What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

[historia]

This topic spun out of an earlier thread:

I'm finding it hard to see how [1 Cor. 15:44-45] can be interpreted as anything but that Christ was raised in a spiritual body.

Indeed, that's the term that Paul uses to describe the resurrected body. But the question we need to answer is this:

What did Paul mean by a soma pneumatikon (a "spiritual body")?

[myth-one.com]

[Replying to historia in post #29]

The meaning of I Corinthians 15 is quite clear, and to argue about it is counterproductive. An anointed person---one who has been chosen to rule with Christ in heaven---has the hope of changing from the physical into the spirit form (I Corinth.15: 44-53). All of Paul's contemporary believers were anointed. So he spoke as if everyone was anointed and destined for heaven. The fact remains that there is also a physical body that will be physical forever, even after resurrection. That is the "other sheep" of Jesus' remark at John 10:16. He always hinted at the reality of physical people living on Earth forever, as David wrote of at Psalm 37:11 and verse 29 and Jesus included in his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:5). Let's stop nit-picking and face the scriptures for what they are obviously saying.

If you believe that physical human bodies live forever, then you do not believe John 3:16, which indicates that human nonbelievers perish:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3:16)

[theophile]

This topic spun out of an earlier thread:

I'm finding it hard to see how [1 Cor. 15:44-45] can be interpreted as anything but that Christ was raised in a spiritual body.

Indeed, that's the term that Paul uses to describe the resurrected body. But the question we need to answer is this:

What did Paul mean by a soma pneumatikon (a "spiritual body")?

Interesting topic. This may fly in the face of your careful approach, but I would suggest the following:

A soma psychikon is matter that has had the breath of life blown into it, thus bringing it to life and making it a living thing.
A soma pneumatikon is what does the blowing, and that breathes life into lifeless things. More precisely, it is something akin to the body of Christ that Paul elaborates earlier in 1 Corinthians 12:12+, i.e., a growing network of living bodies, all unified in spirit and as such working towards the same end (in this case, the furtherance of life).

So the transformation that resurrection results in is from living thing to life-giving thing, and as such becoming part of the broader spiritual network / unified plurality that is the body of Christ / soma pneumatikon.

If we look at the direct parallel Paul draws with Genesis 2, we see that God (as a soma pneumatikon, or perhaps just a pneuma at this stage) blows life into dust to make Adam (a soma psychikon). The problem with Genesis 2-3 is that we don't see Adam's transformation into soma pneumatikon, so it leaves one hanging, so to speak, until the gospels and Christ.

A more interesting parallel I think is with Genesis 1, which I believe Paul is also drawing here. In Genesis 1:2-3 we see that the spirit of God (the ruach elohim, a soma pneumatikon or perhaps just a pneuma again) breathes life into the lifeless deep, animating it with words and making it a soma psychikon no different from Adam apart from being cosmic in scale. I think the transformation here from soma psychikon to soma pneumatikon is more instantaneous -- there is no fall to contend with in Genesis 1, but rather God and the deep become one, man and woman so to speak, from the get-go, and form the model that humankind will later be created in the image of. They form the 'us' that God speaks of, or elohim, which is the Genesis 1 version of Paul's body of Christ / soma pneumatikon that we are all eventually meant to join (through resurrection).

So probably more leaps than you would like, but that's the direction I would go at least on these terms.

[myth-one.com]

Had Paul wanted to say instead that our current bodies are discarded and we will be re-created as immaterial spirits in the age to come, then he could have just said that.

He did:

There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (I Corinthians 15:44)

There are two type of bodies, natural and spiritual, and they don't mix. For humans, the natural body comes first and will be followed by the spiritual body for believers. All other humans will perish for all eternity via the second death. Man is the only natural bodied being which may become an immortal spiritual bodied being.

Spiritual beings consist of God and the angels.

The physical life forms consist of every life form which is not spiritual. This includes plants, insects, germs, viruses, fish, birds, animals, and others. Man is an animal.

All physical life forms share one very important characteristic. All die! Spiritual life forms live for eternity. This is the characteristic which distinguishes man from the spiritual beings.

[JehovahsWitness]

So probably more leaps than you would like, but that's the direction I would go at least on these terms.

Interesting, so since Paul referenced Jesus who was a human that died, what was he trying to transmit as to what happened next to Jesus?

I believe that Paul was communicating that Jesus returned to life as the same form as YWHY. Do you agree?


JW

[historia]

The meaning of I Corinthians 15 is quite clear, and to argue about it is counterproductive.

The whole purpose of this forum is to debate topics like this one!

I appreciate the fact that not everyone has the ability to do so at the level of detail this particular topic requires. But, then again, no one is compelling anyone to participate in this thread.

[historia]

So you believe that Jesus went to heaven in a physical body (albeit one with new properies) ?

A minor point here: The question under consideration in this thread concerns what Paul believed. For that reason, what you or I or anyone else here personally believes is of no consequence to me. Difflugia is an atheist, for example, and yet has useful insights to offer in this discussion, since anyone can critically analyze the text.

I say that not to sidestep your question, but as an appeal to participants here to put aside their prior theological commitments when reading the text. I realize that's hard, and in some cases maybe impossible, to do.

But, yes, I think Paul believed Jesus was resurrected, and so believed that he had a physical (albeit in his terminology 'glorified') body.

[historia]

[Replying to historia in post #2]

Okay, having discussed the first set of subsidiary questions, we can turn to the second set, already anticipated by JehovahsWitness:

If flesh and blood cannot Inherit the Kingdom are you suggesting a physical body with no flesh and no blood?

Here is the text from Paul:

I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

What does Paul mean by "flesh and blood"?

What does Paul mean by "inherit the Kingdom of God"?

[historia]

What does Paul mean by "flesh and blood"?

The phrase "flesh and blood" is an idiom, referring to humanity in its current, corruptible state.

We can see this in Matthew 16:17, when Jesus says, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." Clearly, Jesus isn't talking about literal muscles, tissues, and hemoglobin being able to reveal things to people. This is am idiom. Indeed, Paul often uses sarx ('flesh') by itself idiomatically as well.

What does Paul mean by "inherit the Kingdom of God"?

To answer this second question, I'll turn to JehovahsWitness' definition from an earlier thread:

"inherit the kingdom" means to be part of the kingdom arrangement. A kingdom comprises of a KING (ruler) + DOM: a domain (carrying the sense of that which is ruleed over). The sheep will be the earthly subjects in that arrangement.

I would broadly agree that to "inherit the kingdom of God" means to enter into and become part of God's kingdom in the age to come. And, as alluded to in this definition, in the age to come the kingdom of God will include not just heaven but also the renewed earth.

This is an important point, since I think this colors how people are interpreting the whole of 1 Cor. 15. Paul does not say, as Difflugia put it, that "'flesh and blood' can't inhabit the spiritual realm" (post #22). Rather, he's talking about the Kingdom of God, about believers being resurrected to bodily life here on earth in the age to come.

Here, as elsewhere with 1 Cor. 15, I think it's incredibly useful to consider Paul's parallel comments in Romans 8. There (see especially vs. 18-25) what Paul is waiting and hoping for is not to be turned into a spirit in order to go off to heaven or some other "spirit realm." But rather for the renewal of the creation, the redemption of our bodies here on earth.

We might notes that Paul seems to be using a bit of Hebrew parallelism in this passage, so that the second half of verse 50 is essentially a restatement of the first half. What Paul is saying here is that the perishable cannot inherit the imperishable. In order to enter into the renewed earth in the age to come, our current perishable bodies need to have imperishable qualities "put on" them.

If "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God" means that there will be no physical bodies in God's kingdom in the age to come, then, in the words of the noted philosopher Ricky Ricardo: some folks here got some 'splainin to do.

[Eloi]

"Flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s Kingdom" (1 Cor. 15:50) the same way "a lesser person in the Kingdom of the heavens is greater than [John the Baptist]" (Matt. 11:11).

[JehovahsWitness]

But, yes, I think Paul believed Jesus was resurrected, and so believed that he had a physical (albeit in his terminology 'glorified') body.

Can you clarify what you mean here by physical? I take it to mean a carbon based form that can be seen (and touched) by humans.

It seems to me you are for all intent and purposes your reference to a glorified "physical" altered body is one that can exist in the spirit realm* and that is not dependent on anything in our carbon based universe to be sustained. In short a synonym for a body of the type that angels and spirits and any other intelligent being had before the physical carbon based universe existed.

* where God lives

JW