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To: Sontagged
So why is it such a popular among Mormons and certain Protestant groups? For Mormons, the answer is easy: Joseph Smith taught it. But what about for Protestants? I have a few hunches (bad Eucharistic theology, a soteriology and sacramental theology that tends towards treating matter as evil, bad philosophy related to the substance and accidents of the Body of Christ, a tendency towards reading everything in a literal fashion, ignorance of the Church Fathers, etc.), but I can’t say for sure. Any thoughts?

The man is a product of his own bias. When not attacking Fund. Protestants for not taking the words at the Lord's supper as plainly literal - which Catholics do not actually do (except those who deviate from Catholic Eucharistic theology) - they are attacking them for being too literal.

Meanwhile most of the works of so-called "church fathers" (which much attests to the progressive accretion of traditions and errors of men) on the Internet is a result of the work of Protestants (Anglicans), while of Reformers it is attested,

“...To prepare books like the Magdeburg Centuries they combed the libraries and came up with a remarkable catalogue of protesting catholics and evangelical catholics, all to lend support to the insistence that the Protestant position was, in the best sense, a catholic position."."Substantiation for this understanding of the gospel came principally from the Scriptures, but whenever they could, the reformers also quoted the fathers of the catholic church. There was more to quote than their Roman opponents found comfortable" ( Jaroslav Pelikan, The Riddle of Roman Catholicism (New York: Abingdon Press, 1959).

The typical reason for the explanation at issue by Fund. Prots would be in order to prevent a seeming contradiction, due to high regard for Scripture.

Yet while i myself know it is easy to accept this without critical analysis, and thus it is good you brought this to our attention, let us see what some major classic evangelical commentators said:

[Methodist] Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible:

Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom - This is a Hebrew periphrasis for man, and man in his present state of infirmity and decay. Man, in his present state, cannot inherit the kingdom of God; his nature is not suited to that place; he could not, in his present weak state, endure an exceeding great and eternal weight of glory. Therefore, it is necessary that he should die, or be changed; that he should have a celestial body suited to the celestial state.

[Presbyterian] Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Flesh and blood - Bodies organized as ours now are. “Flesh and blood” denotes such bodies as we have here, bodies that are fragile. weak, liable to disease, subject to pain and death. They are composed of changing particles; to be repaired and strengthened daily; they are subject to decay, and are wasted away by sickness, and of course they cannot be suited to a world where there shall be no decay and and no death.

[Calvinistic Baptist] John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God: this shows the necessity there is of a difference between the body that now is, and that which shall be, which the apostle has so largely insisted on...by flesh and blood is meant, not human nature as to the substance of it, or as consisting of flesh and blood, for that can and does inherit the kingdom of God; witness the human nature, or body of Christ, the bodies of the saints that rose after his resurrection, and those of Enoch and Elijah, who were translated body and soul to heaven; so that this passage makes nothing for those that deny the resurrection of the same body, and plead for a new and an aerial one: but the human nature, or body, so and so qualified, is here meant; either as corrupted with sin, for without holiness and righteousness no man shall see the Lord, or enter into and possess the kingdom of heaven; or flesh and blood, or an human body, as it is now supported in this animal life, with meat and drink, &c. and as it is frail and mortal, and subject to death, in which sense the phrase is used in Scripture; see Mat_16:17 and often by the Jews; so Abraham is represented by them as saying (i),

Jamieson, Fausset [Anglican] and Brown [Presbyterian?] Commentary

“Flesh and blood” of the same animal and corruptible nature as our present (1Co_15:44) animal-souled bodies, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. Therefore the believer acquiesces gladly in the unrepealed sentence of the holy law, which appoints the death of the present body as the necessary preliminary to the resurrection body of glory....The resurrection body will be still a body though spiritual, and substantially retaining the personal identity; as is proved by Luk_24:39; Joh_20:27, compared with Phi_3:21.

John Wesley's Explanatory Notes

1 Corinthians 15:50 But first we must be entirely changed; for such flesh and blood as we are clothed with now, cannot enter into that kingdom which is wholly spiritual: neither doth this corruptible body inherit that incorruptible kingdom.

[ Southern Baptist] Robertson's Word Pictures

Cannot inherit (klēronomēsai ou dunantai). Hence there must be a change by death from the natural body to the spiritual body. In the case of Christ this change was wrought in less than three days and even then the body of Jesus was in a transition state before the Ascension. He ate and could be handled and yet he passed through closed doors. Paul does not base his argument on the special circumstances connected with the risen body of Jesus. [English Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible

He sums up this argument by assigning the reason of this change (1Co_15:50): Now this I say that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor doth corruption inherit incorruption. The natural body is flesh and blood, consisting of bones, muscles, nerves, veins, arteries, and their several fluids; and, as such, it is of a corruptible frame and form, liable to dissolution, to rot and moulder. But no such thing shall inherit the heavenly regions; for this were for corruption to inherit incorruption, which is little better than a contradiction in terms. The heavenly inheritance is incorruptible, and never fadeth away, 1Pe_1:4. How can this be possessed by flesh and blood, which is corruptible and will fade away? It must be changed into ever-during substance, before it can be capable of possessing the heavenly inheritance.

COMMENTARY by [English Reformed] MATTHEW POOLE

Flesh and blood do not here signify sin, the unrenewed nature, (as some would have it), but our bodies, in their present natural, corruptible, frail, mortal state; so the terms signify, Eph_6:12 Heb_2:14. Flesh and blood shall inherit the kingdom of God, (else our bodies could not be glorified), but our body, as in its present state, till changed and altered as to qualities, till it be made a spiritual body, shall not inherit the kingdom of God. The latter words give a reason why flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; because it is corruption, that is, subject to natural corruption and putrefaction, and the heavenly state of incorruption; the bodies of believers therefore must be raised up in that state of incorruption mentioned 1Co_15:42, before they can be capable of inheriting the kingdom of God.

15 posted on 07/18/2018 3:48:13 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Trust the risen Lord Jesus to save you as a damned and destitute sinner + be baptized + follow Him)
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To: daniel1212

The author of this article here takes down the “bloodless resurrected Christ” argument, precept upon precept.


33 posted on 07/18/2018 4:16:49 AM PDT by Sontagged (TY Lord Jesus for being the Way, the Truth & the Life. Have mercy on those trapped in the Snake Pit!)
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