Besides, your body returns to the dust of the ground with no body left to raise.
That statement contradicts the "Law of Conservation of Mass", doesn't it? Moreover, it contradicts Jesus' promise to the disciples, that even if they were put to death, "not an hair of your head shall perish" (Luke 21:18).
Corinthians 15:
44It is sown a
natural body; it is raised a
spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45So it is written: “The first man Adam became a
living being;” the last Adam a
life-giving spirit.
As I said above, a "spiritual body" is STILL a kind of
BODY - not spirit only, with no physical aspect to it. If you are trying to use this verse to prove that Christ, the "last Adam" dumped his physical body and reverted to only a spirit-being at His ascension, there's a problem with that. Christ was a "life-giving spirit" even BEFORE His crucifixion. During His earthly ministry, didn't Christ say, "And
I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish..."? Christ did not have to die before those who were believing on Him during His earthly ministry were given eternal life.
2 Corinthians 1:
1For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens.
2For indeed, in this
tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven,
3since in fact after putting it on, we will not be found naked.
4For indeed, we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.
5Now He who prepared us for this very
purpose is God, who gave us the Spirit as a pledge.
I'm sorry, I remember now that I never really responded to this 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 text when you brought it up on the Full Preterist forum. Possibly the way you are wanting this to read would be this way..."For we know that if our earthly tent which is our house is torn down, we have
a spirit from God, a house not made by hands, eternal in the heavens..." But it doesn't say that. It says a "
building from God" awaits us. A physical construction, not made with human hands, but one made by God Himself. If God once took the dust of the ground to construct the body of Adam, it will be nothing for Him to reassemble the dust that once made up our body, and transform that same substance into a body that can never die again - "eternal in the heavens".
If believers while in this life already have eternal life of the spirit granted to them, then what purpose is there in having the "earnest" of the Holy Spirit given to us as a promise of something further beyond that? If the physical body were to be dumped in the resurrection, we would have nothing further to anticipate in addition to what we already have. But the indwelling Holy Spirit is now given to us as a "down-payment" of something we do not yet have - i.e., the "
redemption of our bodies" as in Romans 8:23, which will be given incorruptibility and immortality in the resurrection.
Could you point me to the verse that says as you say: "glorified, resurrected body" so I can know what you're talking about.
We can know that Christ had a glorified body on the day of His resurrection by comparing two texts. In John 7:39, John said that "...
the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that
Jesus was not yet glorified." This puts
the giving of the Holy Ghost within the believers at a time
after Jesus would be glorified.
Then we go to John 19:19-22, when the newly-resurrected Jesus came to the disciples that same first day of the week at evening. He breathed on them, and said, "
Receive ye the Holy Ghost." Since the Holy Ghost was to be given AFTER Jesus was glorified, then if we know when the Holy Ghost was first given and breathed into the disciples, we can know that the body of Christ which came out of the grave was a glorified one; a glorified body which had "flesh and bones", and could eat, drink, disappear from view, levitate, change form, and never die again.
