Jehovahs Witnesses on the Resurrection of Christ: "Jesus rose as a spirit body not a physical body"

AJTruth said:

Hello DrBubbaLove,
The post say's body (it dies) soul (mind & emotions and can be lost) & spirit (eternal with either spends eternity in the presents of God. Of will spend eternity separated from God)

The with or without depends on a persons choice to receive/accept God's grace and place their faith in the sin atoning sacrifice. Found in the death, burial & resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Or the choice to reject Gods grace/sin pardon offer and remain in UNBELIEF.

Only God has the ability to divide the spirit & the soul.

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of """soul & spirit""", and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

Marrow: where blood cells are produced. Life is in the blood. Maranatha

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What about me makes me me and not someone else?
IOW if science could dupe/clone my body (maybe a little taller), what about this new me makes that not me?
My answer would be the soul. Yours is still unclear to me at this point.

Ken Behrens said:

Then what do we disagree about? Your "extra abilities", I'm sure, include never getting sick, being able to eat, never growing old. Nothing on earth has this ability, so how does the resurrection change this? Unless the spirit somehow assembles the body in some new, improved fashion.

I do not agree that in the verse I quoted, Paul's use of "spirit" refer to the group spirit. Each person prayed for had their own soul, and their own body. There is nothing to indicate that he suddenly switched to group spirit. Besides, the Jews teach that a person has 5 parts, including body mind and spirit, and Paul was highly trained as a rabbi. Why make no mention of the fact that he is saying something different than what his training expected him to think?

There are serious reasons why we cannot use spirit interchangeably with soul, but that is a separate discussion, involving the occult, healing, miracles, etc.

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We are going to have supernatural bodies like the one that Christ had in His resurrection. Our new bodies aren't going to be coarsely physical like the fallen, corruptible ones we have in this temporal mortal existence.

I guess I actually do not care much how one labels what Catholics and others often call a "glorified body" as long as one agrees it is a very real body and not something else. I do not see how we could understand God saying what He did if the resurrected body is just a "form" created by a spirit.

Luke 24:39
"Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have."

He Arose with a real body and went to great lengths to demonstrate it was a real human body, flesh & bones and not something else - additional abilities yes - but a body=>not something else.
Which is a good thing as God made us with, meaning He meant humans to have, bodies - and that creation distinctly different from angels, who have no form (because they are spirits).

The JW need to realize that the ancients only understood the phrase resurrection and "risen from the dead" as a physical coming back from death. There is no evidence to suggest that the ancients used such terminology to refer to a ghost. The very fact the scripture repeatedly says Christ ressurected only proves it was not a ghost or phantom or spirit or apparition. In fact his ghost would probably not have been tha big of a deal.

We will have a resurrected body like Christ has, Christ is the first fruits.

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.”
In Context | Full Chapter | Other Translations
Ephesians 5:30
For we are members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones.

It will be a glorified body similar yet different than what we now have.

Ken Behrens said:

Our body was made of bits of the earth molded by the hand of God. Bits of earth are not spirit. Our new body will be made of spirit. I believe it will be created by our spirit at the point of resurrection, since our spirit was made to inhabit a body.

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It makes no sense for spiritual bodies to live on a physical earth.

Jesus even had the wounds of his body after the resurrection

truefiction1 said:

We are going to have supernatural bodies like the one that Christ had in His resurrection. Our new bodies aren't going to be coarsely physical like the fallen, corruptible ones we have in this temporal mortal existence.

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Was Adam and Eve's bodies physical before the fall?

Ken Behrens said:

This statement is simply not correct. This belief is why Catholics are afraid of exorcisms and pentecostals are not. It is also why witches create demons every day. It is also why the gifts stopped from Catholic churches in the third century.

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There is the Charismatic Catholic Renewal for those that still want the gifts of the spirit.
On the OP, the physical resurrection is paramount to Catholic beliefs, and along with the Trinity etc, one of the few things we still have in common with low church Protestants and Evangelicals.

DrBubbaLove said:

Where to start. Since the focus was only on a statement about the soul, then should we accept that every other point made was conceded?.
Do you agree then that it makes no sense to talk about something that is not physically real (a spirit) as if it was real (like a body is real?

So you appear to claim to hold the opinion that a soul is not a spirit. There were only two choices, so this means you believe the soul is physically real. Where does this real "part" of our nature reside in the body?

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No, I do not concede other points. I just don't have time to discuss everything. This point is critical to my comment on the OP.
Many mystics would disagree that the physical world is real. While I do not claim to be a mystic, I agree with this. Any scientist will tell you that the amount of space taken up byt the protons and electrons that make atoms is so small compared to the physical space we say they fill,t hat the "real" world is mostly a world of quantum potential. One can model the plan of God as quantum potential, and if we do this, it makes spirit the real matter of the physical world. So, no, I do not agree. It is the spirit that is real,t he body is a shadow of the spirit.
The soul has a large physical component. Pictures are frequently taken of it, and it is needed to explain hauntings, reincarnation evidence, and many other things.

Daniel Marsh said:

It makes no sense for spiritual bodies to live on a physical earth.

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It depends on whether the phrase means the bodies are spirit, or are created by spirit. I believe it means they are the second. There will also be a new heavens and new earth, of course, and this new earth will be a little different than the one we are on now. The two "physicals" will be perfect for each other.

The metaphysics is important here. Gen. 1 does not start with the creation of earth (it already exists but is unformed and void or purpose). Since only God could have created it though, spirit can create matter. The traditional teaching is that God created earth to be as far from Him as possible, and that is why the material of this earth is imperfect. Thus, God created our bodies by molding pieces of earth. I believe the phrase means that in the resurrection, our spirits (empowered by the spirit of God) will create a new type of body,looking exactly like our best appearance now, but with the additional powers manifested by Jesus after the resurrection, since it is meant to exist alongside Jesus forever.

While we are thinking about this, how did Jesus breathe when He was being taken through space up to heaven? For that matter, how is He breathing now? (If you're Catholic, ask this about Mary also.) There are several answers possible, but all will show you something of the metaphysics I am talking about.

Ken Behrens said:

No, I do not concede other points. I just don't have time to discuss everything. This point is critical to my comment on the OP.
Many mystics would disagree that the physical world is real. While I do not claim to be a mystic, I agree with this. Any scientist will tell you that the amount of space taken up byt the protons and electrons that make atoms is so small compared to the physical space we say they fill,t hat the "real" world is mostly a world of quantum potential. One can model the plan of God as quantum potential, and if we do this, it makes spirit the real matter of the physical world. So, no, I do not agree. It is the spirit that is real,t he body is a shadow of the spirit.
The soul has a large physical component. Pictures are frequently taken of it, and it is needed to explain hauntings, reincarnation evidence, and many other things.

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A model represents an idea about what is real and usually created to help understanding. So the caveat, "if" in this statement is not just asking whether we can make a model because we jump from that "if" - to claiming certainty something must be real (as in physical). That is not a leap a true scientists takes.

Neither of us or the Bible deny a spirit can have physical effect, that would be what angels do when they manifest. Just as it represents what God, a Spirit, does when He manifests to us. Those effects, however it is being done, do not mean the physical aspects of the effect must be a part of the spirit doing it. I would agree the effect would be similar to the creation of a shadow, only the actor is the active force/cause rather than being passive (blocking light). In any model of that concept, the manifestation itself is not the spirit or even a part of the spirit. Spirits do not have parts.

A shadow is not a part of the thing creating it, it is external to it. We were made a body and a living soul. Jesus went to great lengths to demonstrate that we can once again after death be a living body and soul again. And He did so in particular with emphasis that His body was just as real as His body on the Cross - in fact the same flesh and bones as indicated by having some (not all) the wounds. That effort would be duplicitous if in fact it were not true that it actually was a body of flesh and bones. If we are to understand that demonstrate as your model is being used to suggest, then He lied to them.

Daniel Marsh said:

Was Adam and Eve's bodies physical before the fall?

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Yes, and so will ours be after the resurrection. Yet ourw will be supernatural physical bodies like that of the Lord's when He rose from the dead.

yogosans14 said:

The Watchtower organization says that Jesus did not rise from the dead in the same body he died in (You Can Live Forever on Paradise Earth, pp. 143-44). Instead, it says that He rose as a spirit creature and that the material body of Jesus was taken away by God the Father.

The official website of Jehovahs Witnesses on Christ Resurrection:

The Bible says that Jesus “was put to death in the flesh but made alive [resurrected] in the spirit.”—1 Peter 3:18; Acts 13:34; 1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 5:16.

Jesus’ own words showed that he would not be resurrected with his flesh-and-blood body. He said that he would give his “flesh in behalf of the life of the world,” as a ransom for mankind. (John 6:51; Matthew 20:28) If he had taken back his flesh when he was resurrected, he would have canceled that ransom sacrifice. This could not have happened, though, for the Bible says that he sacrificed his flesh and blood “once for all time.”—Hebrews 9:11, 12.

If Jesus was raised up with a spirit body, how could his disciples see him?

• Spirit creatures can take on human form. For example, angels who did this in the past even ate and drank with humans. (Genesis 18:1-8; 19:1-3) However, they still were spirit creatures and could leave the physical realm.—Judges 13:15-21.
  
  
• After his resurrection, Jesus also assumed human form temporarily, just as angels had previously done. As a spirit creature, though, he was able to appear and disappear suddenly. (Luke 24:31; John 20:19, 26) The fleshly bodies that he materialized were not identical from one appearance to the next. Thus, even Jesus’ close friends recognized him only by what he said or did.—Luke 24:30, 31, 35; John 20:14-16; 21:6, 7.
  
  
• When Jesus appeared to the apostle Thomas, he took on a body with wound marks. He did this to bolster Thomas’ faith, since Thomas doubted that Jesus had been raised up.—John 20:24-29.

• 
  Your thoughts?

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My thoughts? It is a conclusion based on reading in English. They can support their view and the best we can do is share something in addition to that but that won't trump what they believe. When he rose he ate... and walked through a wall. That is different than these plain physical bodies we have now... so perhaps they have not a full truth here but a decent insight on one aspect of it.

Ken Rank said:

My thoughts? It is a conclusion based on reading in English. They can support their view and the best we can do is share something in addition to that but that won't trump what they believe. When he rose he ate... and walked through a wall. That is different than these plain physical bodies we have now... so perhaps they have not a full truth here but a decent insight on one aspect of it.

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To a point maybe. We do not have to imagine the unique abilities demonstrated by a "glorified body" make a liar out of the One attempting to demonstrate to them that in spite of His Death and then appearance (Resurrection) it is still His same flesh and bones.

yogosans14 said:

The Watchtower organization says that Jesus did not rise from the dead in the same body he died in (You Can Live Forever on Paradise Earth, pp. 143-44). Instead, it says that He rose as a spirit creature and that the material body of Jesus was taken away by God the Father.

The official website of Jehovahs Witnesses on Christ Resurrection:

The Bible says that Jesus “was put to death in the flesh but made alive [resurrected] in the spirit.”—1 Peter 3:18; Acts 13:34; 1 Corinthians 15:45; 2 Corinthians 5:16.

Jesus’ own words showed that he would not be resurrected with his flesh-and-blood body. He said that he would give his “flesh in behalf of the life of the world,” as a ransom for mankind. (John 6:51; Matthew 20:28) If he had taken back his flesh when he was resurrected, he would have canceled that ransom sacrifice. This could not have happened, though, for the Bible says that he sacrificed his flesh and blood “once for all time.”—Hebrews 9:11, 12.

If Jesus was raised up with a spirit body, how could his disciples see him?

• Spirit creatures can take on human form. For example, angels who did this in the past even ate and drank with humans. (Genesis 18:1-8; 19:1-3) However, they still were spirit creatures and could leave the physical realm.—Judges 13:15-21.
  
  
• After his resurrection, Jesus also assumed human form temporarily, just as angels had previously done. As a spirit creature, though, he was able to appear and disappear suddenly. (Luke 24:31; John 20:19, 26) The fleshly bodies that he materialized were not identical from one appearance to the next. Thus, even Jesus’ close friends recognized him only by what he said or did.—Luke 24:30, 31, 35; John 20:14-16; 21:6, 7.
  
  
• When Jesus appeared to the apostle Thomas, he took on a body with wound marks. He did this to bolster Thomas’ faith, since Thomas doubted that Jesus had been raised up.—John 20:24-29.

• 
  Your thoughts?

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As scripture plainly states (the JWs don't seem to be too familiar with scripture), after the resurrection, Jesus appeared to the apostles, Thomas was asked to stick his fingers in Christ's wounds, which would not be possible unless Christ was a solid figure standing in front of him.
Christ ate and drank, which very obviously implies a solid body.

yogosans14 said:

The Watchtower organization says that Jesus did not rise from the dead in the same body he died in (You Can Live Forever on Paradise Earth, pp. 143-44).

• Your thoughts?

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Hi Yogosans, Jesus was crucified and buried, and on the third day He rose from the dead. If He rose as a spirit only (as our JW friends insist), where did His body go?

His tomb was EMPTY
.

DrBubbaLove said:

A model represents an idea about what is real and usually created to help understanding. So the caveat, "if" in this statement is not just asking whether we can make a model because we jump from that "if" - to claiming certainty something must be real (as in physical). That is not a leap a true scientists takes.

Neither of us or the Bible deny a spirit can have physical effect, that would be what angels do when they manifest. Just as it represents what God, a Spirit, does when He manifests to us. Those effects, however it is being done, do not mean the physical aspects of the effect must be a part of the spirit doing it. I would agree the effect would be similar to the creation of a shadow, only the actor is the active force/cause rather than being passive (blocking light). In any model of that concept, the manifestation itself is not the spirit or even a part of the spirit. Spirits do not have parts.

A shadow is not a part of the thing creating it, it is external to it. We were made a body and a living soul. Jesus went to great lengths to demonstrate that we can once again after death be a living body and soul again. And He did so in particular with emphasis that His body was just as real as His body on the Cross - in fact the same flesh and bones as indicated by having some (not all) the wounds. That effort would be duplicitous if in fact it were not true that it actually was a body of flesh and bones. If we are to understand that demonstrate as your model is being used to suggest, then He lied to them.

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I am suggesting a model only to orient our thinking. Also to show that reality can be imagined with body, soul and spirit as separate interacting entities.

I agree that the physical manifestations are not part of the spirit doing it. But the body cannot move without the soul. From that, if the spirit manifests anything involving motion, it follows there must be a part of the human different than either the body or spirit.

Shadow is not the right word, but I was avoiding the mathematical term of "cross-section". Technically, the body is a cross section of the intersection of the person with 3 dimensional subspace. The soul is the portions of the person in higher dimensions. The spirit gives them a Godly purpose, that the soul may choose to follow or ignore.

At the resurrection, the spirit manifests as both a body and a soul, because of God's eternal purpose for His creation. Because the body/soul complex is manifested by the spirit, instead of molded from earth by the hand of God, it is a different type of creation.

Ken Behrens said:

I am suggesting a model only to orient our thinking. Also to show that reality can be imagined with body, soul and spirit as separate interacting entities.

I agree that the physical manifestations are not part of the spirit doing it. But the body cannot move without the soul. From that, if the spirit manifests anything involving motion, it follows there must be a part of the human different than either the body or spirit.

Shadow is not the right word, but I was avoiding the mathematical term of "cross-section". Technically, the body is a cross section of the intersection of the person with 3 dimensional subspace. The soul is the portions of the person in higher dimensions. The spirit gives them a Godly purpose, that the soul may choose to follow or ignore.

At the resurrection, the spirit manifests as both a body and a soul, because of God's eternal purpose for His creation. Because the body/soul complex is manifested by the spirit, instead of molded from earth by the hand of God, it is a different type of creation.

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Numbering corresponds to above paragraphs.

1) But I understood the post as doing more than just suggest a model. A shadow is not an interacting "entity" nor is a part of something real, so the model does not help using that analogy. Also cannot agree there is an "entity" when we start talking about the two (or three) physical and spiritual aspects of our nature. We can say that corpse is me but we would mean that in a past tense, as in that is what is physically what is left of what was me. Just as my departed spirit/soul is not me since I am human and that spirit lacks a body. In that sense the departed spirit is simply what currently remains of me until all the dead are raised with new bodies of flesh and bone again. We are creatures created with bodies and souls given us by God, and that is what makes us human as opposed to something else. In this construct of our nature, Whom we got it from and resurrection, we remain human as our resurrected bodies are His doing as well. If we suggest something else creates our new body am unclear how we can claim what is said to be created is equivalent to what God does.

2) Don't get the second paragraph, especially what is claimed after "it follows". Expound or elaborate plz.

3) I think it wrong to look at what is human as an assembly of body and soul, or in the trichotomost view a body, soul and spirit. The body and soul are united as a whole, so one can't point here or there and define a boundry between body and soul. A united body and soul is what a human is by definition. Severe the two at death and we can no longer speak of the soul as if it was a whole human. We could say the immortal existence of the soul is what makes the continuity of a person's existence possible. Which is why we might consider that whatever else we believe the soul to be, it is what makes us identifiable as unique among all humans and what needs to resurrected united with a new body of flesh to affirm what is resurrected is still that human I know as me. God gave a purpose and wrote His law on hearts, which only makes sense to speak of that as part of the soul. Am curious though if you see this third aspect of our nature (spirit) you are distinguishing from the soul(also a spirit) as something that may or may not be present depending on a person's behavior or is it truly something you see as being an aspect of every human's nature?

4) Again manifesting something is creating a physical form that is not in any way mingled or confused with the nature of the individual doing the manifestation. IOW - as soon as one starts talking about a spirit manifestation "as both a body and a soul" then this tells me that "body and soul" said to be manifested does not really belong to the "spirit" that "created" it - that creation is external to the "spirit". Look at this way, by the same reasoning two such "spirits" could create identical (body and soul) and take turns puppeting either one

DrBubbaLove said:

Numbering corresponds to above paragraphs.

1) But I understood the post as doing more than just suggest a model. A shadow is not an interacting "entity" nor is a part of something real, so the model does not help using that analogy. Also cannot agree there is an "entity" when we start talking about the two (or three) physical and spiritual aspects of our nature. We can say that corpse is me but we would mean that in a past tense, as in that is what is physically what is left of what was me. Just as my departed spirit/soul is not me since I am human and that spirit lacks a body. In that sense the departed spirit is simply what currently remains of me until all the dead are raised with new bodies of flesh and bone again. We are creatures created with bodies and souls given us by God, and that is what makes us human as opposed to something else. In this construct of our nature, Whom we got it from and resurrection, we remain human as our resurrected bodies are His doing as well. If we suggest something else creates our new body am unclear how we can claim what is said to be created is equivalent to what God does.

2) Don't get the second paragraph, especially what is claimed after "it follows". Expound or elaborate plz.

3) I think it wrong to look at what is human as an assembly of body and soul, or in the trichotomost view a body, soul and spirit. The body and soul are united as a whole, so one can't point here or there and define a boundry between body and soul. A united body and soul is what a human is by definition. Severe the two at death and we can no longer speak of the soul as if it was a whole human. We could say the immortal existence of the soul is what makes the continuity of a person's existence possible. Which is why we might consider that whatever else we believe the soul to be, it is what makes us identifiable as unique among all humans and what needs to resurrected united with a new body of flesh to affirm what is resurrected is still that human I know as me. God gave a purpose and wrote His law on hearts, which only makes sense to speak of that as part of the soul. Am curious though if you see this third aspect of our nature (spirit) you are distinguishing from the soul(also a spirit) as something that may or may not be present depending on a person's behavior or is it truly something you see as being an aspect of every human's nature?

4) Again manifesting something is creating a physical form that is not in any way mingled or confused with the nature of the individual doing the manifestation. IOW - as soon as one starts talking about a spirit manifestation "as both a body and a soul" then this tells me that "body and soul" said to be manifested does not really belong to the "spirit" that "created" it - that creation is external to the "spirit". Look at this way, by the same reasoning two such "spirits" could create identical (body and soul) and take turns puppeting either one

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Our fundamental difference is that I consider it scientifically proven that the soul is a physical reality, and thus cannot be spirit. If the soul is spirit, then you must provide different explanations for Kirlian photography, hauntings documented on tape, the evidence of reincarnation from India established by Ramakrishna Rao, poltergeists, and many other phenomena.
We agree that the soul causes the body to move, but I believe that the spirit is what causes the soul to move, and the soul them moves the body with it.

#2. I took this quote from your post: "In any model of that concept, the manifestation itself is not the spirit or even a part of the spirit." added the idea that body and soul are different, took what is obvious to me, that the soul has physical parts in a higher dimension, reasoned that these physical parts are a manifestation, and this, if accepted, proves there are three parts.

#1. Spirit is the part that returns to God (as in "into thy hands I commend my spirit"). Soul dissolves (actually disorganizes) slowly, since it was, while we were alive, organized energy. Body degenerates into fundamental chemicals. As long as you are alive, the three are united. At creation in Genesis, God molded pieces of earth (and this included gaia, the movement principle of earth) and blew in His breath, making man a "living soul". The breath made the soul move. In fact, in some early interpretations, Adam and Eve did not have a body until after the fall. In resurrection, the spirit will cause new matter to be generated, together with its motion, since the matter will be higher dimensional, and the higher dimensional part is what we call the soul. It is the higher dimensional part that constitutes the soul (and this was called gaia by the Greeks, and symbolized by the dodecahedron in Plato's system in the Timaeus, which Philo abided by in his writings interpreting Genesis.) When Jesus was raised (by His father), the action of the Father sent His spirit back to His dead body, the spirit recalled His soul to His body, and the soul caused the body to move. Because the power to stand again came from His Spirit, not from God's breath, the new body was "improved" as we have been discussing. This is how the second Adam became a life giving spirit, whereas the first had been a living soul.

#3. I agree we should really not separate them. This whole thread is occurring because language has already done so, and we are trying to understand the reality that language seems to be confusing us about. When a person lives habitually in sin (and this is why God has gone to such pains to tell us exactly what sin is, so we can avoid living in it), his soul is conditioned to have a "desire to sin reflex". The spirit is grieved and the connection between the spirit and soul slowly weakens. When this person dies ("in sin" as we say), his grieved spirit has been eternally conditioned not to cause the soul to want God. At resurrection, the disconnect becomes obvious, as the newly re-created person (body/soul/spirit complex) desires to avoid God. This desire is what causes the person to run away from God, and hell is the only place to go. The disconnect between spirit and soul is what causes the experience of fire. (This again is modeled on Plato's/Philo's understanding, as the spirit is made of fire in the ancient view.)

#4 Each spirit creates its own body. Spirits are each different, so bodies are different. But you have a point in this sense: I think clones possess one spirit, and this creates tons of ethical problems, if indeed, cloning can be done.