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To: C19fan

I wouldn’t call her (it?) a heretic. The title of the article seems to be misleading. She/it doesn’t seem to be denying the bodily resurrection but rather engaging in hypothetical speculation of what might happen were the authenticable remains of Christ found.

Which IS an interesting hypothetical. First, because finding the remains wouldn’t refute the resurrection at all. Rather it would refute the bodily ascension into Heaven, right? Which is still a major deal, one that would have significant theological and societal impacts ... ones that couldn’t easily be predefined.


30 posted on 04/03/2013 7:48:55 AM PDT by tanknetter
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To: tanknetter; C19fan
"...finding the remains wouldn’t refute the Resurrection at all. Rather it would refute the bodily ascension into Heaven, right?"

No, it would also refute the Resurrection.

This is because the Resurrection of Christ is not just the resuscitation of a corpse. That's what the raising of Lazarus was, as well as the son of the widow of Nain, Tabitha and others. In these latter cases, the people "recuperated from death," so to speak, only to die again at some subsequent time.

The Resurrection of Jesus was radically different. The New Testament makes it clear that Jesus’ body on that first Easter morning was not a resuscitated corpse like that of Lazarus, for although it was indeed the selfsame body that was born of the Virgin Mary, it had undergone a significant transformation. That is why His closest friends did and did not recognize Him, and it is why the risen Lord was able to pass through locked doors as well as appear and disappear. In other words, His body now possessed the properties of glorification. It was the body transfigured and transformed, immortal, with physical properties previously unknown. This means:

Such a body could never die again, or be found again in a grave. This is the kind of body all the saved will have, at the Resurrection of the Body, at the end of this world as we know it.

32 posted on 04/03/2013 8:47:31 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o ("You can observe a lot just by watchin'." - Yogi Berra)
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