Ghostly Resurrection?

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KMK said:
Besides 1 Cor 15:44, what other versed do people use to teach a spiritual/ghostly resurrected body?
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Matthew 22:30- "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven"; Mark 12:25- "For when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven"

One group of people who end up having to deny a physical resurrection are the hyper-preterists. I spoke at some length with one about these issues- I thought it went somewhere, but sadly it appears I'd just backed her into a corner. They use the verses that speak of Jesus returning "soon." Ironically, the main place it speaks of "soon" is the Olivet Discourse (if I remember correctly), which for the most part is speaking of 70 AD and not the Second Coming. Other verses say "quickly" which could refer to the manner in which Christ will come, i.e. suddenly.
 
MarieP said:
One group of people who end up having to deny a physical resurrection are the hyper-preterists.
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That's right. Because they teach that Jesus has already returned, the resurrection must have already occurred. Since the resurrection has already occurred they must also teach that it was not a physical resurrection or else the likes of Augustine and Luther would be walking among us.

But, thanks for the Matt 22 reference. I forgot about that one.
 
I grew up not believing in it. Not that I think I was ever actually taught that (although I recognise the idea of 'ghostly resurrection' in some statements of my amiable ancestors :-): it existed as a vague part of my theology, which I picked up from statements about our spirit going to be with God at death with no further emphasis on what happened to the body, and which translated into visions of the pure nebulosity of the saints crammed into a city the literal physical dimensions of which could scarcely hold all of their substance, all of us hovering mystically over the literal streets of gold; living all alone apparently, for we are not going to be married and we will each want our own great mansion over the hilltop; and the whole slant of fundamentalist practice with regard to the body. I was genuinely shocked when Ruben told me after we were married, that I would have a body in heaven. It turns out most of the things I thought would be literal and physical are figurative, while my own self will be incredibly literal and physical. It was quite a shock to my whole order of thinking.

I think perhaps it is because much of the focus of eschatology is put on tracing prophecy in the news or figuring out if one is pre or post trib, etc. We do not speak of our great hope for we do not read about last things in that light.

(edit: I also believe this has something to do with our Christology. Many Christians do not actually believe Christ was as fully human as they are. They believe He possessed all the attributes of the Godhead according to the human nature and performed miracles out of that power: this also is the idea I grew up with though again, I do not believe it was something I was necessarily taught. It is natural to downplay our own physicality when we have a vague and probably for many still fairly unconnected, but very powerful idea that Christ did not really take on our very own human nature and redeem it.)
 
This is far from surprising. I have frequented a few other "christian" forums and it is eye opening the lack of basic understanding of central tenets of the faith. To tell you the truth the ONLY forums that have a modicum of sanity are reformed ones that are moderated like this one. Cudos to all our Mods here.
 
I think people are just ignorant of this notion...probably the same thing at NT Wright attacks in his book Surprised by Hope. People just seem themselves as souls dismembered from the body to go and be with God forever...and that's the end of it, no second coming (maybe they believe that, but in a contradictory sense deny the resurrection) or resurrection.

But, either way it surely shows how bad off the broad evangelical base is.
 
I have seen people (Christians) pleasantly shocked to realize that we will be living on a renewed planet earth (no death, sin, pain, tears, suffering) where God is with us as our loving Father, and where Jesus walks the planet in our midst — and we are in our glorified resurrection bodies, like Christ's, filled with His glory, in utter heart union with Him who is the mighty and glorious Creator.

There are no dreams dreamt here in this life that can even imagine (though we try — as you can see!) the glory and wonder of the state of being, of consciousness, God has provided for those who love Him. We will partake of His own being in our beings. We shall be united to God in our physical/spiritual union with His Son, who is one with Him.

Words fail to tell of the unending joy of an eternal honeymoon with the infinite One, in a world without end. The long and short of it is, we are loved beyond understanding by our Redeemer and King. But we will know it.
 
Jerusalem Blade said:
I have seen people (Christians) pleasantly shocked to realize that we will be living on a renewed planet earth (no death, sin, pain, tears, suffering) where God is with us as our loving Father, and where Jesus walks the planet in our midst — and we are in our glorified resurrection bodies, like Christ's, filled with His glory, in utter heart union with Him who is the mighty and glorious Creator.
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Amen! Actually, I was Reformed before I was really taught about the new earth and new heavens. I always thought that the concept of heaven as a physical renewed earth was something that only Seventh Day Adventists or Jehovah's Witnesses believed.

Part of why I thought this was 2 Peter 3:10-12

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness, looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire, and the elements will melt with fervent heat?
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However, it was pointed out that this is prophetic language, not unlike what you find in Joel's prophecy concerning the day of Pentecost:

Acts 2:19-21
I will show wonders in heaven above
And signs in the earth beneath:
Blood and fire and vapor of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness,
And the moon into blood,
Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.
And it shall come to pass
That whoever calls on the name of the Lord
Shall be saved.’
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Romans 8:20-22 is another text that seems to indicate that the melting of the elements does not mean a total doing away of what is here now:

20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; 21 because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 22 For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.
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I wonder if this is one reason among several others why cremation is much more accepted today than it would have been 100 years ago. Back then (and even a few decades ago in many places) it would have been regarded as a heathen practice. Burial is a testimony to the resurrection of the body.

In A Theology for the Church Dr. Russell Moore contributes a chapter entitled "Personal and Cosmic Eschatology." I too find that the former aspect is sorely neglected, even in generally sound churches.
 
It is to be feared that many repeat "I believe in the resurrection of the body" weekly (or monthly, perhaps) and sing hymns with lines like "Made like Him, like Him we rise...Ours the cross the grave the skies" and have no idea what they mean. The phrase "vain repetition" comes to mind.

I think it could be argued that this is a weakness of "contemporary worship" songs as well. I think that a good many of the better ones are relatively strong on salvation in Christ alone and similar things. But how many of them address a topic like this? It seems that the old emphasis on the didactic in hymns has largely been abandoned. But without doctrinal preaching that addresses the whole counsel of God, (and some churches have gone generations without it) we see that the meaning of things I refer to in the previous paragraph are often missed regardless.
 
Pilgrim said:
It is to be feared that many repeat "I believe in the resurrection of the body" weekly (or monthly, perhaps) and sing hymns with lines like "Made like Him, like Him we rise...Ours the cross the grave the skies" and have no idea what they mean. The phrase "vain repetition" comes to mind.

I think it could be argued that this is a weakness of "contemporary worship" songs as well. I think that a good many of the better ones are relatively strong on salvation in Christ alone and similar things. But how many of them address a topic like this? It seems that the old emphasis on the didactic in hymns has largely been abandoned. But without doctrinal preaching that addresses the whole counsel of God, (and some churches have gone generations without it) we see that the meaning of things I refer to in the previous paragraph are often missed regardless.
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That's spot on. Nobody (well, I shouldn't say nobody...but certainly almost nobody) will preach on the our bodily resurrection in a topical sermon series about of practical "how tos" with a Christian flavor.
 
I'm not at all surprised by this finding. It fits what I notice when I teach church kids who haven't been in my classes before. Most of them simply haven't been instructed in this matter. Their churches don't recite creeds anymore. They've never been catechized. So they (or their parents) get their theology from popular culture, which imagines an ethereal, cloud-dwelling existence of the soul in heaven.

Once instructed, both kids and parents are willing to believe in the resurrection of the body. But sadly, many have never been taught it.
 
Jack K said:
So they (or their parents) get their theology from popular culture, which imagines an ethereal, cloud-dwelling existence of the soul in heaven.
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Where does popular culture get this particular theology? Does it reflect an influence from some outside religion or from some errant strand of historical Christianity?
 
KMK said:
Jack K said:
So they (or their parents) get their theology from popular culture, which imagines an ethereal, cloud-dwelling existence of the soul in heaven.
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Where does popular culture get this particular theology? Does it reflect an influence from some outside religion or from some errant strand of historical Christianity?
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I think a lot of it is just in our cultural conscienousness and the verse that is etched in our minds, "absent with the body, present with the Lord," not to mention probably some over-practical evangelicalism that is more worried about what a Bible verse is telling them to do rather than doctrine or the redemptive history like Zach stated above.
 
arap said:
I think a lot of it is just in our cultural conscienousness and the verse that is etched in our minds, "absent with the body, present with the Lord,"
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So, we preachers concentrate to much on things like the intermediate state, salvation from God's wrath, end times prophecy etc. and not enough on the actual eternal state.

Baker's blames the Gnostics, the Deists, the Rationalists, and Bultmann who said, "The resurrection itself is not an event of past history."

It appears there is controversy over whether John Ratzinger denies the resurrection.
 
I think it's because at some point, even in our reformed circles, our areas of emphasis have become centered not around a creed or confession that we have in common, but around polemics and distinctives, or even perhaps around being non-polemical and non-distinctive -- around a response to other people's areas of emphasis (and for many those are areas of practice even more than of doctrine). Personally I think N. T. Wright also does this, much as I have enjoyed the books of his I have read: he's latched on to a different aspect than most of us have been focusing on, in response to our focus; but he's still often only emphasising a different aspect of something older writers placed in a fuller and more systematic context. This makes for varying degrees of reductionism in our belief systems and leaves many of us open to receive anything we see in the movies or read in Shakespeare (Hamlet!) as the most vivid impression we have in certain areas of theology.
 
KMK said:
arap said:
I think a lot of it is just in our cultural conscienousness and the verse that is etched in our minds, "absent with the body, present with the Lord,"
Click to expand...

So, we preachers concentrate to much on things like the intermediate state, salvation from God's wrath, end times prophecy etc. and not enough on the actual eternal state.

Baker's blames the Gnostics, the Deists, the Rationalists, and Bultmann who said, "The resurrection itself is not an event of past history."

It appears there is controversy over whether John Ratzinger denies the resurrection.
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I sincerely have no exact idea why, but it isn't surprising to me in the least in broad evangelicalism. I think that broad evangelicalism, isn't perhaps the cause with it's overt pragmatism and ecumencism, but because of those things it surely exacerbates it.
The other day, I was wrestling with my mom to tell her there was a resurrection, and she asked what the point was if we're in heaven. I was aghast a little bit, and quite honestly not sure how to respond to "what's the point of it" other than it says so in the Bible.
So after that little incident, I was no surprised by this at all, but then against she doesn't attend church because she thinks all churches are like the catholics but, I digress...
As for the rest of what you said...I am a little lost, perhaps I didn't follow the conversation closely enough. Can you clarify?
 
a mere housewife said:
I think it's because at some point, even in our reformed circles, our areas of emphasis have become centered not around a creed or confession that we have in common, but around polemics and distinctives, or even perhaps around being non-polemical and non-distinctive -- around a response to other people's areas of emphasis (and for many those are areas of practice even more than of doctrine). Personally I think N. T. Wright also does this, much as I have enjoyed the books of his I have read: he's latched on to a different aspect than most of us have been focusing on, in response to our focus; but he's still often only emphasising a different aspect of something older writers placed in a fuller and more systematic context. This makes for varying degrees of reductionism in our belief systems and leaves many of us open to receive anything we see in the movies or read in Shakespeare (Hamlet!) as the most vivid impression we have in certain areas of theology.
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I think you hit the nail on the head here. This is what we see with "Five Point Calvinism" and with most Baptism debates and so on. Eschatology seems to have taken a myopic view focusing only on the debates about Millennialism and forgetting the more catholic points like resurrection and renewal.
 
Eric, I am obviously very much agreed :-).

Trent, speaking as one for whom the resurrection of the body has made a tremendous difference: I wonder if your mom would see the difference it makes *now* if our bodies are not redeemed in Christ as well as our souls -- for then our physical nature is an evil, and we ought to all live in as ascetic a way as possible.

It's rather beautiful also to see a picture of heaven in the garden of Eden. In Eden you have a man made of earth and a woman taken from his side who are 'one flesh' (with a statement about the man leaving father and mother) in a garden of pleasure. In heaven we will find our God made of created matter, the church taken from his side to be one flesh with him (whom He left His father in heaven to cleave to) in a garden of pleasure.

Remember that earthly marriage is a picture of the love between Christ and His church. It is love in the Song of Solomon that is as strong as death. Heaven is not about individualistic happiness, but about eternal love: it is about our consummated union with Christ. Our desire for heaven is not some random self serving desire to be free of trouble, but it is our desire to be with Him, because we are purchased by His blood to be His forever and to find all our happiness in Him. Heaven is about knowing our God. And the redemption of our bodies which were created for His glory, to enjoy Him forever, is eternally part of that -- as in an earthly marriage. His body was broken for us so that we could physically be with Him forever.
 
A lot of hymns I love talk about heaven (the intermediate state) and seem to bypass the new earth upon which heaven has come down, and our lives in glorified bodies on it. One could get the impression from the hymns that the intermediate state is all there is. I preached an entire sermon on life in the new earth a couple of years ago. This excerpt from Anthony Hoekema's, The Bible and the Future, is a good intro — Heaven: Not just an eternal day off
 
Jerusalem Blade said:
A lot of hymns I love talk about heaven (the intermediate state) and seem to bypass the new earth upon which heaven has come down, and our lives in glorified bodies on it. One could get the impression from the hymns that the intermediate state is all there is. I preached an entire sermon on life in the new earth a couple of years ago. This excerpt from Anthony Hoekema's, The Bible and the Future, is a good intro — Heaven: Not just an eternal day off
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Great article, thanks.
 
"Being in charge" or "ruling over" (KJV) many things suggests a busy program of administrative activity. And in what is commonly called the parable of the pounds, the king rewards the servant who made ten pounds by placing him in authority over ten cities, and the servant who made five pounds is given authority over five cities (Luke 19:17, 19). In these two parables, the reward promised consists not of idle rest but of service. In the latter parable the type of service implies a kind of life as busy and active as that of a mayor on this earth. Can you imagine being mayor of ten cities?
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That makes it sound like heaven is the portion of Martha, rather than the portion of Mary, which was the one that would not be taken away. It seems like a much different and even much less sublime treatment of eternal blessedness in the beatific vision of God than Turretin puts forward in his treatment of the Last Things (Twentieth topic, eighth question)?
 
I'll have to check that out, Heidi. To flesh that image out a bit ("ruling over ten cities"), consider, it will be an actual kingdom we will be inhabiting, and there will be organization of some kind in it. There will be events (worship the greatest) to be arranged; logistical needs; needs for materials; local gatherings, universal gatherings, etc. It's hard to think of lives in that new setting. Here in God's kingdom (in this age), our pastors, elders, deacons, and other church people often are great helps to us in our lives; there (in the age to come) some of these rulers may well be those who faithfully and self-sacrificially pastored their flocks, and who are much beloved by both God and flocks, and would do well continuing their service of love in their new stations in glory. We should not think of such "ruling" mundanely; Jonathan Edwards touches on it in his little booklet, Heaven, a World of Love.

Also, there are many unsung heroes and heroines of the faith the Lord will reward with positions of oversight. That little old granny no one ever thought too much of will be found a prayer-warrior who moved mountains and turned many to righteousness – she also may be given authority of some sort. But authority in that world will be unlike what it usually is here; for it will be modeled after King Jesus, in glory, power, wisdom, and heart-wrenchingly profound love.

When I have a moment, I will have to see what it is you loved in Turretin. Thanks for the lead.
 
Thank you for the kind response, Mr. Rafalsky. Here is some of Turretin's explanation of those things explained very differently in the article linked:

Not only by the absence of all evil and the presence of all good is happiness described, but allegorically also under symbols of the most excellent, sweet, useful things (which are wont to be held in the highest estimation among men) is it accustomed to be adumbrated, so that some idea of it may be presented to our minds. Thus, the Scripture by a marvelous condescension (synkatabasim) accommodates itself to us and uses the language of men (bhlshvn 'dhm). For if God would open to men divine and celestial things in divine and celestial words, he could not be understood by them. Thus both on account of our weakness and on account of the sublimity of the things themselves, God borrows our words. And as grace is designated by legal, so glory by terrestrial figures, while under the image of those things (which are the first or the principal of their kind or thought to be so by men), the Scriptures set forth to us eternal happiness. These are not to be considered separately, but collectively (athroos) and conjointly, that in their conjunction a certain, but always imperfect and rude delineation of so great a happiness may be possessed. Hence because every kind of good is usually divided into three species (the virtuous, the useful and the agreeable), it is wont to be most frequently adumbrated under that threefold relation (schesei); now under the idea of a kingdom and dignity, then of riches and treasures, then again of pleasures of all sorts – all of these being comprehended under the one term “glory.” . . .
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& I have to add this, for it is one of my favorite things to have ever read:

We think the three things are to be united here which inseparably cohere with each other in happiness: sight, love, joy. For from these effloresces that ineffable glory with which the blessed will shine for ever on account of their fruition of the supreme good. For as that happiness is the full and ultimate perfection of the soul and all its faculties, so it requires the operation of all the powers, every imperfection having been removed (i.e., perfect vision, and from it supreme joy and consolation). Sight contemplates God as the supreme good; love is carried out towards him, and is most closely united with him; and joy enjoys and acquiesces in him. Sight perfects the intellect, love the will, joy the conscience. Sight answers to faith, which is the substance of things hoped for because w will no longer walk by faith, but by sight, beholding God face to face. Love consummated, by which we will be united with God, will answer to love begun, which sanctifies the heart. Joy answers to hope, which accompanies the fruition of the thing hoped for. Vision begets love. God cannot be seen without being loved; love draws joy after it because he cannot be possessed without filling with joy.
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He also quotes Cyprian in dealing with this topic:

They will not taste how sweet the Lord is, but will be filled and satiated with a wonderful sweetness. Nothing will be wanting to them, nothing will be absent from them, Christ being present will fulfil all their desires . . . God will be all in all and his presence will fill all the appetites of the soul and body.
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The section is much more beautiful and expansive than could possibly be communicated in snippets. Yet perhaps you will be able to see even from these that it seems a very different, and far more 'Mary'-ish idea of eternity than the Marthaish 'busytown' vision of heaven that the article seems to present (cumbered about with much serving)? It's not that I mind in the least being ruled over -- I don't find service demeaning here; that is not the plane along which this vision seems to fall rather flat to me -- but that it seems to make heaven merely an everlasting extension of the shadowy activities of the life of earth, rather than a consummation of the sweetest part of it, the thing which all other activities merely catch the light and joy of in broken mirrors -- our communion with God.
 
I wonder if the lack of preaching/teaching on the resurrection is because popular culture pressures pastors to preach the resurrection on Easter only. Looking at my 7 year tenure, I can't say that I for sure have not contributed to this problem. In an attempt to rectify that I began a series yesterday entitled "What Happened To Resurrection?". All of your input has been very helpful.
 
KMK said:
I wonder if the lack of preaching/teaching on the resurrection is because popular culture pressures pastors to preach the resurrection on Easter only
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Perhaps it's also because of the lack of understanding of the doctrine of the Lord's Day. We have 52 (occasionally 53!) Easters a year...
 
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