Deeper Waters

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Lately, we’ve been looking at the doctrine of the resurrection. I stated that this came after doing the funeral service of my grandmother. We’ve talked a lot about what the doctrine is, but what does the doctrine mean?

Let’s look again at 1 Cor. 15 and go to verse 55.

“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

We can say that this is beautiful poetry and it likely is, but there is something else going on here. Paul is doing what your mother told you to not do. (However, it doesn’t stop me from doing it in gaming battles with my friends.) He’s trash-talking death. He’s making fun of it.

Why is he doing this? This is the difference that resurrection makes and again, I return you to my funeral message.

When my grandmother died, the story did not end there if the resurrection is true. The story has for us a little interruption. For her, it is going on now, although that is not going on bodily and that is something we must keep in mind. We cannot say my grandmother is living in a new and glorified body now. That is promised at the final resurrection at the physical return of Christ.

Death does not have the last laugh. Rather than separating us from God forever, death actually brings us closer to God when we are in Christ. Since Christ is the one who conquered death, we by being found in Him take part in that victory as well. For a parallel, when a sporting team wins an event like the World Series or the Super Bowl, the whole town celebrates as if every person in the town played in the game and won it. They consider themselves the winners because those who were their representatives as it were, won.

When death comes, we should indeed mourn that the loved one has passed, just as I mourned the death of my grandmother, but we are not to mourn like those who have no hope, as 1 Thess. 4 says. We do not say we do not ever see them again. We say “Until we meet again.”

Let us celebrate the life of the one who lived as surely they would want us to do such. What we mourn is not that the person has died per se. We mourn in no way for the person. We mourn for the current end to our interaction with that person. After all, what have we to feel sorry for someone who is in the presence of God at this time? What we are saddened for is that this person was so special to us and we can no longer interact with them. (Indeed, I still see my grandmother on my phone number list and sometimes wish I could talk to her about what’s going on in my life.)

Also, the closer you are to the person, the more you will mourn. Our sadness when the loved one dies is that we are grieving what we have lost and as much as we have a relationship with that person, we mourn. Note also that part of this will be based on our own temperament and we do all mourn in different ways.

My grandmother’s life was not a waste, just as the life of your loved one in Christ, but if someone wants to treat it like a waste, do not live your life better in any way. Do not have an appreciation for the good things in life that they would want you to have. Do not seek to live a more holy life as you celebrate the good life that this person lived. Do not change your life in any way. If you do not do that, then while that person’s life was not a waste, you will be treating it as a waste.

Mourn, but also celebrate. Death is conquered. The story is not over. Rejoice in that. Just as I shall see my grandmother again someday, you shall see your loved one again someday, and that meeting will never end.

Rejoice!

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at the doctrine of the resurrection. We established some historical bedrock upon which we can say the resurrection is true. Now, we’ve been going through the rest of 1 Corinthians 15 to see what else we can learn about the resurrection. Tonight, we’re going to look at the topic of flesh and blood.

When we get to verse 50, we are told that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What does Paul mean by this?

There are other times this phrase is used. Let’s look at the text.

Matthew 16:17

And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.

Ephesians 6:12

For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

Hebrews 2:14

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,

The first reference would be to contrasting heavenly revelation from earthly revelation. The source of the truth of what Peter believes is not man but God. Of course, we cannot say “You cannot be man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” It would fit in just fine in contrasting an earthly nature with a heavenly one.

The same could go for the Ephesians passage. Our war is not on Earth per se but with heavenly powers. The evils of the world may be represented by those on Earth, but they are not those on Earth. Again, we can say that flesh and blood refers to something of an earthly nature. Of course, we could contrast that what we fight is not of a heavenly nature, but of a hellish one, which would be a fallen heavenly nature.

In the last one, we find that Jesus took on flesh and blood to be like his brothers. It is implied that in doing so, he destroyed the power of death by taking on death. Only one of an earthly nature could die. Again, the idea that we have seen throughout 1 Corinthians 15 fits in.

Repeatedly, we see two different types playing against each other and this is found in the contrast between Adam and Jesus. Adam was earthly and Jesus is heavenly. It is not talking about their make-up but rather where their source of energy is from. The earthly man is from the Earth and desires the things of the Earth. The heavenly man is from the heavens and desires the things of the Heavens.

Thus, there is a strong case against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others that this passage teachings that we must be immaterial. In fact, we’ve seen throughout our study that nothing there teaches immateriality and better fits with the idea of physicality, such as was the case with Christ’s own physical body.

So what difference does this make?

We’ll see tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our look at the doctrine of the resurrection. Our focus has been on the fifteenth chapter of Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians and looking at some historical bedrock. We’ve laid out a historical bedrock from which a case can be made for the resurrection and now we’re looking at what that resurrection means.

When we get to verse 45, we find that Paul says that Adam was made a living soul but Christ was made a life-giving spirit. What’s going on here? Are we to believe then that Christ rose as a spirit as the Jehovah’s Witnesses would have us believe and that the resurrection is not physical then?

Not at all. Let’s point out that already we’ve seen abundant evidence that Christ rose physically and that this was in the epistles. We see in the gospels more evidence of this, such as Luke saying that a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.

Now some skeptic of the NT could say that what is going on is that Luke is trying to contrast his Christology from Paul. A Jehovah’s Witness wouldn’t say that, so the technique will still work on them. An atheist would however and so we’re going to have to deal with Paul from Paul, which is just fine. In fact, it’s always the main place to start. Look at the author’s own works as much as possible and let them define their terms.

No one would read the Genesis account and think that Adam was something non-physical. However, note that Adam is a living soul in that account. Are we to assume then that Adam was an immaterial being since we generally do understand souls as referring to something immaterial? Not at all.

What we are to understand about Adam is his being in contrast to the being of Christ. Adam is natural in his nature. He lives in the flesh. Christ on the other hand was raised the way that we are to be raised as we saw yesterday. We are to be raised in physical bodies that are instead powered by the Spirit. Such is the case with the body of Christ.

N.T. Wright and others believe that what is going on is that Paul is contrasting all throughout this chapter the resurrection with what is going on in Genesis 1 and 2. The resurrection is not just a doctrine about the nature of human beings. It’s a nature about the creation entirely. That’s why there’s the passage culminating in verse 28 about the whole of creation being united to God.

If Adam was not created as immaterial however, there is no reason to think Christ was raised immaterial. That is not to say that we deny that there is an immaterial aspect to man. It is saying that one does not arrive at the conclusion from 1 Corinthians 15:45 that Christ did rise only spiritually.

We shall continue tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking at the topic of resurrection lately and we’re going to be eventually looking at what difference it makes. Tonight, we’re going to be tackling the question of if the resurrection is spiritual or physical.

Let’s look at the text from 1 Corinthians 15, the chapter we’ve been going through.

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

For some, such as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, this would seal the deal. We are raised in spiritual bodies. It’s no surprise that they also teach that Christ was not physically raised but was raised spiritually. However, if we look at it deeper, which we do at Deeper Waters, will we see the same situation?

To begin with, spiritual in this case is not to be seen as the opposite of physical. Much of what I say comes from Mike Licona’s book “The Resurrection of Jesus: A New Historiographical Approach.” Licona went through the writings of the Greeks from the 8th century on and could not find one use of the word natural that simply meant physical.

As for spiritual, there are times where it does mean something immaterial, but there are also noted times that it does not refer to something immaterial. When it is used of bodies, with one exception, it does not seem to refer to bodies that are ethereal. What I gather from the references is that they seem to refer to something more enlightened. That would fit what’s going on in 1 Corinthians.

We could get some further clues by looking at the rest of 1 Corinthians.

2:15

The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

3:1

But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.

14:37

If anyone thinks that he is a prophet, or spiritual, he should acknowledge that the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord.

Is Paul seeking for the people of the church to be immaterial? Is he telling them that if any of them consider themselves to be immaterial then they can judge what he says?

More likely, it is referring to a kind of life that is lived. Spiritual people are those focused on heavenly matters and the things of the Spirit. Natural people are those who are still focused on the things of this world. Now to an extent, we all have to think about things of this world. That is no sin. The question is if those are the things that drive us.

We can make the same comparison to the bodies. It is not physical vs immaterial in regards to the nature of the body. It is more asking where does the source of their energy come from. Our new bodies will be bodies that are powered by the Spirit. We will not be ruled by the desires of the flesh but the desires of the Spirit.

We shall look further tomorrow.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our look at the doctrine of the resurrection based on 1 Corinthians 15. I’m only hitting what I consider to be the most important parts. A more exhaustive look can be found in the works of N.T. Wright and Mike Licona and I encourage the reader to read those anyway.

Time for a thought experiment. What if Jesus did not rise? What if you’ve lived your whole life as a Christian and then receive undeniable proof that Jesus did not rise? How would you respond? Would you choose to be a Christian anyway? If you didn’t, would you say it had been worthwhile anyway as you lived a good life?

Paul will have none of that. Look at what he says in verses 17-19.

17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. 19 If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.

For Paul, this is the clincher. If Christ is not risen, there is no hope. If Christianity is a myth, I would tell you to abandon it. (To any atheists reading this, I know about your billboards and if you want to convince me it’s a myth, I need this little thing called evidence.) If Christ has not been raised, don’t be a Christian.

Why? To be a Christian is to identify yourself with Christ. Think of what that means at the start. The first century man was told to consider this man who was on the cross and was put to death by the Romans for claiming to be a king and by the Jews for a charge of blasphemy. By making him your savior, you are in essence saying your identity will be found in that man.

So you want to be identified with someone accused of rebellion against Caesar and of blasphemy in the first century?

The reason you would do so is that you believed God raised him from the dead and his resurrection was a vindication of his claim. It was God putting the stamp of approval on what Jesus said and did. In doing such, he overturned the same of the cross and brought redemption for all.

However, if he has not risen, there is no forgiveness and we are indeed deluded. We are in that case spending our lives identifying ourselves with a dead criminal. The pagans would not even want to do that! If that is the case, then Christians ought to be pitied. People ought to feel sorry for them.

Fortunately, that’s not the case. The reality is that Christ is risen and we do have hope. Paul will not have any of this nonsense of “It doesn’t matter if he rose again. The faith helps you be a good person.” If he did not rise, then by all means find another route to salvation to get yourself righteous before God.

May we all take the resurrection as seriously as Paul did.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Lately, we’ve been going through the topic of the resurrection. We’ve been covering key historical facts that are mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15 and tonight, we’re going to discuss the conversion of Paul.

This is one where the explanations for what happened to Paul on the Damascus road can be quite funny. For instance, Dan Barker has said that maybe Paul was struck by lightning. (You’d think some of those who were with him would have mentioned that and Paul would have asked why his hair was suddenly standing on end and his clothes smelled all crispy.)

Epilepsy is another common explanation, but Beauregard and O’Leary in “The Spiritual Brain” state that this is among the least likely explanations. The word for a thorn in the flesh refers to an irritation and not a serious problem. In fact, I would also add that this is given to Paul according to his testimony AFTER he had a vision of Heaven.

Another idea is that Paul had excessive guilt. This however is a modern idea. Internal guilt would not make sense to an ancient person. They understood shame to those who were their in-group, the ones they took their identity from. Paul would not have had that with the Sanhedrin. If anything, the texts we have indicate that Paul would have been quite respected among them.

What evidence do we have however that Paul genuinely was a Jew against Jesus and then he was a Jew for Jesus? We have his own testimony and that of Luke. Philippians 3 and Galatians 1 both give examples of the way Paul was before his conversion and throughout the epistles you can read about how he persecuted the church.

The explanation that Paul gives for his change is that he saw the risen Christ. As a result of that, he went off and spent some time alone before hitting the evangelistic road. I believe that it was at this time Paul was probably reading the Old Testament and seeking to understand it in light of what he had seen in Christ. If only more of us would do that! That includes myself! The early Christians had as their Bible the Old Testament only and I am sure most of them knew it better than most of us.

Let’s also be clear on something else. Paul was not an idiot. He was very well educated for his time and he would not have made Christianity his faith unless he was intellectually convinced of it. That he was willing to go against the Sanhedrin and effectively banish his heritage in light of Christ should tell us about the seriousness of his conversion. When we read 2 Corinthians 11, we see all the nice little “perks” he got from his new faith.

Thus, we have strong evidence that Paul was converted as a result of seeing the risen Christ and no evidence against it. In the light of the inadequacy of other theories to explain it that rely on modern ideas pushed onto an ancient culture or on speculation without evidence, why not go for what Paul himself says is the explanation? He really did see Jesus.

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! Tonight, we’re going to be continuing our study of the resurrection and looking at the appearances. This is the second item that we are going to list as our historical bedrock.

When I speak of the appearances, I am speaking of the times that the disciples claimed to see the risen Christ. Now whether or not they saw the risen Christ is disputed of course, but there is little doubt that they experienced something that was to them an appearance of the risen Christ.

The creed in 1 Corinthians 15 lists appearances to Peter, James, the twelve, more than 500 at a time, and then Paul includes himself. We will be focusing more on Paul tomorrow. While I believe the same happened to James, that will not be included under historical bedrock.

Our evidence again is that the gospels, aside from Mark, speak of this event, as does the Acts of the Apostles, and this creed in 1 Corinthians 15. Various church fathers refer to the appearances too. This event is what enabled the apostles to go out and start claiming Christ was raised.

Of course, there are those who say that this was not an appearance of the risen Christ. A common theory that is given in response is that the apostles were hallucinating. Many of us have experienced these. When I was eight, I had eye surgery and for a time, I looked at my mother and couldn’t tell which one she was, because when I saw her, I saw two of her.

There are a number of problems with the apostles hallucinating however. While mine was medical, we have no reason to believe the apostles were on any mind-altering drugs or had medical surgery of some sort recently. Thus, if there was one, it would be for psychological reasons.

Psychology is tough enough when the patient is sitting right across from someone. It’s much harder when we start using psychology on ancient figures that we really have little information of. It’s not totally invalid, but theories should not be built upon psychological speculation.

To begin with, the disciples were not in the mindset to experience a hallucination of Jesus as risen. If they were grieving, any hallucination would have been of Jesus in Abraham’s Bosom. It would not be of Jesus being alive and well and appearing among them.

Second, this would not explain the group hallucinations. It would be difficult to find a valid example of such an event. Sometimes, groups of people can see something by being made prone to that. For instance, one person says he sees such and such and another person says the same and before too long, those in the back who can’t see as well think they see the same thing. An appearance to the twelve would not be like that. This is especially the case with one that would happen indoors such as in John 20.

Also, some might point to visions at Fatima. My thoughts on that matter is that I’m not ready to rule out a group appearance. Gary Habermas recommends keeping in mind the distinction between hallucinations and illusions as well. Illusions are misrepresentations of natural phenomena, like what a magician does. Hallucinations are all in the head with nothing outside of the person to figure into the hallucination.

Hallucinations cannot be shared. I could not go to sleep one night and be dreaming of Hawaii and wake up my wife and ask her to join me in the dream. One person would not hallucinate Jesus and then have the others join in. That would be an illusion instead of a hallucination.

Finally, hallucinations would not explain the empty tomb. If anyone had shown the body of Christ, the game would be over. There would be no basis for saying he was risen if the corpse was there. Do note the disciples never went for a spiritual resurrection. (We will look at material in 1 Corinthians 15 later) They went all the way the hard route with a physical resurrection.

Could it be they did that because what they claimed happened? The risen Christ did appear to them?

Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’re going to continue our look at resurrection, but I also seek your prayers tonight and for the upcoming future. My wife and I were finishing Scripture reading last night and about to turn out the light. I needed to get up and turn out a light in the kitchen I’d left on. I’d been having some mild stomach pains, but before I got back to bed, I was screaming.

I wound up in the ER and just to make a long story short, I have gallstones at the moment and will likely have to have my gallbladder removed. My diet will have to be different for the time being as well which is the most difficult part. I seek your prayers in this time. We’re wondering about how we’re going to handle everything.

However, that being said, let’s continue looking at resurrection. The first event Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 mentions is that Christ died. While he doesn’t state the manner he died here, he already has at other times in 1 Corinthians. The first piece of information in this creed that needs to be considered as historical bedrock is that Christ was crucified.

To begin with, the Pauline epistles that we know to be authentic all state this. (I do believe all thirteen are authentically Pauline, but I am willing to accept skeptical data for the time being.) There is not a contrary theory in the epistles on how it is that Christ died. Paul never even hints that Christ avoided death somehow or died by beheading or another method.

All of the gospels report the crucifixion as well. More time is spent on the final week of the life of Christ than on any other event and the conclusion throughout each of the gospels is that Christ was crucified. While some might say there are secondary differences as to what happened during the crucifixion, there is no disagreement that there was crucifixion.

Some readers might be saying “All gospels also agree that Christ rose again. Does that mean we should accept it as historical because of that?”

It should certainly be considered as evidence, but no. For one thing, the act of crucifixion can be more easily accepted by all because it does not necessarily entail any miraculous events. Some might think the events in Matthew 27 have to be literal. That’s not the issue here. You can be an atheist NT scholar, interpret that as a metaphor or some sort, or a later embellishment, but still accept that Christ was crucified as that in itself does not involve the miraculous.

Furthermore, we do have outside references that Christ was crucified. We have the writings of Josephus. Now some could say that some of this was altered, and that could be, but few would say the whole thing is an interpolation and those who say part of it is would not say the mention of crucifixion is.

Even if that wasn’t sufficient however, there is the reference to the death of Christ in Tacitus. Although crucifixion is not mentioned, he does speak of the most extreme penalty. Crucifixion was such a horror to the Romans that they did not even want to mention it.

We also have the records of the early church fathers. Even counter-theories have a crucifixion Jesus recovered from.

To which, let’s dispel this nonsense about Jesus surviving on the cross in a swoon. The American Medical Association has undergone a thorough examination of the crucifixion. Jesus was dead. Not only that, David Strauss, a skeptic by all means, years ago said that a Jesus who somehow survived would have been bleeding profusely, somehow pushed aside a huge rock, walked on feet stabbed through with nails to the crucifixion, and had he made it to the disciples, they would not have called him the Lord who conquered death, but would have called him a doctor. One can hardly imagine Peter looking at Jesus like that and saying “I hope one day I have a body like that.”

If anyone tells you Jesus might have survived, they just don’t know what they’re talking about frankly.

There can be no question historically that Jesus was crucified.

We shall continue tomorrow.