What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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historia
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What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by historia »

This topic spun out of an earlier thread:
JehovahsWitness wrote: Sat Mar 11, 2023 8:57 am
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")?

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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by theophile »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 11:33 pm
theophile wrote: Tue Apr 11, 2023 8:54 am

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
This is where what I want to think and what I think Paul is saying may come into some conflict :)

What I want to think is that resurrection is coming back as ourselves. Perhaps in a different form, like Paul says -- more beautiful even like Job's daughters -- but still an individual that has continuity with the past. Albeit separated by death and some sort of transfiguration.

But what I think Paul is saying is that when Jesus died he became the figurehead of something much bigger and cosmic in nature. The soma pneumatikon or body of Christ, which is not a human body, but the full network of living things that are in the spirit.

So I would say that Jesus becomes something more like Elohim than Yahweh. I tend to think that Christ was like Yahweh more in his life than after his death, when he becomes this figurehead and ultimately brings all things to God like Paul says.

(As for the conflict between what I want to think and what I think Paul is saying, the two views may be compatible... I don't think there's a necessary conflict I just don't think it's clear, and what Paul says seems to stress this cosmic, spiritual role as Christ's life after death.)

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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by JehovahsWitness »

theophile wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 6:08 pm



But what I think Paul is saying is that when Jesus died he became the figurehead of something much bigger and cosmic in nature. The soma pneumatikon or body of Christ, which is not a human body, but the full network of living things that are in the spirit.

I don't know what that means. Thanks anyway.


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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by theophile »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 6:51 pm
theophile wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 6:08 pm



But what I think Paul is saying is that when Jesus died he became the figurehead of something much bigger and cosmic in nature. The soma pneumatikon or body of Christ, which is not a human body, but the full network of living things that are in the spirit.

I don't know what that means. Thanks anyway.


JW
What do you think Paul is saying here of the body of Christ / soma pneumatikon if not the words of mine that you have quoted? i.e., something much bigger and cosmic in nature... A network of living things that are in the spirit...
1 Corinthians 12:
12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 14 Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.
Addition: You would probably call this the church, and I would agree. But we can't narrow the church to human society. I believe Paul is clear it is meant to be all inclusive, with God becoming all in all at the end as a result of this movement.

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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by historia »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 5:05 pm
historia wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 11:10 am
I think Paul believed Jesus was resurrected, and so believed that he had 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.
Yeah, sorry, by 'physical' I also mean a body that can be seen and touched.

Obviously, Paul and other early Christians authors didn't have the language of modern physics or chemistry to draw upon to describe spirits or our bodies in the age to come, so expressions like 'carbon-based' seem out of place here.

But there does appear to have been a fundamental difference in the minds of many ancient authors between a spirit or a soul on the one hand and a visible, tangible body on the other. Here is perhaps where Luke 24:39 is useful, in that it reflects this general distinction.
JehovahsWitness wrote: Wed Apr 12, 2023 5:05 pm
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
I don't know if it's meaningful to frame our discussion on this point in terms of what "can" happen, since Paul no doubt thought that with God all things are possible.

Better, I think, to frame this in terms of what is the final destination of those who are resurrected: I simply don't see in 1 Cor. 15 or Romans 8 the idea that those who are resurrected will leave behind their mortal bodies and go off to heaven. Rather, I see Paul describing Christ coming from heaven to the renewed creation where God will give new life to our mortal bodies.

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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

Post #45

Post by JehovahsWitness »

historia wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 2:51 pm I simply don't see in 1 Cor. 15 or Romans 8 the idea that those who are resurrected will leave behind their mortal bodies and go off to heaven. Rather, I see Paul describing Christ coming from heaven to the renewed creation where God will give new life to our mortal bodies.

Sorry, can you clarify what you mean when you refer to "heaven" ?
What do you mean Jesus will come "from" heaven? For me when you say "from" it implies Jesus would be "in" heaven (thus the first question)
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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by historia »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 3:50 pm
historia wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 2:51 pm
I simply don't see in 1 Cor. 15 or Romans 8 the idea that those who are resurrected will leave behind their mortal bodies and go off to heaven. Rather, I see Paul describing Christ coming from heaven to the renewed creation where God will give new life to our mortal bodies.
Sorry, can you clarify what you mean when you refer to "heaven" ?
I'm not sure I have much to say here. Paul uses the term "heaven" throughout his letters, but to my knowledge doesn't offer too many details about it. It seems reasonable to me to assume that he understood "heaven" in the same way other Jews in the Second Temple period understood it, as God's dwelling place.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to think it is a realm where a physical body cannot go. But I don't think Paul shared that assumption. In 2 Cor. 12:2, likely talking about himself, he notes that "I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven -- whether in the body or out of the body I do not know, God knows."

So, for Paul, one can go to heaven in their body, at least in some special cases.
JehovahsWitness wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 3:50 pm
What do you mean Jesus will come "from" heaven? For me when you say "from" it implies Jesus would be "in" heaven (thus the first question)
Yes, Paul says Christ is in heaven. And then at the time of the resurrection of the dead he will return to the earth.

What I'm getting at here is that, for Paul, Christ going bodily to heaven is one of these special cases. Heaven is not the final destination for the resurrected body. Rather, Paul seems to be looking forward to Christ and believers living in the renewed creation in the age to come.

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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by JehovahsWitness »

historia wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:31 pm
I'm not sure I have much to say here. Paul uses the term "heaven" throughout his letters, but to my knowledge doesn't offer too many details about it. It seems reasonable to me to assume that he understood "heaven" in the same way other Jews in the Second Temple period understood it, as God's dwelling place.
Okay God's dwelling place, would that be a reference to a particular location on earth? When Paul referenced heaven in relation to God's dwelling place what in simple terms do you think he meant. I take it we agree that God is not just a feeling but a mighty intelligent being that created the physical universe; so what are we talking about when we speak of that One's "dwelling place"?

historia wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:31 pm


Yes, Paul says Christ is in heaven.
Right so we just need to figure out what that "heaven" is. I presume you are not proposing heaven as under discussion and earth are identical and referencing to the same thing.
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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by historia »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:37 pm
When Paul referenced heaven in relation to God's dwelling place what in simple terms do you think he meant.
So, Paul talks about being taken up into the third heaven. In the cosmology of his day, that would be upward from the earth, beyond the sky and the stars.
JehovahsWitness wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:37 pm
I presume you are not proposing heaven as under discussion and earth are identical and referencing to the same thing.
As was the case for all Jews in the Second Temple period, Paul clearly thought of heaven and earth are two different places.

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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by JehovahsWitness »

historia wrote: Sun Apr 16, 2023 3:00 pm
JehovahsWitness wrote: Sat Apr 15, 2023 4:37 pm
When Paul referenced heaven in relation to God's dwelling place what in simple terms do you think he meant.
So, Paul talks about being taken up into the third heaven. In the cosmology of his day, that would be upward from the earth, beyond the sky and the stars.
Do you think this was referencing a physical* or non physical location?

I ask because clearly God (with his angels ) lives there and God is invisible to humans. Paul spoke of the things visible and the things invisible. God being classed as the latter. We defined "physical" as that which can be seen (and touched) so logically non-physical would be that which cannot be seen or touched. If Jesus as the Word was in God's form in this "heaven" he too would have logically been invisible.

We can refer to a "place"/ location/dimension/realm whatever but if we are talking about that which is not in our physical (can be seen and touched) universe, that FROM WHICH Jesus came... then for the sake of communication we need a word.

The heaven Paul often refered to is the nonphysical ...... {you dont seem to like the word "realm" so you provide the word } where at least 2 spirit intelligent individuals lived before ANYTHING else existed.

Agreed?
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Re: What did Paul mean by a "spiritual body"?

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Post by historia »

JehovahsWitness wrote: Sun Apr 16, 2023 4:05 pm
historia wrote: Sun Apr 16, 2023 3:00 pm
So, Paul talks about being taken up into the third heaven. In the cosmology of his day, that would be upward from the earth, beyond the sky and the stars.
Do you think this was referencing a physical* or non physical location?
So, depending on how you look at things, there is, I think, a difference between space and matter. A particular space can have objects in it. And some of those objects might be made of ordinary matter, in which case they would meet our definition of 'physical'. Or some of those objects might be made of a different kind of substance, in which case they would be classified as 'non-physical' on our scheme. But it is the object that is physical or non-physical, rather than the space or location itself.

Or maybe that's not how you look at things. But therein lies the rub: This whole line of argumentation is predicated on you and I making conjectures about the nature of heaven and what kind of bodies can or can't be there depending on our view of the world. This doesn't tell us what Paul believed.

As already noted above, Paul thought it was possible for someone to go to heaven in their current, physical body. And, even if that wasn't normally possible according to his worldview, couldn't God make it so? Clearly, then, Christ being in heaven wouldn't in itself preclude him having a physical body, at least as far as Paul was concerned.

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