Update on Resurrection Posts

I said that I just wrote my last resurrection post for a while. But I may write another one this coming week.

The reason is that Steven Carr has gotten me to think about the composition of Jesus' risen body.

According to my Armstrongite heritage, Jesus rose as a spirit being, which means that his risen body did not have flesh. For Armstrong, when Jesus appeared to the disciples in the Gospels, he was not showing them his true self. He was just manifesting himself as a fleshly being for their benefit. I mean, he couldn't demonstrate his full splendor, could he? That would blind them!

When I took N.T. Wright's class on the resurrection, I became exposed for the first time to how a lot of Christians interpret "spiritual body" in I Corinthians 15: They see it as a spirit-filled body as opposed to a soul-filled one, or as a body that is physical yet has spiritual characteristics (e.g., immortality, the ability to morph and vanish into thin air, etc.).

But I was never really convinced by the orthodox position. For one, what's it mean to say that Jesus has a spirit-filled body? That he has the Holy Spirit? Why's Jesus need the Holy Spirit? We're the sinful people who need the Spirit to live a good Christian life. Jesus didn't need that!

Also, what's it mean to say that we'll become spirit-filled rather than soul-filled bodies? That sounds to me like possession! The soul is who I am--my personality and wishes and desires and thoughts. Will that be gone in the resurrection? But that's me!

As far as the "spiritual body is a glorified physical body" spiel goes, I'm not so sure. That seems to be making a spiritual body into something other than a spiritual body.

But I only heard one lecture from Wright on this subject. I'd like to read his fuller treatment of it in his book. And so I'll read the relevant chapter and do a write-up, maybe next week.

Stay tuned!