Since Easter was yesterday, the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, I thought I would talk a little nit about His resurrected body.
One thing that I have heard many times is that the Bible says that, after His resurrection, Jesus could walk through walls. Whenever I hear that, I always ask, where does it say that? No one has ever been able to show me where it specifically says that He walked through a wall or walls. Usually they point me to a Scripture that says that Jesus showed up somewhere where a man couldn’t just show up. Okay, but, at the risk of sounding repetitive, where does it say that He walked through walls? Well, they say, how do you think He got there? I don’t know; the Bible doesn’t say, but, the point is, you said that the Bible says He walked through walls. If it says that, show me, if it doesn’t, then don’t say that it does; you don’t want to be adding to the Word of God.
Of course, it seems to me that it wasn’t just after the resurrection that He did such things. In Luke 4, it tells us that a crowd of people got angry with Jesus, and was prepared to kill Him, but He slipped away through the crowd that was trying to kill Him. Granted, that’s not exactly Him entering or leaving a closed room without benefit of the door, but it is similar. John 8 has a similar event.
Further, a lot of people seem to think that Jesus, after His resurrection, is the image of what we shall be in Heaven. The irony of that is that the very verse that they use to support this belief proves it to be wrong: 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” Yes, it does say that we shall be like Him, but it also says that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. So we aren’t going to be like anything that has ever appeared to any man. Just for the sake, let me also point out that Jesus, when He appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, was greeted by speculation that His ghost had come back to haunt them. In Luke 24:39, He reassures them by saying, “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Then He sat down and ate something to reassure them further that He was not a spirit (or a ghost). The Bible also tells us, in 1 Corinthians 15:50, that flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. So, obviously, we are not going to have flesh and blood (or flesh and bones) in the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus did after His resurrection (unless the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven are two different things).
One other thing, and I have to admit, I don’t really understand this one, maybe one of you can make sense of this: When Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, He told her not to touch Him, but when He appeared to Thomas, He told Thomas to touch Him. A couple of things have occurred to me: 1) It doesn’t say that Thomas actually touched Him, apparently, just the realization that Jesus knew what proof Thomas required was proof enough in itself, so Thomas didn’t feel the need to touch Him, and 2) He told Mary Magdalene not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father, but then He immediately tells her to tell the others that He is ascending to God. It’s possible that He did ascend and return, before meeting up with the rest of the disciples. Why would He do that? What difference did it make whether anyone touched Him prior to His ascension? These are things that I do not know. Any ideas? I’d love to hear your theories.
One thing that I have heard many times is that the Bible says that, after His resurrection, Jesus could walk through walls. Whenever I hear that, I always ask, where does it say that? No one has ever been able to show me where it specifically says that He walked through a wall or walls. Usually they point me to a Scripture that says that Jesus showed up somewhere where a man couldn’t just show up. Okay, but, at the risk of sounding repetitive, where does it say that He walked through walls? Well, they say, how do you think He got there? I don’t know; the Bible doesn’t say, but, the point is, you said that the Bible says He walked through walls. If it says that, show me, if it doesn’t, then don’t say that it does; you don’t want to be adding to the Word of God.
Of course, it seems to me that it wasn’t just after the resurrection that He did such things. In Luke 4, it tells us that a crowd of people got angry with Jesus, and was prepared to kill Him, but He slipped away through the crowd that was trying to kill Him. Granted, that’s not exactly Him entering or leaving a closed room without benefit of the door, but it is similar. John 8 has a similar event.
Further, a lot of people seem to think that Jesus, after His resurrection, is the image of what we shall be in Heaven. The irony of that is that the very verse that they use to support this belief proves it to be wrong: 1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” Yes, it does say that we shall be like Him, but it also says that it doth not yet appear what we shall be. So we aren’t going to be like anything that has ever appeared to any man. Just for the sake, let me also point out that Jesus, when He appeared to the disciples after His resurrection, was greeted by speculation that His ghost had come back to haunt them. In Luke 24:39, He reassures them by saying, “A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” Then He sat down and ate something to reassure them further that He was not a spirit (or a ghost). The Bible also tells us, in 1 Corinthians 15:50, that flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. So, obviously, we are not going to have flesh and blood (or flesh and bones) in the Kingdom of Heaven, as Jesus did after His resurrection (unless the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven are two different things).
One other thing, and I have to admit, I don’t really understand this one, maybe one of you can make sense of this: When Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene, He told her not to touch Him, but when He appeared to Thomas, He told Thomas to touch Him. A couple of things have occurred to me: 1) It doesn’t say that Thomas actually touched Him, apparently, just the realization that Jesus knew what proof Thomas required was proof enough in itself, so Thomas didn’t feel the need to touch Him, and 2) He told Mary Magdalene not to touch Him because He had not yet ascended to the Father, but then He immediately tells her to tell the others that He is ascending to God. It’s possible that He did ascend and return, before meeting up with the rest of the disciples. Why would He do that? What difference did it make whether anyone touched Him prior to His ascension? These are things that I do not know. Any ideas? I’d love to hear your theories.
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