Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Well, thank you and good morning. I hope you can all see the screen.
[00:00:06] Not too long ago, one of my students, after a philosophy class, came to me and said, Dr. Geisler, we think you're smarter than Einstein. So I commended him for his insight and he said, no, that's not what I mean. What I mean is there are only three people in the world who could understand what Einstein was saying, and nobody can understand what you're saying.
[00:00:26] So I'll try and correct that. I'll try and put the cookies on the bottom shelf here.
[00:00:34] Last night we talked about the role of miracles. And we said that the overall apologetic, for some reason, the plug must have come out over there. Somebody will try it, push it in again.
[00:00:47] There we go. There is a God.
[00:00:53] Christian apologetics really has two major steps.
[00:00:57] I call it two step apologetic. It is to be distinguished from an apologetic two step. That's a dance you do after you study apologetics. The two major steps in apologetics are God exists and Christ is the Son of God. But there are some subsidiary steps to that. If God exists. Of course, miracles are possible.
[00:01:19] Miracle by definition would be a divine confirmation if it were connected with a prophetic claim. The New Testament documents are historically reliable. Jesus claimed to be God and he used the resurrection to prove that he was God. So basically, there are two steps in our apologetics, as CS Lewis said. And by the way, this whole seminar is a seminar on C.S. lewis. As many times as we've all quoted him, you can see our dependence on him. As he said, once you admit God, miracles are automatically possible.
[00:01:50] The only reason anyone could deny God is if he denied, or rather deny miracles, is if he denied God. Because if God exists, acts of God are possible.
[00:01:59] We've already discussed that part of it last night, the viability of miracles. And so we'd like to go immediately to the importance of the resurrection. There is no more important miracle in the Bible than the resurrection. I think creation and resurrection are the two pivotal points in all of Scripture. And I observed that Paul preached these two on Mars Hill when he talked to the Epicureans and the Stoics. He stressed creation and resurrection. Creation first, because that makes the resurrection meaningful and viable.
[00:02:30] And notice the importance that the Apostle Paul lays upon the doctrine of the resurrection. First of all, it's the heart of the gospel. There is no gospel without the resurrection. Because the good news is Jesus died, was buried, he rose, and he appeared. Or to put it in two, Jesus died and he rose. That is the gospel. It's also a condition of Salvation according to Romans 10, 9, 10. If you believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you can be saved.
[00:02:58] The implication is, if you don't believe that, you cannot be saved. So it's absolutely essential to salvation.
[00:03:05] And then Paul elaborated seven serious consequences that follow from denying the resurrection. Number one, our preaching is vain, because that's what we preach. The apostles are false witnesses. They were called to be witnesses for the resurrection. Acts 1:22, 1st Corinthians 9:1 1st Corinthians 15:6,8.
[00:03:27] Our faith is futile. We are still in our sins because Christ died for our sins and was raised. He was delivered for our offenses and was raised again for our justification. Romans 4:25.
[00:03:40] The dead in Christ have perished. We are the most pitiable people on the face of the earth, and there is no hope beyond the grave.
[00:03:48] As you can see, that leaves us with nothing with respect to Christianity. Paul Tillich, the liberal theologian at Harvard a number of years ago, was asked by one of his colleagues why he didn't believe in the resurrection, the bodily resurrection. His answer is very revealing. He said, because I don't want some New Testament scholar friend of mine calling me someday and say, guess what, Paulus? We found the body of Jesus.
[00:04:10] Well, what he meant is, if you don't believe anything, no one can disprove it.
[00:04:15] We believe something. We believe that if they found the body of Jesus, all of Christianity crumbles.
[00:04:21] They won't find the body of Jesus. But if they did find the body of Jesus and he was still dead, then we are the most miserable, lost people on the face of the earth. So the resurrection is exceedingly important. It's important not only theologically, it's important apologetically. Theologically, it's the heart of salvation. And apologetically, it's the kingpin of the proof that Jesus was the Son of God. He claimed to be. Now, with that in mind, let me outline for you three basic views with regard to the empty tomb and the appearances of Christ.
[00:04:58] Because today the Resurrection is being attacked not only by the liberals, but by the neo Orthodox. There are three positions on the Resurrection. The first position is called the Orthodox view. And let's begin first of all with how they explain the absence of the body. Orthodox say God raised it, it was a literal resuscitation, Resurrection. The liberals say the disciples stole it or someone else took it, it was just a relocation of the body or removal. The neo Orthodox have a far more subtle view. They say that God transformed it, that it was transformed or destroyed or annihilated all of the words can be used that he just mysteriously disappeared from the tomb.
[00:05:45] There was an annihilation or destruction of the body. The way to understand the difference between the Orthodox and the Neo Orthodox view on the Resurrection is this. If you were in the tomb on Easter Sunday morning with a camera and you had the camera focused on the dead body of Jesus, what would the film show or your eyes see at the moment of the Resurrection? The Orthodox view says the film would show and your natural eyes would see that dead body rise up from the grave and lay the grave close aside, fold up the napkin and ultimately leave. The Neo Orthodox view says your naked eye and the camera would simply see a body disappear.
[00:06:27] Jehovah's Witness say it was transformed into gases, it was annihilated, it was destroyed, it was transformed into a, quote, spiritual body, end quote. That of course is not resurrection. That's annihilation, that's destruction. How do you explain the appearances of Christ then? The Orthodox view say that these appearances were physical appearances. That the physical body with the same physical scars, physically identifiable, reappeared to his disciples. That physical body vacated the tomb that was permanently empty. And that body could be seen, touched, heard, could eat, see fish, etc.
[00:07:05] The liberal view is that the reappearances were just psychological. They were things that didn't happen really on earth, they happened just in the minds of the disciples.
[00:07:15] The Orthodox view says that it happened in history, that it was a historical event, it happened really out there.
[00:07:22] Whereas the liberal view says that the Resurrection occurred only in here. It was personal, psychological type thing.
[00:07:29] The Neo Orthodox view again is much more subtle and is a far more sophisticated denial of the Resurrection. It says that the appearances were apocalyptical, that Jesus appeared in visions. Wolfhard Pommenburg or that Jesus appeared in theophanies, George Ladd or Murray Harris, that these were heavenly or super historical things, they happened above space and time, they didn't really happen in space and time, that is that the material literal body of Christ was not a part of space, time history, as the Orthodox have always contended.
[00:08:06] Now what we're going to do is we're going to give the defense for the Orthodox view of the resurrection and at the same time answer both the liberal charges and the Neo Orthodox charges. We'll start first of all with the liberal view that it was simply a relocation of the body, a psychological, in the mind, personal type thing. And this can be explained in a number of ways. Some liberal scholars say that the reason there was no resurrection is that Jesus didn't really Die on the cross. Now, the answer to this liberal view, sometimes called the swoon theory, will be also helpful in our apologetic with Muslims. One of the greatest threats to Christianity in the world today is Islam. Islam is one of the fastest growing religions in the world. They hope to take over England, the first major Western country, and they're well on their way doing that. And they have many similarities to Christianity. They believe in one God, we believe in one God. They believe in prophets, we believe in prophets. They believe in miracles. We believe in miracles. They believe in the virgin birth. We believe in the virgin birth. They believe in the second coming of Christ. We believe in the second coming of Christ. You say, well, with all those similarities, why is there such a difference between the Muslim and the Christian faith? Well, they don't believe in the death and resurrection. That's the heart of our faith. And they deny the very heart. They think that Jesus did not die on the cross and therefore he did not rise from the dead. So if we can show that Jesus did die and did rise, we have already explained the heart of the difference between Christianity and Islam and given a defense for our faith. Let's take first of all, the inadequacies of the apparent death theory. He G. Paulus, the Life of Jesus, in 1828, proposed this theory that Jesus did not really die. And of course, if Jesus really didn't die, then the empty tomb means nothing. It certainly doesn't mean resurrection. As someone put it, an empty tomb as such means no more than a missing body in a morgue.
[00:10:12] You don't know why the body is missing. Somebody's come really dead and got in the morgue. A friend of mine was walking through a morgue and heard a baby cry once. Kind of spooks you out. But the baby was thought to be dead, but it was alive. You have to prove that Jesus died. Now, this view that says Jesus didn't die has several serious flaws. Number one, notice that it fails to take seriously the extent of Jesus injuries. He had no sleep the night before, missed a whole night of sleep. Before the crucifixion, he was beaten several times and whipped. He collapsed carrying his own cross and someone else had to carry it the rest of the way.
[00:10:51] His hands and feet were nailed to the cross.
[00:10:55] Crucifixion causes the lung cavity to collapse. His side was pierced by a spear. All of this shows the seriousness of Jesus suffering and death. And under those circumstances, it's very difficult to believe that somebody wasn't really dead. Furthermore, it fails to take into account the Nature of Jesus death and burial. Notice first of all that his death cry was heard by those standing by. So it was witnessed by a number of the people in the crowd. His side was pierced by a spear.
[00:11:29] Out came blood and water, the Bible says, an indication that he surely was dead. His legs were not broken, the normal method to speed death. They were so sure that he was dead that they didn't break his legs. Once the legs are broken, you can't push yourself up and breathe and you die of suffocation by crucifixion. He was embalmed and wrapped in 75 pounds of material.
[00:11:55] His corpse was checked by Pilate. Mark 15. Pilate says, make sure that he's dead and double checked him.
[00:12:03] His corpse was placed in a sealed guarded tomb where the people who were guarding him were under the pain of death if anything went wrong.
[00:12:16] So the seriousness of his death injuries, the very comprehensive nature of the death cry and the burial. And thirdly, this view fails to take account of the character of Christ. It makes Jesus into a false prophet because Jesus said over and over, I'm going to die. So how could he be a prophet, as Islam claims that he was, if he lied over and over, I'm going to die in three days, later come back from the dead. It makes Jesus into a charlatan kind of conspiring, a thing that never really took place.
[00:12:54] But he was really a person of high moral character. In fact, the great agnostics of history have often pointed to the character of Christ as being one of the highest moral characters of any human being who has ever lived.
[00:13:12] Fourth, it fails to account for the conversion of his disciples.
[00:13:16] How can you account for the conversion of scared, scattered, skeptical disciples into the world's greatest missionary society overnight as a result of someone who just revived in the tomb? In fact, David Strauss, who is a liberal scholar, put it this way.
[00:13:35] It is impossible that a being who had stolen half dead out of the sepulchre, who crept about weak and ill, wanting medical treatment, who, who required bandaging, strengthening and indulgence, and who still at last yielded to his suffering, could have given to his disciples the impression that he was a conqueror over death and the grave, the Prince of life, an impression which lay at the bottom of their future ministry. Such a resuscitation could only have weakened the impression which he had made upon them in life and in death, and at most could only have given it an elegiac voice, but could by no possibility have changed their sorrow into enthusiasm, have elevated their reverence into worship. And I Think that's an eloquent testimony to the fact that even a liberal scholar looking at this thesis that Jesus possibly could have swooned says that if he had, he would have been more of a resuscitated wretch than a triumphant savior who had appeared to them. And he hardly would have created the impression that that he had created on the disciples. So if you look at the sum total of the evidence, the seriousness of his death, injuries, the nature of his death and burial, his own character and the transformation of the disciples, it seems to me that if we could prove QED that any person from the ancient world had literally died, we certainly have good evidence that Christ died.
[00:15:02] Now what is the evidence that Christ rose from the dead?
[00:15:07] The sum total of the evidence can be schematized in this chart.
[00:15:11] 12 separate appearances over a 40 day period of time to over 500 people during which they saw the empty tomb on four times. Look in the right column. They saw the empty grave closed twice. They ate with him four times.
[00:15:30] On every occasion they saw him and heard him with the natural eyes and natural ears. On four occasions they touched him or he was offered to be touched on twice, it says he was touched. And during that 40 day period he appeared on 12 different occasions to over 500 people who literally turned the world upside down as a result of their encounter with him. Now there is no more powerful evidence that anyone rose from the dead. In fact, it is literally true to say that there's more evidence that Jesus Christ rose from the dead than there is at Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or any event from the ancient world for that matter, because we have no eyewitness testimony of this nature of any ancient event. Now it's interesting to me if you look at this, the order of the appearances and the nature of the appearances of Christ in a male dominated culture where Jesus had chosen 12 apostles, all of whom were men.
[00:16:29] It's very interesting to me that the first two appearances were women. This is one of the signs of authenticity. If anyone were faking the record, they surely would not have written it that way. The first appearance would have been to Peter or maybe James or John, part of the inner circle.
[00:16:45] This is one of those signs of authenticity has the ring of truth to it. First appearance to Mary, what a despicable background to begin with.
[00:16:56] In that kind of culture you certainly wouldn't have done that and then notice what happened on this appearance. All four evidences that it was a literal physical body occurred. Mary saw him with her natural eyes, heard him with her natural ears. She touched him and she saw the empty tomb.
[00:17:17] Now how else could you convince somebody of the physical resurrection? This is not a spiritual resurrection. It's not a spiritual body. This is not something in super history. It refutes at once both the liberal view and the neo orthodox view. This is something in space, time, real, tangible, physical body. Same thing with Mary and the women. Saw him, heard him, touched him, saw the empty tomb. Peter didn't make it till the third round.
[00:17:42] Peter finally got his appearance and Peter saw him, heard him, saw the empty tomb and the grave clothes. But of all of the people who saw the resurrected Christ, my favorite is John, because he didn't see him and he yet believed. He's the only apostle who did, who believed in the resurrection before he saw, touched, heard, handled, the resurrected Christ.
[00:18:07] My sermon on Easter on this topic is entitled who Folded the Napkin?
[00:18:13] And if you look at John, chapter 20, it says that when Peter and John ran to the tomb, John outran him, being younger. But John waited outside. And then Peter zoomed right by him. He goes in where angels fear to tread. He went right in the tomb and then John peeked in. And it says, John saw the empty grave clothes and the napkin folded up, laying in a place by itself.
[00:18:38] Who folded the napkin?
[00:18:42] I think it's reasonable to assume that Jesus folded the napkin because when John saw the folded napkin, it says he believed. He believed just seen the folded napkin. Now here's what the folded napkin says to me. Number one, Jesus wasn't in a hurry. He would have just thrown it down.
[00:18:59] Number two, it wasn't just kind of a spiritual resurrection. It just kind of resurrects through, through the grave clothes and everything remains intact. One of the greatest myths about the resurrection in evangelical circles, and you'll hear the phrase over and over, the undisturbed grave clothes.
[00:19:15] Now there is no such thing. That's absolute nonsense to talk about undisturbed grave clothes. The Bible says the napkin was folded up in a place by itself that's disturbed. Undisturbed grave clothes would have been right there like a collapsed mummy in the spot where it was. Why did Jesus take the time to fold the napkin up? I think he took the time, it was calculated, to elicit belief from people. When John saw that, he said, that's a proof to me that Jesus rose from the dead. The grave clothes are there, the body isn't. But the body that left was obviously alive, intelligent, calculating, and folded that napkin up and put it in a place by itself. And John, the Bible says, believed right at that moment. By the way, it teaches us another thing about Jesus. He was neat.
[00:20:05] He folded his napkins.
[00:20:08] The next I'll give you a chance for questions after the next appearance is two disciples on the road to Emmaus. They saw him, heard him, and ate with him. Now, I think eating is one of the great proofs of the tangibleness of the resurrection. It's incredible to me, the ignorance on the doctrine of the Resurrection, even among Christians. One of the finest scholars, conservative scholars, theologians in the United States is Millard Erickson. He wrote a very fine systematic theology. And I was just leafing through Millard Erickson the other day, and here's what he says on the Resurrection. He says, nowhere in the Gospels does it say Jesus actually ate food after the Resurrection, though it implies that he did. And then he quotes Luke 24, verses 13 through 35.
[00:20:58] You look at the passage, and here's what it says.
[00:21:01] Jesus asked them for some fish. He did take the fish and ate before them. The very passage he quotes says that Jesus actually ate food.
[00:21:12] Maybe he studied too long under Paunnenberg in Europe. I don't know what happens. But when you can quote the very passage and say the opposite, and you are an orthodox theologian, something's wrong with our theological system that's obscuring our ability to see what the text really says. This text says Jesus actually ate a piece of fish to prove that he was a literal, physical, resurrected body. The ten apostles ate with him, saw his death wounds, saw him, heard him and touched him. Now, can you think of any other ways if you were. If somebody didn't believe you were alive? Can you think of any other ways you could convince him? He said, feel me. I've got flesh and bones.
[00:21:54] Look at me with your eyes. Hear me. I'm talking. I've got scars. Remember the scar I have here. Give me something to eat. I'll eat it. There's no other way you can convince me. He exhausted all the ways he could prove that he was physically, literally resurrected. The 11 apostles, Thomas wasn't there when he appeared to the 10.
[00:22:12] They saw him, heard him, touched him, and they saw his death wounds. Now, we have an asterisk there because on two of the occasions that Jesus was apparently touched, it only says he offered himself to be touched. On two of the occasions it says he was touched, but he said, stick your finger in my hand. Stick your hand in my side. He obviously amounts to the same thing. Even though it says Thomas saw and believed, it implies that he touched him.
[00:22:43] Seven apostles saw him, heard him, and ate with him by the Sea of Galilee, all the apostles at the great Commission saw and heard him. One of the greatest evidences of the resurrection is this one recorded in First Corinthians 15. 500 people at one time.
[00:23:03] You can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. Here were 500 people. Now, First Corinthians was written in 55 AD. Even the most critical liberal scholars accept Romans, Galatians, first and Second Corinthians as being authentic Pauline epistles. And First Corinthians 15 is universally accepted as being written in that early period, around 55 A.D. jesus was crucified in 33 A.D, 22 years after his crucifixion. During the time of his contemporaries and eyewitnesses, the AAPostle Paul said 500 people saw it and most of them are still alive. Go and check with them if you want is the implication. There's no record that anyone ever refuted that claim. They resisted it, but they never tried to refute it. The fact that they resisted it shows they couldn't refute it.
[00:23:58] Another myth about the resurrection. Jesus never appeared to unbelievers. He only appeared to believers. In fact, all of his disciples were unbelievers on the resurrection. And they had to be convinced. Even when the women saw the empty tomb talk to the angel, the rest of the disciples wouldn't believe that he was resurrected. When the ten disciples saw it, Thomas still wouldn't believe. And he said, I'm going to have to see for myself.
[00:24:22] And Jesus also appeared to other unbelievers, literally unbelievers, his brothers, in this case his brother James, who in John 7:5 was still an unbeliever. Before his crucifixion, Jesus appeared to apparently while he was an unbeliever and converted him. He later became a pillar of the church. Acts 15.
[00:24:41] He also appeared to all of the apostles, which he saw. They saw him, heard him and ate with him. And then finally, the greatest unbeliever of the day, Saul of Tarsus, was literally converted by resurrection appearance of Christ. This was not a vision. There is not a single time in the Gospels or the Epistles that the resurrection is ever called a vision. It says the women saw a vision of angels.
[00:25:08] And Paul said, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. But he's not referring to what he had on the Damascus road. He's referring to what Ananias told him, but by a vision that he should be a missionary to the Gentiles. Because Jesus said, go to Ananias and he will tell you what you're going to do. It will be told to you in the city. This was a real appearance. It's listed as an appearance. There was physical light, physical sound. Those who were with Paul heard the sound, saw the light. This was not a hallucination inside of his mind. It was a literal physical appearance. Now, if you take all of that and summarize it the New Testament way, you can see why we believe in the physical resurrection of Christ. It was physical because the tomb was empty of that physical body.
[00:25:53] It was physical because Jesus said his resurrection body had flesh and bones.
[00:25:58] You say, why didn't he say flesh and blood? Well, if you wanted to prove to somebody you were tangible, would you say, feel my blood?
[00:26:05] Of course not. You would say, feel my flesh and bones.
[00:26:09] Jesus had physical wounds. The same scars, the stigmata from his crucifixion were in his resurrection body.
[00:26:17] He ate physical food on four occasions. He ate one breakfast, two dinners and a midnight snack. I kind of like the midnight snack myself. Set a good example for the rest of us there. Another one of my favorite sermons at Easter time is the first breakfast. You hear a lot about the last Supper, but how many sermons do you hear about the first breakfast? The first breakfast is equally important as the last Supper. That's the resurrection.
[00:26:46] Jesus was touched and handled.
[00:26:49] His resurrection body could be seen and heard. Same Greek words for seeing a natural body or his body before the resurrection.
[00:26:56] His body, Soma was a soma. That's the Greek word that always means physical body. There are no exceptions in the New Testament. Robert Gundry wrote the book on that published by Cambridge Press, in which he proved that the word soma, when used of an individual human being, always means physical body. And the resurrection body is called a soma, physical body like any other body.
[00:27:21] Only bodies can rise, not souls. Why? Souls don't die. And only what dies rises. You only bring back to life what was killed. The soul wasn't killed killed. So it's not the soul that comes back to life.
[00:27:35] The body that is sown. First Corinthians 15 says it was sown a natural body. It is raised supernatural body. So it's the same it both times. The identity there the resurrection is ek out from among the dead. The rest of the bodies are still there. You're resurrected out from among the other dead bodies means your dead body has been taken out of there.
[00:27:59] We will recognize our loved ones in heaven. This is implied in 1st Thessalonians 4, Be a little comfort to them if when you got to heaven, you couldn't recognize your mother, your father, your husband, your lost loved one. And the resurrection body is physically recognizable. Even though they had some initial difficulty because it was dark, the distance, the dullness of their own mind or disbelief. And every occasion they came to recognize who. Who he was by his scars, his voice, his body, his teaching. There are 12 evidences that Jesus Christ was literally physically raised from the dead. Now, what is interesting to me in the light of those is that we now have people inside the Evangelical Church who are denying this. Started with, so far as I can tell, with George Ladd of Fuller Seminary. In his book I Believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, 1975. Here's what Ladd says.
[00:28:56] The point is that the one body is buried in the ground and another body springs forth.
[00:29:03] It was not a revivification of a dead corpse returning to physical life. Obviously, Jesus had not revived.
[00:29:12] Obviously the body had not been stolen. It simply disappeared. See, that's really the neo orthodox view, that third column.
[00:29:20] Then he goes on to say in page 100, what actually happened at the moment of the resurrection? What would an observer have seen if he had stood inside the tomb watching the dead body of Jesus? This must be speculation, but we believe it is based directly upon the witness of the Gospels.
[00:29:37] All he would have seen was the sudden and inexplicable disappearance of the body of Jesus.
[00:29:44] Suddenly and inexplicably disappeared. That is not resurrection. That is annihilation. That is destruction, not resurrection.
[00:29:52] At his resurrection, he entered into the invisible world of God. Well, now, what were his appearances?
[00:29:59] They did not mean the passing of one body through other solid substances. It means that Jesus, who was with them but invisible, made himself visible to their physical senses, such as happens in a theophany, like an angel who is invisible, becoming visible for the occasion. I'm not somebody who had a visible, tangible body being seen by the natural eye. By the way, there are a couple other things that I think ought to be mentioned in this connection. Most people say, well, Jesus must have had a spiritual invisible body because he walked right through a door.
[00:30:33] Where does it say that? Nowhere in the Bible does it say Jesus walked through a door. That's a supposition some people make. All the text says is the door was locked for fear of the Jews and Jesus appeared to them inside. It does not say he walked through the wall or the door. He could have opened the door, he could have picked the lock. He could have come through a window or the roof. It doesn't say how he got inside, it just says he got inside. Now, I don't have any problem believing a physical body can go through a physical wall. According to modern physics, that's possible.
[00:31:08] And God can do a miracle. If somebody says, well, what if he did walk through the wall? What if that's the inference. All I'll say is the same Jesus who walked through a wall walked on water before his resurrection. Does that prove he didn't have a physical body when he walked on water?
[00:31:22] This is not a proof that the body was not physical. And the fact that Jesus could appear and disappear quickly doesn't prove he didn't have a physical body. Otherwise, Philip in Acts chapter eight, who was taken away by the spirit, must have had a resurrection body before he was resurrected, before he even died, because his body moved quickly away too. A lot of myths about the resurrection occur and we now have them inside the Evangelical church. Ladd continues.
[00:31:51] Jesus dead body was raised into the immortal, eternal life of the world of God, which is invisible to mortal eyes unless it passes, unless it makes itself visible. The appearances then were condescensions of the risen, exalted Lord, by which he convinced his disciples that he was no longer dead. They were really parables acted out for the purpose of convincing them of his reality, not his materiality.
[00:32:18] What's stranger still is that we now have this view, held by a professor of Trinity Seminary in Chicago. Murray Harris, a seminary where I taught for 13 years, one of the finest evangelical seminaries in the United States, has now pronounced orthodox a man who denies the historic orthodox doctrine of the resurrection. And here's the evidence. Murray Harris book raised immortal 1985 this suggests that after his resurrection, his essential state was one of invisibility and immateriality is directly contrary to everything we just went through. He was not essentially invisible and essentially immaterial. He was essentially material and visible.
[00:33:04] At this point, when we add two further characteristics of the resurrection body mentioned the New Testament, it will be angel like and without physical instincts. It will not be angel like. Angels don't have bodies.
[00:33:17] Angels are spiritual spirits. Hebrews 1:14, Jesus said, I am not a spirit. Luke 24:39 I've got flesh and bones.
[00:33:26] Thirdly, it will be spiritual also, in that it is free of sinful propensities and without physical instincts. It will be neither fleshly nor fleshy. Hold the phone. The Apostles Creed down through the centuries sitting, I believe in the resurrection of the flesh.
[00:33:49] That's the standard way of saying the Apostles Creed from the second Century, right down through the Reformation into modern time, and only under the influence of more liberal and neo orthodox views was the word flesh changed to body.
[00:34:06] And the word flesh is a very strong word, obviously means a physical body. Four times in the New Testament, the resurrection body is called flesh.
[00:34:16] Luke 24:39, I have flesh. Sarks. Greek word sarks. I have flesh and bones.
[00:34:22] Acts chapter 2, verse 30 to 32 says, his flesh shall not see corruption. A reference to the resurrection of Christ.
[00:34:31] The next two verses are very potent. First John 4:1, Anyone who does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of antichrist.
[00:34:41] Now you say, well, that refers to Christ before the resurrection. No it doesn't. It's the perfect tense in Greek. And here's what the perfect tense means. It happened in the past and it still continues in the present. And John is writing after the resurrection, so he's saying Christ came in the flesh and he still remains in the flesh. He is still the God man. He's still fully human and has a fully human body.
[00:35:05] Second John 7 uses the present tense of the same activity. Those who do not confess that Jesus Christ is coming present continuous tense in the flesh are of antichrist. Now if you use the perfect tense with the present tense, both by the same author on the same topic, Jesus Christ came in the past, remains and is continuing, as I now write, after the resurrection in the flesh. And anyone who denies that is of antichrist. That's a pretty serious indictment. Exactly what Murray Harris denied here, page 124. Then there is First Corinthians 6, where Paul hints that the resurrection body will not have the anatomy or physiology of the earthly body. Well, it's not talking about the resurrection there. The resurrection chapter is 1st Corinthians 15. This is talking about death. He's saying stomach is going to die with food.
[00:35:57] Well, that would mean if the resurrection body is going to have a stomach, by the same logic, the whole body is going to be destroyed. It won't have an arm, a torso, a leg or anything that's talking about the process of death, not the nature of the resurrection. Page 127. If then the notion of a material identity between two forms of embodiment must be rejected, we may propose that the identity is personal.
[00:36:19] What is the continuous thing between pre and post resurrection person, no body.
[00:36:25] Westminster Creed makes it very clear that it's the same body. If you don't believe in the same body, you are denying the orthodox view of the resurrection. From this viewpoint, the new body is qualitatively and numerically distinct from the old body. There aren't two bodies. There's one body that is transformed from a mortal body to an immortal body. But it is not changed from a material body to an immaterial body. It's transformed from a natural body to a supernatural body. By the way, that word that is translated spiritual in First Corinthians chapter 15, when it says it is sown a natural body and is raised a spiritual body, that spiritual body in First Corinthians 15 to which Harris refers to is a literal physical body, as we'll see in a moment. Notice his quote. The resurrection marked his entrance upon a spiritual mode of existence, or to borrow a Pauline phrase, a spiritual body which was both immaterial and invisible and yet capable of interaction with the world of space and time. That is literal nonsense, because the word pneumaticos, translated spiritual body in First Corinthians 15, does not mean immaterial. Why?
[00:37:45] Because of the series of contrasts in 1 Corinthians 15. Mortal, immortal, corruptible, incorruptible, natural. What is the natural antithesis of natural? Supernatural. Strangely enough, the Revised Standard Version, touted by many to be liberal translation, actually translates that correctly. In First Corinthians 15, it says the supernatural rock that followed them. Same Greek word, pneumaticus, so it should be translated supernatural or dominated by the spirit. Secondly, the use of the same word pneumaticos elsewhere in the New Testament by Paul, same author, same word, same book, says those who live by the power of the Holy Spirit are spiritual men.
[00:38:32] Does that mean we're invisible? The more godly you get, the more invisible you get.
[00:38:36] Nonsense.
[00:38:37] Spiritual rock, First Corinthians 10. Same word. Remember, in the wilderness there was a literal rock, and Moses took a literal rod and he literally hit it, and literal water came out of it. The water is called supernatural, spiritual water, and the rock is called a spiritual rock. Why? Because it was produced by the spirit. It was a miracle. Wasn't a physical, literal rock and physical literal food the manna that came down from heaven that they ate every morning? Literal food is called spiritual food.
[00:39:07] In fact, the resurrection body had flesh and bones, could eat physical food was the same body that died. Compare. The empty tomb could be touched and handled, had wounds and scars in it. If there were ever a physical, literal body, this was it.
[00:39:24] All right, I'm going to stop there and give you a chance to interact. Ask any questions you may wish about the nature of the resurrection and the importance of it. Yes.
[00:39:37] Longer answer. Yes. It was the first it was the same literal mass, but there was a transformation. It was no longer a mortal body, it's now an immortal body, but still a body, still a soma, still a physical body. But it's not a body that's going to die again. That's why Christ is called the first fruits of the Resurrection, because he's the first one to be raised that never died again. Everyone else that was raised in a physical body died again. So there is a difference. But it's a difference in secondary qualities, not primary qualities.
[00:40:09] The primary quality, its materiality, its extension, its number, those are primary qualities are the same. Check Shedd Hodge, for example. Primary qualities of the body remain the same. The secondary qualities are changed. It's now an immortal, imperishable body, etc. Where did that body go? It doesn't say. But did it have a location? Yes, because it is a spatial, temporal body. And so it had a location where it went. He could walk. If he could walk on water, he could take people like Philip and transport them quickly from one place to another. He could certainly do it for himself. Where he was, I don't know that he had a where. I do know.
[00:40:49] Thirdly, was it that same body that ascended into heaven? Absolutely, yes. They were eating with him when he ascended and he went up in their sight. And the angel said, this same Jesus will return and he returns. He'll have scars. They will look on him whom they've pierced. Same physical body, the 39 articles, the Westminster Confession, and almost all the great creeds. Incidentally, time for commercial.
[00:41:17] We have a book on this entitled the Battle for the Resurrection that unfortunately is not on the book table, but there is a sheet on the table and Moody Monthly just reviewed the book in the last Moody Monthly issue and said it's a. It's a must book for every Christian leader. We have a whole chapter in that book going through all the creeds from the second century right on up to the present.
[00:41:38] Every orthodox creed down through the century confessed that it was a literal physical body of flesh, flesh and bones, and that Jesus ascended into heaven in that same body and he sits in a location in a space time location somewhere in this universe which is called, quote, the right hand of the Father and he will return in that same body. That is the orthodox belief. Yes, ma', am, right here.
[00:42:03] The earliest Apostles Creeds didn't say that. That was added in the third century when the doctrine of purgatory was defined.
[00:42:10] And that is not part of the earliest Apostles Creeds. And it's Subject to dispute among scholars. You check Benson or Creeds of Christendom by Schop. The early creeds did not have that phrase in it. The theological significance is tremendous. If Jesus did not rise in a physical, literal body, here are the consequences that follow. Number one, he never was victorious over death because death took the physical body.
[00:42:44] So he never really triumphed over death. Number two, he never really accomplished salvation because the physical resurrection is absolutely essential to salvation. Number three, Satan won the battle of creation because God created the physical world and God was. And death destroyed the physical world. And God was never able to restore what Satan destroyed. So God lost the battle of creation. He lost the battle of redemption, never triumphed over death. And Jesus was a liar because he said, I've got a flesh and bones physical body. Jesus deceived his disciples. And finally, there's no hope for you and me because if he didn't make it, we won't either. In other words, all of Christianity collapses if Jesus didn't rise in a physical, literal body. I took a survey. Here's the shocking thing about this book. I mentioned the battle for the resurrection. We have an appendix in there. I belong to the Evangelical Theological Soc.
[00:43:35] And that's the most conservative scholars in America who signed a statement saying, the Bible is the inerrant word of God. That's the only thing they sign every year. I took a survey of them and asked them this question, asked two questions. But the first one was, do you believe that Christ was raised in the same material body of flesh and bones in which he died? Yes. No self address. Turn it in. I got a 25% return. Anybody who does surveys know that's a good return.
[00:44:01] 11% of the evangelical Theological Society denies that Jesus was resurrected in a material body of flesh and bones. I don't know who they are. It's an anonymous survey. But these are people who teach at Moody Bible Institute and Wheaton College and Columbia Bible College and Capital Seminary. I mean, it's all of the good schools in the country. 11% denied the historic orthodox doctrine of the resurrection.
[00:44:26] I can name a few others. E. Glenn Hinson teaches at Louisville Seminary. I have quotes from him with me, but few people have written books on it. The three I know and that I use, who are all, quote, evangelicals. E. Glenn Hinson, Louisville. George Ladd, who taught at Fuller Seminary. Murray Harris at Trinity Seminary. But there are a whole host of others out there who agree with them. Where did this view start? Started with Emil BRUNER Back in 1952.
[00:44:53] And the Neo Orthodox Bruner, Boltmann.
[00:44:56] Don't name your kid B.
[00:45:00] Bruner. Bultmann. Barth's an exception to it. Pannenberg. And it's been in Europe now for 30, 40 years. And about 10, 15 years ago, it came into evangelical circles in America. And while we were fighting the battle for the Bible, we forgot about the battle for the resurrection, which was more important. They held the view just as long, that deviant view. And here's the sad thing.
[00:45:23] You can deny the inerrancy of the Bible and still be saved.
[00:45:28] As far as I can see. You can't deny the physical resurrection and still be saved.
[00:45:32] Now, does the resurrection body have to have the same actual atoms in. The answer is no. I don't have the same atoms I had seven years ago in my body, but I still have the same body.
[00:45:42] We're not talking about particulate, universal particulate identity. We're talking about the same physical body. And the resurrection body may or may not have the same particles. I assume by the fact that Jesus had an empty tomb that the same matter that was still there was the same matter in his resurrection body. But what if your body decays, goes into a plant, A bird eats the plant, the hunter shoots, the bird eats the bird, is now part of the hunter.
[00:46:09] Is God going to be able to bring all this back together at the resurrection? Well, yes, he can, if he wants to.
[00:46:15] Will he? No, he need not to. The only impossibility, a God who can create the universe can certainly bring all those particles back together if he wants to. The only impossibility I see is if one of those particles belong to two or more people, then obviously they both can't have the same particle. And a God who has plenty of dust on the seashore will have no problem getting some more dust together for your resurrection body. Yes, Yeah, I did address that, and you'll recognize it when I say it again. I said there was an initial difficulty because of their dullness, the distance, the dimness of the light, or their own disbelief. There are at least four or five reasons why they initially sometimes didn't seem. But put it this way. Suppose you had just buried your father last week and you're walking down the road and you're still in sorrow. Or let's make it three days ago, you just buried your father three days ago, and you're walking down the road in sorrow and there are a lot of people around, and a stranger comes up next to you and starts talking to you about it, and you know your father is dead and Gone.
[00:47:27] You would have difficulty believing that was your father, wouldn't you? And you might even talk with the person because you've put it out of your mind. See, they had put it out of their mind entirely. They're still in a state of sorrow. It's easy to understand how you've got sorrow. One time Jesus was way out in the water on the land. They were way out in the water. Another time, it was still quite dark when Mary was going to the tomb. But as soon as they got close enough to hear his voice, see his body, look at his scars, they all recognized him physically and literally to be Christ way back there.
[00:48:01] Good question.
[00:48:04] Let me recommend a book for you entitled the Shroud of Turin by Gary Habermas and Stevens.
[00:48:12] I at first thought the Shroud was not authentic. Then when I looked at the evidence, it seemed to me that it was either authentic or it had. It was the greatest fake ever put together or the greatest, greatest satanic deception. Now, recently, in the light of the carbon 14 testing of them, many people become more skeptical because you have three independent laboratories testing it and concluding that it was medieval and not first century. But before you throw it out completely, you need to read the new book by Habermas and Stevens, published by Thomas Nelson, in which they argue that that was not valid, that they tested a part of contemporary contaminated part of the Shroud, and they were getting the contaminated medieval fire date rather than the date. And they still try and make a case for the authenticity of the Shroud. I'm presently remaining agnostic on the topic, but I would say it is absolutely fascinating. If it's not authentic, it is the most unusual, the most incredible, unusual fake that has ever been produced, because it has things unlike any other thing that has ever come to pass. Over here on this side.
[00:49:23] The question is what we call in philosophy a category mistake. A category mistake is how does blue taste?
[00:49:31] Blue doesn't taste. Blue is a color, it's not a taste. So the question is confusing two different things, the two natures of Christ. His divine nature is omnipresent and his human nature isn't. In his human nature, he's limited to a given space at a given time. In his divine nature, he's everywhere. In his human nature, he can only be here as opposed to there.
[00:49:53] So in his divine nature, he neither slumbers nor sleeps. In his human nature, he slept. In his divine nature, he knew everything as a human being. He didn't know what was on the fig tree. He didn't know the time of his Second Coming. He grew in wisdom and knowledge. So you have to distinguish between the two natures of Christ. Visualize this. A triangle.
[00:50:13] That's God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. This corner of the triangle is Son. Now draw a circle. Put it right up against that corner of the triangle. That circle is his human nature. The triangle is his divine nature. They both meet at that corner, so they are co joined in one person. And the dot in that corner is shares both the triangle and the circle. There's one person, but two natures. Now, every time you ask one question of Jesus, you have to have two questions.
[00:50:43] Was he infinite? Yes, in the triangle? No in the circle.
[00:50:48] Was he omnipresent? Yes, in the triangle? No, in the circle. So he has two natures that must be distinguished, not confused, not separated, but co joined. At that point.
[00:51:02] It absolutely is a physical appearance. And we know that for the following reasons. Number one, Paul lists it along with the other physical appearance. In First Corinthians 15, he uses the same word. He appeared to Peter, he appeared to James, he appeared to me. So it's listed as the same. It's called an appearance. Number two, it is never called a vision in the Gospels. It is never called a vision in the Epistles. There's only one possible verse that could call it a vision, and that's the one where he said, I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision. If you look at that in context, it is a reference to Ananias, not a reference to what he saw on the road to Damascus. Number three, during that literal physical appearance, they heard a literal voice. Not only he heard it, so it wasn't something inside him, but those who were with him heard the voice. They all saw the same physical light. So it's physical, physical light. Visions never have external physical phenomena associated with them.
[00:51:59] Visions are opening up the spiritual reality so that you can see what you can't normally see with your natural eyes. This is something they saw with their natural eyes and heard with their natural ears.
[00:52:10] I have no doubt at all that there's something different with the new heavens and the new Earth and with the resurrection body. And the difference is it's incorruptible, it's immortal, it's never dying. And certainly that's going to involve some kind of, quote, new physics. But that doesn't mean it won't be physical, doesn't mean it won't be material. The new heaven and the new Earth will be material and physical, but it certainly will be a transformed, imperishable kind of physics. And something metaphysical has to happen in order for that to be the case.
[00:52:40] I see the little grim reaper there. So.
