other times in the Old Testament.”
Jesus was raised up at the resurrection with a spirit body which the disciples and humanity could not see unless He materialised Himself as He did on a number of occasions. How could Jesus appear in the midst of the disciples if He was physical? In John 20:24-29, we have the account of doubting Thomas. We read in verses 26-28:
“And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, ‘Peace to you!’ Then He said to Thomas, ‘Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.’ And Thomas answered and said to Him, ‘My Lord and my God!’”
We can see that Jesus entered the room while the doors were shut and suddenly He appeared in their midst, and said, “Peace to you!” After Thomas saw Jesus, he was convinced that Jesus had been resurrected. As a Spirit being, Jesus was able to go through closed doors and be wherever He chose, irrespective of any physical obstacles that could be in the way. In modern scientific terminology, the glorified body is not subject to the forces and laws of physics and chemistry.
How could Jesus appear in the midst of the disciples if He still had a physical body? If this assertion was correct, He would not be able to go through walls and other physical barriers and instantly appear before the disciples. In addition, Jesus would be the only physical being in Heaven and we should know that that cannot be the case as everything in the Third Heaven is spiritual, man’s doubting and misunderstanding or misapplying Scripture notwithstanding!
Romans 6:4-5 is instructive in this regard:
“Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we have been united together in the likeness of His death, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of His resurrection,’
In Philippians 3:21, we read that Christ “will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.”
Jesus’ resurrection body is the pattern for our resurrection body, and we read the following in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17:
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
Jesus is now a Spirit being in heaven. He will return to earth to set up the Kingdom of God, and His people will be caught up in the air to meet Him in the clouds.
In our two-part Q&A “Who and What is in Heaven?” we showed that “In heaven, there is God the Father, Jesus Christ the Word, and innumerable angels” and no physical beings are there. In John 4:24 we read: “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” God the Father and Jesus Christ, the two members of the God Family at this time are composed of Spirit, as will be the born-again members of God’s Church at the resurrection when Jesus returns to this earth. We must remember that in Mark 16:19 we read: “So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God.” And He would have been a Spirit Being to have been in such a position next to the Spiritual Father and all the other Spirit beings that live in the Third Heaven.
In our booklet, “Angels, Demons and the Spirit World,” we read the following on page 17:
“Christ did not appear to His disciples in His glorified state. He did not appear, prior to His ascension to heaven, with all His power and glory that He has today. We can find a description of His glorious appearance in Revelation 1:10, 12–17. We also find a description of His glory, prior to His human birth, in Ezekiel 1:26–28. When He appeared to His disciples after His resurrection, He appeared just as an ordinary man, so much so that they did not recognize Him. Accounts of His appearances can be found in John 20:14–16 and John 21:4–7. They only came to recognize Him after He spoke a certain way or performed a certain miracle that He had performed earlier before His death.
“We read that the disciples on the road to Emmaus did not recognize the resurrected Christ until He ‘…took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight’ (Luke 24:30–31). The reason that they did not recognize Him earlier is explained in Mark 16:12: ‘After that, He appeared in another form to two of them as they walked and went into the country.’”
A good question to ask is how a physical body could just vanish from their sight, as it states in Luke 24:31?
In the same booklet on pages 44-45, we explain the misunderstood passage in Luke 24:39:
“Christ manifested Himself to the disciples as a being with flesh and bones. He even ate food in their presence to convince the disciples that it was He, not a spirit or a demon. The Greek word for ‘spirit’ is ‘pneuma’ and can refer to demons (compare Matthew 8:16; 10:1; 12:43, 45; Luke 4:33, 36; 6:18; 7:21, etc.). We understand, of course, that Christ is not a being with flesh and bones. Rather, at His resurrection He received a spiritual body and became a life-giving Spirit (1 Corinthians 15:44–45, 50). He was able to manifest Himself, however, as a person with flesh and bones. We saw earlier that angels can manifest themselves as human beings as well. Demons cannot. Christ used this opportunity to show His disciples that He was not a spirit or a demon, because demons cannot manifest themselves as human beings with flesh and bones.”
It is emphasized above that Christ became a life-giving SPIRIT… not, as we quoted the following false assertion in the first instalment and repeat it again below, a physical human being with a “physical body” which is “designed with eternity in view.”
In our Q&A entitled: “We read in Matthew 27:52 that many saints were raised at the time of Christ’s death. How can Christ then be called the firstborn from the dead (Colossians 1:18)?,” We make these observations:
“Christ… became born again when He was resurrected to Spirit. It was at that time that He became the firstborn among many brethren. Romans 8:29 tells us that we are to be ‘conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.’ We also read in Colossians 1:15, 18: ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation… And He is… the beginning, the firstborn from the dead.’
“Christ was the first human who became born again as a Spirit being. The Greek word for ‘firstborn,’ ‘prototokos,’ designates the person who is born first. It can refer to the firstborn Son of the spiritual Family of God, and it can also refer to the firstborn son in a physical family. We read, for example, in Hebrews 11:28 that Moses kept the Passover and the sprinkling of blood by faith, ‘lest he who destroyed the firstborn should touch them.’ Christ was also, quite literally, Mary’s firstborn Son (Compare Matthew 1:25; Luke 2:7. The Greek word, ‘prototokos,’ used here does not mean ‘only’ or ‘only begotten’ son. That concept is conveyed by the Greek word ‘monogenes’…). Since Christ was Mary’s firstborn Son, it goes without saying that Christ as a human being had younger brothers. In fact, He also had sisters (compare Matthew 13:53-58).
“The same Greek word, ‘prototokos,’ is also used in Revelation 1:5. The New King James Bible translates the entire passage quite accurately in this way: ‘…and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler over the kings of the earth.’ (The Authorized Version’s rendition, ‘first begotten of the dead,’ is clearly wrong. The context here is the resurrection from the dead. The Ryrie Study Bible comments that ‘Christ was the first [man] to receive a resurrection [glorified] body which is immortal’).” (our emphasis).
As we mentioned earlier, there is the invention of a new description of Jesus “who has a physical body, with a difference. His resurrected body is designed with eternity in view.” Why would anyone make up something that the Bible certainly doesn’t say? Jesus’ resurrected body was a Spiritual body—a body with form and shape, but composed of Spirit—and He is now in Heaven, seated at the right hand of God the Father where all around them are Spiritual beings and Spiritual things.
It would be ridiculous to think that God the Father and all the angels in heaven are all spiritual, but Jesus is the odd one out having a physical body!
In His resurrection, Jesus did not and does not have a physical body. Neither will we. His physical body was in the grave for three days and three nights, but when He was raised from the dead, His physical body was changed into a spiritual body, which is the same that will happen to us, when we, who are still alive, will be changed.
We asked the question: “Is Jesus Christ a Spirit Being Today?,” and the answer, as we have shown in this Q&A, is an unequivocal YES!
Lead Writers: Brian Gale and Norbert Link