ON THE RESURRECTION

 

  Apparently, some in the Church at Corinth did not believe in the Resurrection. The human soul is immortal. Like it or not, the destiny of the soul is either one of two alternatives: (1) Eternally living or (2) eternally dying. John 3:16 expresses God’s desire for everyone; that none should perish. No one should perish, but many shall perish. Different versions of the Bible express it differently, but “should” is better in context. Neither “should” nor “shall” is in the original Greek but is placed there by translators.

  There is no reason whatever that anyone should perish. Why, then, would anyone choose to perish? Inevitably they value temporal pleasure over eternal joy. “Joy” is the demeanor or attitude of the new person who is born again (Acts 13:62). However, “born again” is not truly “filled” with the Holy Ghost of Jesus but entwined with, or the Spirit of God is permeated within the natural body of the Christian.

  Only Jesus received the Holy Spirit at His baptism because he had never sinned and had no reason to repent for the forgiveness of sins (Mark 1:4). When Jesus was baptized by John, look what happened: “The Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a Voice came from heaven, which said, ‘Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased.’” (Luke 3:22).

  The motion of the Holy Ghost was like a dove, but the appearance of Jesus’s Holy Ghost had the form of a body… His Ghost fit His body perfectly. The Spirit that entered Jesus at His baptism looked like Jesus and had shape and virtue because was without sin. Where have we heard that before? “He (Nebuchadnezzar) answered and said, ‘Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God’” (Dan 3:25).

  Luke saw what Nebuchadnezzar saw! Both saw the Holy Ghost of Jesus — the Spirit that resembled Jesus in appearance and virtue. Only the King James Version got the context right. The Holy Ghost is the bodily-shaped Spirit of Jesus. The Holy Ghost of Jesus lived through the fiery furnace to persuade Nebuchadnezzar, but His Holy Ghost experiencing death persuaded few. Abraham in Paradise even commented to the rich man in Hell about that, to wit: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). Some of the Corinthians had not been!

  So, here we have it in Corinth. Some had not been persuaded that because Jesus was raised from the dead that they too could be resurrected. Perhaps, Simon Magus had penetrated the Church as the founder of Gnosticism because they believed that only a phantasm (ghost) died on the Cross. In other words, Jesus was not Resurrected in body but only the His Ghost.

  It is found in scripture that the Holy Ghost of Jesus experienced crucifixion with Jesus, but never died. Jesus, as he died, “gave up the Ghost” (Mark 15:37). Perhaps, just as people saw Jesus receive the Holy Ghost, they also saw Jesus give up the Ghost. Surely Luke saw the former and Mark the latter. Perhaps others saw what they saw as well.

  Perhaps Simon saw the Ghost leaving Jesus and Gnosticism was born out of misunderstanding. Ironically, evil Nebuchadnezzar understood, and seems to have been persuaded, but some in the Corinthian Church had not been. Paul saw the Holy Ghost of Jesus as well… with eyes blinded (Acts 13:11)! Paul knew that Jesus had been resurrected because he heard His Voice and saw Him as a Ghost. The “Voice” as is the “Word” is God manifesting Himself as Jesus. Paul recognized the Living God as Jesus and Him Resurrected. Now all he had to do was convince the others of what he saw:

⁴⁴ It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. ⁴⁵ And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. ⁴⁶ Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.(1 Cor 15:44-46)

  Paul described the two bodies of Jesus: the natural of flesh, and the spiritual in bodily shape. Jesus’s Flesh had His own Spirit peculiar to Him, and likewise any natural man also has a body-shaped Spirit that looks like them, remembering that mankind was made in the image of God (Gen 1:27) the same as Jesus is the Image of God. What “Images” did Jesus have? The Image of a Man and the Image of His Ghost, and with that said, He also had a non-image — the Mind of God. Likewise, Adamkind was made in the same Image as Jesus (Gen 1:26) — mind, body, and ghost, but only in an image of Jesus, not the real Person of God.

  Paul went on to say that Adam was made a “living soul.” The soul of Adam was an Adam-shaped “cup” much the same as Jesus (Mat 26:42). I believe that the “Cup” of Jesus was the Holy Grail, not the chalice from which the apostles drank for that was not His “Cup” as they could not drink of the same cup (Mat 10:23). God formed Adam from the clay and imbued him with an Adam-shaped “Spiritual ghost.” Like Jesus, all the patriarchs throughout scripture gave up their ghost — the Spirit from God peculiar to them.

  Adam was imbued with the same Spirit that Jesus was. Surely, God breathed unto Adam, like a dove, his own bodily-shaped Spirit just as with Jesus. On the other hand, when Jesus arose, His Ghost came back unto Him and ascended to Paradise as One Shape. For Adam, things were somewhat different. Sin separated the spiritual Adam from the natural Adam. They remain separate until the Edenic Covenant (Promise) comes. Paul wrote about that at the same time:

⁵¹ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, ⁵² In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (1 Cor 15:51-52)

  The body is corruptible. Adam’s turned back to the dust from which he was generated. “Generation” was God breathing His Spirit unto Adam and therein gave His Spirit a place. Adam obtained his own Holy Ghost. By grace, God covered Adam’s sin (and Eve’s; Gen 3:21) until Adam had his Ghost return. But when he died, his Ghost was saved for another experience. When Jesus returns in the sky, Adam’s dust will be remolded only with incorruptible flesh as before sin and his body will be saved. His soul was saved upon his death.

  Adam, and all mankind, will experience three salvations: (1) From sin and the Devil, (2) his soul, and (3) his flesh. That is the resurrection. Jesus did it, Adam will experience it, and so will all other faithful Christians. Saved from sin is the safety Christians have — their coats of Jesus’s Flesh, until the end of their natural days when the soul is saved, just awaiting the salvation of the body.

  Christians shall be changed in that day. For those who have died in Christ, Christ is in them and their souls are incorruptible. Resurrection is the final stage to glorification; when Christians are fully regenerated back to the image in which they were generated — glorious like God… just like Jesus.