NBF,
1. Why is the human body structured the way it is, and what are the ramifications of this toward the idea of Christ's existing now in the flesh?
I don't know all of the reasons why the human body is structured as it is, other than efficiency, ease of motion, and symmetry. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you mean.
It is structured vertically to counter gravity. Christ is in heaven where there is no gravity, moreover where there is no-one physical, and therefore He too is not physical and does not exist in the body in which He ascended, nor any other physical shape.
Perhaps the "image of God" is involved, being more than just moral or spiritual, but having to do with actual shape and appearance, as well.
The image of God is a shadow of God, not the substance. The shape we have therefore points to the spiritual ‘structure’ of God (head – body) etc, which is not corporeal, but conceptual. God merely describes Himself in terms of the shadows, so that we who are confined at present to such, will be able to relate to Him. Thus we are told that He is a "He", and elsewhere that He has wings, and arms, and fingers, etc.
I don't buy the idea that to be a spirit means that one is an amorphous blob, or a shape-shifter.
A spirit is not physical (does not belong to physicality) and therefore cannot be said to have any shape, blob or otherwise, but rather, is of another dimension. Ghosts and demons have no shape. The ghost that Christ gave up had no shape, but nevertheless went and preached to those of Noah’s times. Evidently no form was necessary.
As for ramifications that this would bring to the idea of Christ existing now in the flesh, please understand that I did not say that "Christ exists now in the flesh". ….What I said was that Christ possesses a glorified human body,
You cannot have a human body which is not flesh. If it is human, it is flesh. If it is not flesh, it is not human. You may not cross domains in order to construct an entity which suits your paradigm, but must work with existing criteria.
the body that was resurrected and went to the Father and then came back to be seen for 40 days after the resurrection.
Christ did not ascend until after the 40 days. There was only one ascension. When He declared to Mary that He was going to ascend, it was stated in the grammatical indefinite: "I ascend". He meant "my ascending is imminent in accord with the scheme of things", and not "I am going to ascend now while you are away telling the others".
The same body he ascended into heaven in. That body.
That body was flesh, complete with holes in its side and hands, a male form, a penis, lungs, a heart, a male bone structure, etc. And Jesus declared that He was flesh (Luke 24:39). That body ate, and talked, and wore clothes. It was the same body which rose from the tomb. It was human in every way.
The integrity of the resurrection depends upon the raising of the exact same body which went to the tomb, in the exact same form and substance. When Jesus showed Thomas the holes in His sides and hands, He was not synthesising His former form, but was indeed the same body. Just like Lazarus’ resurrection.
That is no ordinary, corruptible body of flesh.
It is difficult to respond to your ideas at present, for they are in a state of flux in that they conflate the idea of "flesh" with "not-necessarily-corruptible" to produce a hybrid not seen in scripture, nor consistent with the natural domain.
Paul uses the term "natural", and contrasts this with our spiritual body. "Natural" relates to nature and natural sciences, and means "physical". "Spiritual" consists solely of spirit. You cannot have a spiritual physical body or a physical spiritual body. A natural body is corporeal, and a spiritual body is not. A Ghost is a spiritual body.
When the word "body" is used with "spiritual", it speaks to confinement/delimitation of person, or entity, rather than form. Thus when Jesus gave up the ghost (left His physical body) He was not deficient in any regard, but went and preached to the disobedient from Noah’s days.
2.What value does Christ's existing in the flesh (your present claim), add to your relationship with Him in the Spirit now, and what would it add to your relationship with Him in the Spirit in the future?
What I know from scripture is that when I see Him at His coming, I will be like Him,
The teaching of 1 John 3 that you refer to is that we will be like Him because we shall see Him as He is. It is parallel to 2 Cor 3:18’s "But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.
That is, it is not physical form that is referred to (hence "it doth not yet appear what we shall be" - for it did appear what Christ was after the resurrection), but spiritual ‘form’, which consists of quality, not quantity, such quality also not requiring a vessel to exist in. Thus Christ does not merely contain the wisdom of God, but is Himself the very wisdom of God. How this can be, cannot be intellectually discerned, but spiritually discerned with the same discernment that tells us that Christ dwells in us.
Our being like Him now as per 2 Cor 3:18 is by virtue of our beholding Him in the Spirit as the Spirit reveals Him. Such ‘seeing’ of Him is not according to corporeality, but spirituality. The physical is redundant, as it is with angels and God the Father, and God the Holy Spirit. And God the Son. For God is one, and God is a spirit who must be worshipped in spirit.
When Christ rose from the dead, His original body was risen. However when He appeared to the two on the road to Emmaus, He appeared in a different physical form so that He would not be recognised. Thus His person is not linked to His form, and therefore He has no form (in the corporeal sense), but rather, it is a case of "like Father, like Son".
Christ also appeared to 74 of Israel at Exodus 24:10, and yet not in the form He had when He ascended in the NT. Not even close to it.
and that my fleshly, corrupted body will be changed to be like His body, incorruptible. That is promised in scripture.
His body is us. The reference to our being changed to be like His Body, is a reference to our being changed to who we (already) are outside of time. That is, the partial shall give way to the perfect: we will be changed to resemble His body not merely in part according to our knowing Him only in part, but fully in accord with the fact that we shall know Him (1 John 3 "see Him as He is"), by the Spirit to the same level that we are known. Thus "but then shall I know even as also I am known".
So the change has nothing to do with corporeality, but spirituality: an increase of infinite proportions in becoming like Him spiritually through seeing Him fully in the Spirit, so that that which is physical will be rendered redundant, and thus discarded.
That is, the final consummate change does not depart from the current modality in which we are urged forward, but continues on in the same direction and modality, to wit, conformity to the mind of Christ. There is no need to all of a sudden institute a change of focus, which change would constitute a betrayal of what we are taught to focus on now: not any form of Christ, but the righteousness of Christ. If such is sufficient for us now, it will be sufficient for eternity. We need no auxiliary modality.
And thus we are told that corruption cannot inherit incorruption, which is to say that the flesh by virtue of its being physical, can never be transformed to being incorrupt, but that rather, a completely new state of existence is ushered in: we will be spirits forever absent from the body. For the physical inextricably contains within it, imperfection: Adam would have eventually died regardless of what he did: the vanity to which the creature was subject as per Rom 8 speaks not of a degradation of his life after a fall (for no reversal of such occurs when one comes to Christ), but speaks to the initial creation: the spiritual creature was made subject to physicality, thus resulting in the creation of the physical universe which cannot and never will expedite the things of the Spirit of God, and which therefore is vanity.
3.Given that God doesn't change in eternity, and given that Christ existed before the world as a spirit, how could it be possible that He would exist as a spirit for 'part' of eternity, and in flesh for the remaining part, when eternity cannot be divided?
The problem here, is that you are posing "flesh" and "spirit" as polar opposites,
The common understanding of "flesh" and "spirit" is that neither has any part in the other. The Holy Spirit has no flesh. Neither does Satan. Jesus declared that a spirit does not have flesh.
and not parsing the definition of either.
One doesn’t parse a definition. You are not using the word correctly.
There is fundamental difference between the corruptible fallen flesh that all men are born with, and the glorified flesh and bone body Jesus had after His resurrection.
This begs the question.
There is no text in scripture which speaks of the glorification of a human body, whether Christ’s or otherwise. It is simply a belief held by virtue of jumping to conclusions.
The scripture declares Christ’s body is glorious, and that our body shall be changed like unto His, but this does not mean to entail the retention of that which is of necessity, corrupt. This is why we are told that corruption shall not inherit incorruption.
Christ’s body is glorious for His Body is us, for "the woman is the glory of the man", and "he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit".
We understand Christ’s body to be glorious from the viewpoint of the spiritual man and not the viewpoint of the natural man: it is glorious because of His character in us who are that Body. Christ is glorious because of Who He has revealed Himself to be to His bride, and not because of some sort of super-flesh, which would be in accord with the carnal mind.
There was no glory apparent in the risen body of Christ, nor was anyone’s body transformed to be like His body when they saw Him. Rather as we have earlier pointed out, 1 John 3’s telling us that our seeing Him shall make us like Him, is in reference to our seeing the same things about Him that we now see through the glass darkly, only then clearly and without measure. It speaks to quality, not form. It speaks only of the righteousness of God, which righteousness the person of Christ is, without any need to be contained within a corporeal form. This is hard to understand, and sounds ethereal, but in fact it is spiritual.
I realize that you are apparently operating from the idea that "flesh is flesh, and spirit is spirit".
However, the scripture that comes from is not dealing with this situation, but rather contrasting that which is physical and carnal from that which is spiritual and eternal.
Thus you declare that what is physical, cannot be spiritual.
The term "carnal" is used as a way of ascribing vanity to all flesh judicially, and not to distinguish carnal flesh from an oxymoronic "non-carnal flesh". Therefore anything which gives attention to the flesh above the spirit, is carnal mindedness, and anything which suggests enhancement to the flesh, doubly so. We therefore conclude that, given that the existence of the flesh or any form of corporeality in the afterlife would cause distraction from the things of God, it will not be present.
The word "vanity" is today used in one of two ways: showiness, or uselessness. This is no etymological quirk, but stems from the spiritual fact that what is physical, is both showy and useless with regard to the things of God. Thus Satan’s vanity resulted in his being cast to the realm of the earth, which is both showy and useless. And thus we are informed concerning him that he "savours the things of man".
And thus we also see in scripture that marriage is given to believers by way of concession, and not for itself, and that singleness rather than marriage, is the greater gift. And so following on from this, there shall be no marrying in heaven, but we shall be like the angels, who are spirits, and who have never been appointed to flesh. And if no marriage, then neither male nor female, and if neither male nor female, not continuing to any degree whatsoever that which will be eradicated in accord with Heb 1:26. We therefore conclude that the form of Christ being male when He ascended, He is no longer physical.
And thus our physical bodies will never be raised, but rather: "dust to dust". We will be present with the Lord by virtue of our being absent from the body. Such is the specific teaching of 2 Cor 5:10. The common ‘understanding’ of the resurrection, though in sentiment not divergent from the truth, is not accurate.
Christ existing as a spirit and then in a glorified body of flesh and bone is not an either/or proposition. He remains an eternal spirit, even if He retains the glorified body He was resurrected in, walked the earth for 40 days afterward, and was received into Heaven in.
A physical body is not a spirit, but contains a spirit. So it is not correct to say that [Christ in a corporeal body] is equivalent to [a spirit].
We are told that we are joined to the Lord as one spirit, yet we know that our physical bodies are not involved in this. Thus the Spirit (of the Lord) that we are joined to is also not physical. And not being physical, necessarily without physical shape.
Changing His form does not change who He is.
Which should tell you that He doesn’t have form. For if He does, which form does He adopt for eternity? Which one is better?
Appearance has nothing to do with eternity.
Which is why it is not in eternity. God doesn’t have things in His kingdom which have nothing to do with His kingdom. Thus Jesus said that the kingdom of God comes not with observance.
Seeing that this be the case, it necessarily comes not with corporeality. Hence 2 Cor 4:18, Heb 12:26.
