Different from what Judaism considers essentially as a metaphor for the national restoration, Christian resurrection, in present and pre-mortem terms, is commonly used to refer to the idea of transformation of the old self to a new spiritual life through the salvation of Christ; and in futuristic and post-mortem terms, it is the idea of reformation of the dead and the incorruptible unification of the spirit with this new physical body. It is different from resuscitation, which is merely the return of life after clinical death without transformation in form and substance.
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The resurrected body was a real spiritual physical body, instead of a soulish flesh. He is neither ghost nor halluciation. In the third day after Jesus death, the women went to the tomb and did not find His body. Later in one occasion, Jesus said to the disciples, "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." The process of Jesus resurrection was not furnished in the bible (definitely there was no video camera installed inside the tomb) but the empty tomb seems to imply that the resurrected body was a continuation of the dead body and yet it was at the same time a discontinuation of the dead body in the sense that he was completely transformed into a new physical entity.
The resurrected body was a real spiritual physical body, instead of a soulish flesh. He is neither ghost nor halluciation. In the third day after Jesus death, the women went to the tomb and did not find His body. Later in one occasion, Jesus said to the disciples, "Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have." The process of Jesus resurrection was not furnished in the bible (definitely there was no video camera installed inside the tomb) but the empty tomb seems to imply that the resurrected body was a continuation of the dead body and yet it was at the same time a discontinuation of the dead body in the sense that he was completely transformed into a new physical entity.
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According to the information available, the resurrected body conformed to a different set of physical laws which is not within our epistemological regime and normally not applied in the ‘natural’ world in which we are living. For example, the disciples were kept from recognizing Jesus while He came to them. When their eyes were opened and they recognized him, he disappeared from their sight. Perhaps it the our false perception from uncritical literal reading, it seems that post-Easter Jesus was able to alter his apperance and 'shuttle' to anywhere with no time lag. Then, whilst his disciples including Thomas were inside a room with all doors locked, Jesus came in and stood in their midst and said, "May you have peace." It appears that the resurrected body of Jesus was able to pass through everything solid.
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According to the information available, the resurrected body conformed to a different set of physical laws which is not within our epistemological regime and normally not applied in the ‘natural’ world in which we are living. For example, the disciples were kept from recognizing Jesus while He came to them. When their eyes were opened and they recognized him, he disappeared from their sight. Perhaps it the our false perception from uncritical literal reading, it seems that post-Easter Jesus was able to alter his apperance and 'shuttle' to anywhere with no time lag. Then, whilst his disciples including Thomas were inside a room with all doors locked, Jesus came in and stood in their midst and said, "May you have peace." It appears that the resurrected body of Jesus was able to pass through everything solid.
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Questions arise.
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Unlike Jesus, whose postmortem body as implied from the Bible was a continuation from His pre-mortem, our bodies should probably be decayed or burnt to ashes first before the time of resurrection. Will our future body be a continuation from our present form?
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The resurrected body is a real physical body, yet it does not conform to the existing set of physical laws. Is it what the physicists say about the collapse of physical laws at the point of infinite density after the contraction of universe?
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By mathematics, infinity is just an imaginary number and does not exist in material world. How can the new physical world be incorruptible and the resurrected body eternal? Is 'physical' and 'material' not the same? Can we explain it by saying that temporal idea of 'foreever existence of God' is different from that of 'spiritual eternity', in the sense that God has no beginning and no end while our spiritual life, still as a creation of God, has to have a start?
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The Book of Revelation says, "There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." By inference we commonly believe that there will be neither sin nor fault in the new physical world, but how about 'Free Will'? 'Free Will' is meaningless in the sense that there is no possibility for sin and fault. So is love. Is it necessary for us to linger on the concept of love when we are dwelling in the new physical world?
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