This was a grand event with a great outcome. It was epochal in the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is epochal in describing the character of our beings now in the established Kingdom of God.
The misunderstanding of the resurrection body, which also can be called the redeemed body, goes all the way back to the middle of the first century. Paul dealt explicitly and in a very precise way in explaining the resurrection body to the Corinthian believers. The error found among them was catastrophic and in large part was due to false teachings of Gnostics gaining defiling inroads into the realm of God’s sphere of reality and redemption. That ancient error was distinct from that which the Patristic Churches immediately taught. Both positions were and are wrong with major consequences. The Corinthian error was catastrophic while the Patristic error was highly detrimental. Some Corinthians under Gnostic influence denied that there was even a resurrection from the dead! They did not do what the Patristic Fathers did. Those leaders interpreted the resurrection from the dead as a yet future event of otherworldly or unearthly bodies. Their interpretation was not fatal like that of the Gnostics. Nevertheless, theirs was mundane and engendered weakness of faith and worship. It quenched the Spirit of God.
There are very important distinctions in their differences. The ancient Gnostics were hyper-spiritual, that is, they spiritualized away everything into another realm of esoteric and false “knowledge”. The Patristic Churches’ interpretation was in the opposite direction. In spite of Paul’s detailed explanation, they put forth and maintained a physical and crass interpretation of this body, although of a higher existence. The result of this very large and still very influential teaching was that its maintenance robbed God of His glory and robbed His people of their position and strength. As if this was not bad enough, the Patristic Churches immediately proceeded to use their interpretation as essential to being in the family of God! Only if you submitted to their interpretation were you treated as a believer. This interpretation was established at the churches’ beginning as solidified false doctrine – with deadly consequences – being firmly grounded in their first creeds. Submission to their creeds RATHER THAN BELIEVING IN JESUS - were the litmus tests of salvation. In this very regard, they entered the same catastrophic and deadly arena of their antagonists, the ancient Gnostics. The Gnostics held forth that their knowledge was believing and was the key to salvation. The Patristic Churches held forth the their interpretation of God’s word as embodied in their creeds was believing and was essential to salvation. BOTH GROUPS WERE AND ARE DEAD WRONG!
What was the teaching that misguided some of the Corinthians and what is the doctrine of the Spirit as taught by Paul? The Gnostic false doctrine that deceived the Corinthians was that there was no resurrection from the dead because everything was already known and attained spiritually through their special intuition of knowledge. All spiritual reality, they taught, occurred through the secret intuition that they alone possessed. The Gnostic interpretation assailing Corinth was simply an extension of their interpreting all things in an exclusive hyper-spiritual context, infused with their esoteric spiritualized meanings. All of this, they maintained, was the way of salvation. It was the “knowledge” that they exclusively offered.
The resurrection of the body of believers was real, was spiritual and was on the near horizon as intended by God. Paul explicitly revealed that. His corrective instruction was so the Corinthians would properly understand the resurrection of the holy ones in the context of the epochal arrival of the fullness of the Kingdom of God, and, accordingly, live in the full power and full glory of God.
Often it is said by people that they wish God had simply made everything really clear so that people would not be confused. They ask, why doesn’t God simply lay out everything in a detailed way so as to remove error and doubt. In those areas where this statement-question arises; justification for salvation, predestination to life, and the resurrection of the body, He has done exactly that! The responsive question to the questioners is, since He has done what you wish for, why do you not see and believe? The answer is on the surface although it is denied and resisted by the wishful. They do not see because they have prejudicial models of interpretation that they must maintain. This is one of the areas where Paul covered a lot of ground for the proper correction of error and for the proper understanding of the truth. His teaching is so full, so detailed, that it was incredible that the Patristic Churches maintained, and that their spiritual descendants still maintain, a very unspiritual interpretation of the same teaching about the resurrection. Paul showed the Corinthians (and us) how to interpret the resurrection of their body.
Hearing Paul, the resurrection body was and is a spiritual body. It was and is a corporate body composed of many members. These realities have always been the case.
Most people reading this essay are in a man-made extra-spiritual time-locked space of the churches’ creation. They are time-locked in a modified version of the last days of the Age of the Law of Moses. The churches’ erroneous creation was and is in extending that Age with their own imposed adjustments beyond God’s purpose. Be that as it may, when Paul wrote the truths about the body he obviously was in those days of that Age.
People today already understand to a significant degree what Paul taught as operative then in other matters of great weight. However, they have been influenced to believe that the resurrection body stands in a different reality than the other realities of their existence. They should not, but they do. The body was spiritual, not otherworldly, but spiritual and real in the same way that other grand truths were and are in the very same reality. The difference emphasized by Paul when he was correcting the Corinthians concerned the unique aspect of the sowing and reaping of the body. The grievous state of affairs is that today people who name the name of Christ have, indeed, traded the spiritual for the unspiritual, otherworldly view when it comes to the resurrection body because they have not understood the revelation of the Spirit through Paul.
Before considering the doctrine of God about the resurrection body, consider these truths of like manner that you already believe. (I am now writing to you as believers.) You have been fully united with Jesus Christ in all things of life and have fully participated in His life for you. The only difference is in what He uniquely experienced as holding the exclusive and first place in everything and what you and all of His people experience in Him as His redeemed people, which effectuates your salvation. He was crucified on the cross really and physically. You were crucified with Him really and spiritually. He was buried really and physically. You were buried with Him really and spiritually. He was raised from the dead really and physically. You were raised from the dead with Him really and spiritually. It is in this last reality that Paul corrected the errors of the Corinthians. Before continuing with that, consider these other issues that have always been both real and spiritual. They will help inform you of the truths taught by the Spirit of God that concern us now. Enoch and Elijah were really and physically translated to heaven because God loved them. You were really and spiritually translated into the Kingdom of God’s Son because He loves you. Moses had to really and physically put a veil on his face to shield his really and physically glory-glowing face from the Israelites. The real and spiritual glory that glowed on the faces of all believers in the last days of Moses’ Law was greater than that of Moses himself.
Returning to the resurrection body, after Paul categorically corrected the Gnostic false doctrine that there was no resurrection of the dead he drilled down further to address the next question about the nature of the resurrection body. He made these direct comparisons. “When you plant crops, you do not sow the matured and harvested plant, but the rudimentary seed. But God gives it a body just as He wished, and to each of the seeds a body of its own.” Then he broadened his overview to highlight the Divine will in the subject at hand. He said, “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of mankind, another flesh of animals, another flesh of birds, and another of fish. There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.” Note that Paul took the subject to the all-encompassing and higher plane. After that definitive capture he said, “So also is the resurrection of the dead.” The Spirit thereby revealed that the resurrection body was altogether superlative and glorious.
He continued, “It (the body) is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruptibility; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” Then the Spirit immediately revealed that this method and progression was according to the plan of God. He said, “So also it is written: ‘The first man, Adam, became a living person. The last Adam a life-giving Spirit.’” In the purpose of God there are two men, two Adams, two heads of their offspring. The first one is Adam, husband of Eve, from whom the world descends and partakes of his sin. The second one is Jesus Christ, Son of God, from Whom the redeemed descend and partake of His righteousness.
To sum up the real natures of the two families for the erring in Corinth Paul said, “However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second Man is from heaven. As is the earthy one, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly One, so also are those who are heavenly. Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.” This was not all that he had to say. He told them that they were about to fully, to completely experience the spiritual image of the Man from heaven in the redeemed body, the body of the resurrection. He said, “Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruptibility. Behold, I am telling you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For the corruptible must put on incorruptibility, and the mortal must put on immortality. But when the corruptible puts on the incorruptibility, and this mortal puts on the immortality, then will come about the saying that is written: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O Death, is your victory? Where, O Death, is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the Law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” Note: the power of sin is the Law of Moses. When Paul wrote this, the Law of Moses, the prison-house task master which defined and condemned sin, was in its very last days of existence with approximately 12 years until its end. The Age and condemning administration of The Law ended when God sent His tool of judgment and wrath, the Roman General Titus, to destroy the Temple, to crush Israel, and exile the nation in the year 70. It was so near that Paul said to the Corinthians that some of them would not die before the change occurred. When Jesus wrote His seven letters to the assemblies in Asia through His secretary John, He stated that the seventh trumpet, the last one, was on the very verge of sounding. He made this declaration approximately one or two years before the end of the Age of the Law of Moses and the overthrow of the Temple in Israel.
The resurrection body was just like justification, salvation, and glorification. It was given in down-payment partial measure in the last days of the Mosaic Law as a sign, pledge and reality that those summing up days were occurring and that God was fulfilling His eternal purposes in Jesus Christ, in Whom the full inheritance would come. Hallelujah! For just as He promised He fulfilled in His love and faithfulness. The partial become the complete in the second coming of Jesus Christ to overthrow His enemies and establish His Kingdom in the Eternal Heaven and Earth.
Jesus said to His present audience, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” He said to them, “My Kingdom comes not with observation.” He said, “The Kingdom of God is withing you.” He said, “He who endures until the end will be saved.” The maxim of the Scriptures is, “He who honors God is honored by God.” Justification, Salvation, and Glorification have all come in their fullness and spiritual reality. What awaits the holy ones of God, members of the spiritual, incorruptible body of Christ who constitute the resurrection body; who are also living stones in the glorified temple of God, is the third heaven of God. There the existence of life is so grand and so lofty that the experiences of that realm for us will be permanently bestowed upon our physically leaving this life of this eternal administration and service.
Why was all of this reinterpreted by the Patristic Churches and their extra-spiritual step-children?
God, who is faithful, loving, and true will be believed and honored in His fulfillment and provision and Kingdom. He honors those who honor Him and He dishonors those who dishonor Him. Jesus is the author and perfecter of believing God. He said, “My sheep hear my voice, and a stranger they will not follow.” When referring to the Jews as God's chosen people and their favored and privileged position, Paul said, “What then? If some did not believe, their unbelief will not nullify the faithfulness of God, will it? May it never be! Rather, God is true, but every man is a liar, as it is written: ‘So that You are justified in Your words, and prevail when You are judged.’”
Whether or not people remain impoverished time-locked mere babes, who build upon the foundation of Jesus in glory using wood, hay, and straw or are people who are false disciples being outside of God’s Kingdom because they use their interpretation of His Word to divide and hate men (which are self-condemning works of the flesh according to Paul) is another matter found in another essay.