94 - Doctrine of Physical, and Bodily Resurrection

Doctrine of Physical

There ate two crucial doctrines on which everything in Christianity depends: the virgin birth and the resurrection. If either of these two is lost then our faith is in vain, as Paul says in this chapter; it is meaningless. Christianity, unlike all of the other world religions, is not founded on some philosophy, it is founded on a person and what that person did in space-time history. If we remove the virgin birth or the resurrection we have no Christian faith. In the virgin birth we have the joining of the eternal deity of the second person of the Trinity with His humanity, and that is foundational to Christianity. John 1:14 ^NASB "And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth." So the eternal second person of the Trinity takes on humanity, adds humanity, so that He becomes the God-Man. Because He is God He is going to be able to go to the cross, and what happens on the cross is going to have eternal value because He possesses absolute, perfect righteousness. Because He is fully man He is going to be able to die as a substitute for everyone else in the human race. Because He is ⁺R He has a positive righteousness which can be imputed to each and every believer. Without the virgin birth there is no incarnation of God, Jesus is just another man, and if just another man He inherent a sin nature from Adam, He has the imputation of Adam's sin, He has inherent sin, and He has the imputation of Adam's original sin. So the virgin birth is crucial.

The resurrection is also crucial because it provides a visible victory over physical death. We know that physical death is not the penalty for sin. If we look at Genesis 2:17 there was a penalty for sin: death; but it was not physical death. Physical death is not the penalty for sin. Physical death is not mentioned until about the third or fourth paragraph of the outline of the curse in Genesis chapter 3, but there were a number of other consequences that preceded that. Now there is a battle between man and nature. So we can't separate the physical from the spiritual as the Greeks did. They created a dichotomy between the spiritual and the physical and so Christ is going to deal with both the spiritual penalty and the physical consequences on the cross. He doesn't separate the two because ultimately there is no real separation. This is one of the reasons the Greeks had trouble with the resurrection, because if the physical body isn't important then why does it need to be resurrected? So they rejected off-hand in an a priori manner—listen to the decision first, look at the facts later because I'm already convinced.

It is in the resurrection that Jesus Christ conquers the greatest consequence of sin. The sin penalty is spiritual death; the greatest consequences of that, the most obvious consequence of that in our life, is physical death. That is conquered and by conquering physical death the resurrection is also a sign of God's acceptance of Christ's spiritual sacrifice on the cross and of the Father validating Christ's work in salvation. This is emphasized in 1 Corinthians 15:55-57 ^NASB "O DEATH, WHERE IS YOUR VICTORY? O  DEATH, WHERE 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." His victory over physical death in the resurrection is to indicate to us that we also will have victory over physical death. That doesn't mean that we won't die physically.

Introduction to the importance of resurrection

1)  The physical human body is vitally important and significant as the home for the soul. It is necessary to the soul and is part of the image of God.

2)  Genesis 1:26-28 ^NASB "Then God said, 'Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth'. [27] God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them." What we see here is that the image of God is related to the soul. Male and female indicates external differences but it also indicates soul differences; together they are representative of God as the image of God. They are to rule, and part of ruling involves this physical dimension. There is a physical world they rule over and that involves them being present in a physical sense, not an immaterial sense. Genesis 2:7 ^NASB "Then the LORD God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." So we see the two elements. The breath of life means the immaterial part of man and man becoming a living being. The word for "life" is a Hebrew plural but it is a plural of emphasis, it does not mean "breath of lives" which would imply that you have two lives and lose one at spiritual death. The immaterial has to operate in a physical body.

3)  At this point in Genesis it was probably when the pre-incarnate Christ was messing around in the dust He was thinking about the Father's design. Remember the Father was the designer of the plan. But He was also thinking about the purpose of God and that he Himself was going to become incarnated into that body that He is making. Therefore the design of that body is not nearly as pragmatic, it didn't come along as a product of trial and error through the various stages of evolution, but it is a body that was specifically designed so that when the second person of the Trinity was incarnated into that body, that body would allow God to give us the highest possible expression of who and what he is. So when God reduces Himself to this finite body this the highest possible expression of that finiteness. Hebrews 10:5 ^NASB "Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, 'SACRIFICE AND OFFERING YOU HAVE NOT DESIRED, BUT A BODY YOU HAVE PREPARED FOR ME'." In His deity He is expressing His thanks to God the Father in reference to the physical body that has been prepared for Him. He has to be thinking this in His deity.

4)  We have to realize in Scripture that the human soul never exists independently of a body.

5)  After death it is clear from Scripture there is some sort of interim body that is similar to the resurrection body. Cf. Samuel at Saul's visit to the witch at Endor; Luke 16, the account (it is not a parable) of the rich man and Lazarus. What does the rich man do in verse 23? He "lifts up his eyes; v. 24, "he cried out"; "dip the tip of his finger and cool my tongue." Apparently there is an interim body that allows the soul to interact with whatever is around it. The soul can see, can't hear, can't touch, or do anything by itself; the soul has to have a body through which it transmits and receives data.

6)  At the Rapture of the church all church age believers receive their resurrection bodies. What we learn from this is that if we were to die today we would receive an interim body, we would be face to face with the Lord, but we don't have a resurrection body.

7)  There are two basic resurrections spoken of in Scripture. John 5:24-29; Daniel 12:2; Revelation 20:6, 13. 1 Corinthians 15:23 tells us that resurrection occurs every man in his own order, and the Greek word translate "order" is tagma [tagma], a military word for order, for a division of a military unit. The first segment of the resurrection is the Lord Jesus Christ who is the firstfruits of resurrection, Romans 1:4; 1 Thessalonians 1:10; 1 Corinthians 15:20. The second company in the first resurrection is the church, all church age believers, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57. The third company of those in the first resurrection are the Old Testament saints plus Tribulation martyrs, and they are raised at the end of the Tribulation. Daniel 12:13; Isaiah 26:19, 20; Revelation 20:4; Matthew 24:31. The fourth group in the first  resurrection are the two servants of the Lord who are martyred half way through the Tribulation and resurrected three and a half days later for all the word to see. The fifth group is comprised of all Millennium saints and those who are alive after the Tribulation who go into the Millennial kingdom, and we see their resurrection at the end of the Millennium. The second resurrection is all unbelievers since the beginning of time, Revelation 20:12-15; Matthew 25:41.