Does The Glorified Body of Christ Have Blood?

Shameless Popery ^ | December 5, 2012 | by Joe Heschmeyer

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One of the strangest beliefs that I’ve come across through this blog is the idea that the glorified Body of Jesus Christ contains Flesh and Bones, but no Blood.

I first came across it in a reader comment; since then, I’ve heard this view advanced by several Protestant apologetics websites, like the popular Calvinist apologetics blog CARM (Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry), along with Let Us Reason Ministries, and Bible.ca.

Additionally, this appears to be the traditional Mormon view, one endorsed by their founder, Joseph Smith.

As you’ll soon see, this theory suffers from a number of problems: the Scriptural support is virtually non-existent, it’s never endorsed (or even alluded to) by any of the New Testament authors or the Church Fathers, it runs directly contrary to the Church’s consistent Eucharistic theology, and the evidence offered could just as easily justify rejecting the physical Resurrection and Ascension.

I. What the “Bloodless Body” Believers Believe

Guercino, Doubting Thomas (17th c.)

This “Bloodless Body” view appears to have first been put forward by a Lutheran by the name of J. A. Bengel (1687-1752). Bengel’s original theory was fairly complicated, as he had elaborate work-arounds for passages like Hebrews 9:11-14, 24-26, in which Christ is depicted as entering Heaven with His Blood.

In that case, Bengel claimed that “at the time of his entry or ascension Christ kept his blood apart from his body.” He even argued that Christ’s Head appears white in Revelation 1:14 because it is drained of Blood.

Not everyone in this camp goes as far as Bengel, but all of the Bloodless Body believers share a few common traits.

First, as I said above, they claim that Christ’s Resurrected Body does have Flesh and Bones, just no Blood. So they’re not technically denying the physical Resurrection, or at least not denying it entirely.

Second, their Scriptural case is built almost completely off of these two verses:

1. In 1 Corinthians 15:50, St. Paul says that “I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Taken literally, this passage poses serious problems to any orthodox Christians. Which leads to…

2. In Luke 24:39, after the Resurrection, Jesus appears to the Apostles for the first time, and says, “See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have.”

So the claim is, "flesh and blood" can’t enter Heaven, but "flesh and bone" can.

You’ll find these same two verses used repeatedly by those defending the Bloodless Body position.

For example, here’s CARM’s argument:

The Bible says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 15:50). If this is so, then how could physical body have been raised? The answer is simple. After His resurrection Jesus said, “Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). You must note that Jesus did not say, “flesh and blood.” He said, “flesh and bones.” This is because Jesus’ blood was shed on the cross. The life is in the blood and it is the blood that cleanses from sin: “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul,” (Lev. 17:11). See also, Gen. 9:4; Deut. 12:23; and John 6:53-54. Jesus was pointing out that He was different. He had a body, but not a body of flesh and blood. It was flesh and bones.

Now, you might think that the fact that “the life of the flesh is in the blood” (Lev. 17:11) would be a reason that Christ, being as He is alive, would have Blood. Not according to CARM.

Instead, they argue that Christ shedding His Blood on the Cross means that His entire Body was completely drained of Blood. This implausible theory is being put forward for an obvious reason: to get around 1 Cor. 15:50.

II. What Does St. Paul Mean in 1 Corinthians 15:50?

Jacob van Campen, The Last Judgment (16th c.)

So what does St. Paul mean when he says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable”? In 180 A.D., St. Irenaeus was already referring to it as “that passage of the apostle which the heretics pervert,” and it is easy to see how.

Taken literally, as CARM does, this passage would seem to deny the physical Resurrection. Paul doesn’t just say that “blood” won’t enter the Kingdom of God, but “flesh and blood.”

So a literal reading would seemingly deny the physical Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, as well as the general resurrection of the dead.

But, of course, that’s not how St. Paul uses “flesh and blood.”

St. Thomas Aquinas provides the best explanation of this passage that I’ve seen: We must not think that by flesh and blood, he means that the substance of the flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, but rather flesh and blood, i.e., those devoting themselves to flesh and blood, namely, men given to vices and lusts, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And thus is flesh understood, i.e., a man living by the flesh: “But you are not in the flesh, you are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you” (Rom. 8:9)

The Scriptural support that Aquinas provides is perfect. If St. Paul commends his readers in Romans 8:9 for not being in the flesh, there are basically two possibilities:

Paul isn’t using “flesh” literally;

Paul wrote the Epistle to the Romans to ghosts.

Aquinas adds another nail in the literal interpretation by showing that Paul affirms that creation will inherent the Kingdom:

Therefore and accordingly, he adds, nor does the corruptible inherit incorruption, i.e., nor can the corruption of mortality, which is expressed here by the term “flesh,” inherit incorruption, i.e., the incorruptible kingdom of God, because we will rise in glory: “Because the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21).

This is what good exegesis looks like: Aquinas is interpreting St. Paul in view of the other times he’s used similar phrasing, like Romans 8, to show what’s meant. He doesn’t just assume that Paul needs to be taken literally. III. Why Does Jesus Say “Flesh and Bones” in Luke 24:39?

This still leaves us with one detail to resolve.

Does it matter that, in Luke 24:39, Jesus says that His Glorified Body has “Flesh and Bones,” instead of the “Flesh and Blood”? No.

In both cases, we’re dealing with a specific figure of speech called a pars pro toto, in which a part of a thing is used to describe the whole: for example, saying “glasses” to refer to eyeglasses (which are made up of more than just glass), or “wheels” to refer to a car. Or to use a pars pro toto that anti-Catholics often use, saying “Rome” when one means the entire Roman Catholic Church.

Bartolomeo Passarotti, Blood of the Redeemer (16th c.)

With that in mind, let’s turn to a challenge by a reader:

Christ says that He, in His resurrected body, has flesh and bones, not flesh and blood.

Can you show me another place in Scripture where the phrase “flesh and bones” is used to describe human corporeality?

Yes, there are actually several instances. Let’s start with Genesis 2:21-23: So the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the LORD God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, “This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”

The Hebrew word being translated there as “bone” means “bone, substance, self,” and in other contexts, is translated as “same.”

So if it wasn’t already obvious, Adam isn’t suggesting that Eve is bloodless, or that her blood comes from somewhere else. He means that they share a common substance. They have, if you will, a shared “human corporeality.” Here’s another example, from Genesis 29:12-14,

And Jacob told Rachel that he was her father’s kinsman, and that he was Rebekah’s son; and she ran and told her father. When Laban heard the tidings of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him, and brought him to his house. Jacob told Laban all these things, and Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh!” And he stayed with him a month.

This phrase is used at various other points in the Old Testament for relation (Judges 9:2, 2 Samuel 5:1, 2 Samuel 19:12-13, and 1 Chronicles 11:1).

In each case, the speaker is reminding the listener that their material bodies come from a common ancestor. In English, we express this via the figure of speech, “blood relatives,” but both English and Hebrew listeners understand that it’s more than just bones or blood that are in common: it’s our entire matter, our corporeality.

In none of these instances is there any sort of insinuation that the speaker or listener has a bloodless body.

Besides this, the argument from silence would seem to go both ways: if Jesus saying that His Body has Flesh and Bones means that It doesn’t have Blood, do the various instances of referring to someone as having flesh and blood prove that they didn’t have bones? Could we, using this same logic, deny that His Body has hair or fingernails?

There’s also a very good reason to believe that Christ uses the “Flesh and Bone” imagery precisely to recall Adam and Eve.

In some (but not all) of the ancient versions of Ephesians 5:30, we find this line: “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.” This is an identification of the Church as the New Eve to Christ’s New Adam. With that in mind, listen to St. John Chrysostom’s exegesis of John 19:34, from 407 A.D.:

“There flowed from His side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized Baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two Mysteries (Sacraments) the Church is born: from Baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit”, and from the Holy Eucharist. Since the symbols of Baptism and the Eucharist flowed from His side, it was from His side that Christ fashioned the Church, as He had fashioned Eve from the side of Adam. Moses gives a hint of this when he tells the story of the first man and makes him exclaim: “Bone from my bones and flesh from my flesh!”

As God then took a rib from Adam’s side to fashion a woman, so Christ has given us blood and water from His side to fashion the Church. God took the rib when Adam was in a deep sleep, and in the same way Christ gave us the blood and the water after His own death.

This fashioning of the Church as the New Eve occurs, as the two Saints John tell us, when Christ dies on the Cross, and Blood and water come forth from His side. The next time that Jesus sees them is Easter Sunday, where He shows them His Body using terms that would immediately call to mind Adam … and the Cross.

IV. Conclusion

To recap, this notion that Christ has no Blood in His Resurrection Body is based on

(1) an argument from silence, coupled with

(2) a verse that, taken literally, would disprove the physical Resurrection and Ascension.

Given how significant this would see to be, it’s remarkable that absolutely no one in Scripture or the early Church ever claimed this about Christ.

To base something so close to a denial of the physical Resurrection on such weak evidence is remarkable.

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?

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As a Protestant Pentecostal who rejects the extra-Biblical charismania of the N.A.R., I'm pretty much astonished at the solid Biblical teaching on this quite amusingly titled Catholic site.

While I would substitute "Resurrected" Body of Christ rather than "Glorified" in the title of this author's post, the clincher for me is that, as I have suspected for what seems like months on this "Bloodless Resurrected Christ" topic with other dedicated FReepers, Mormonism founder, Joseph Smith also taught this strange doctrine. (And apparently, so do the JW's.)

Bleah.

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Aw, Elsie... you didn’t catch this!

It’s a Mormon doctrine.

[Artemis Webb]

This strikes me as “overthinking”. The author needs to read a good fiction book or perhaps dig out the old Rubik’s Cube.

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I think this Shameless Popery guy was as puzzled as I am about the idea that Jesus had no blood in His resurrected body, and he did a much better job than I did in explaining the theological error.

The hate ran thick on FR on this topic for several long days.

[daniel1212]

“it runs directly contrary to the Church’s consistent Eucharistic theology,”

You mean Catholics should have a problem with Christ not having literal blood in His resurrected body when
Catholic Eucharistic theology teaches that while the Lord is then “physically present,” this presence is not as that of the Biblical Christ in His incarnation, whose manifest physically is so much stressed in Scripture (see below), but the Catholic Eucharistic Christ is akin to a docetist or gnostic-type Christ in that he appears to be something he is not, that of bread and wine.

Which looks smells, and taste and would test as being bread and wine (just as Christ’s body on earth would test as being actual flesh), yet which no longer exists at the words of consecrated by a validly ordained priest,

For it is acknowledged that,

“the presence of Christ’s true body and blood in this sacrament **cannot be detected by sense**, nor understanding, but by faith alone...” (Summa Theologica; Summa Theologica - Christian Classics Ethereal Library)

“**If you took the consecrated host to a laboratory it would be chemically shown to be bread, not human flesh**.” (Dwight Longenecker, “Explaining Transubstantiation”)

“Christ’s presence in the Eucharist challenges human understanding, logic, and ultimately reason. **His presence cannot be known by the senses**, but only through faith.” (Norms for the Distribution and Reception of Holy Communion under Both Kinds in the Dioceses of the United States of America)

“the Most Holy **Eucharist not only looks like something it isn’t (that is, bread and wine), but also tastes, smells, feels, and in all ways appears to be what it isn’t.**” (The Holy Eucharist BY Bernard Mulcahy, O.P., p. 22)

Which is in contrast to the manifestly incarnated Christ of Scripture (**emp**. mine):

“And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? **Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see**; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.” (Luke 24:38-39)
“Then saith he to Thomas, **Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.**” (John 20:27)

“And every spirit that confesseth not that **Jesus Christ is come in the flesh** is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.” (1 John 4:3)

“**That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled**, of the Word of life.” (1 John 1:1)

“And the Word** was made flesh**, and dwelt among us..” (John 1:14)

For verily he took not on *him the nature of* angels; but he took on *him* the seed of Abraham. (Hebrews 2:16)
“This is he that came **by water and blood**, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” (1 John 5:6)

Thus despite speaking about about the actual partaking of Christ in person, hence literally, they do not literally consume the actual bloody flesh as it was manifest in the incarnation.
Therefore Catholic Eucharistic theology requires complex metaphysical theology to justify, in which the hosts which looks smells, and taste and would test as being bread and wine is actually said to have ceased to exist at the words of consecrated by a validly ordained priest, being transubstantiated by the real body and blood of Christ (fully in both, even to subatomic particles):

“the substance of the bread cannot remain after the consecration: “Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiæ Article 2

“On the altar are the body and blood of Christ; the bread and wine no longer exist but have been totally changed into the body and blood of the Saviour... - https://www.ewtn.com/library/Doc (https://www.ewtn.com/library/Doc)...),

That is, **until the non-existent host shows decay**. (CCC 1377: “The Eucharistic presence of Christ begins at the moment of the consecration and endures as long as the Eucharistic species subsist.” “...that is, until the Eucharist is digested, physically destroyed, or decays by some natural process.” ibid, Mulcahy, p. 32)

At which point it seems that neither the decaying bread or wine nor the body and blood of Christ really exist in that time and place. (Summa Theologiae, Question 77)

Which is the “literal” but actually metaphysical understanding of the Lord’s supper.

**Which is in**** contrast to the metaphorical understanding , which alone easily conflates with Scripture overall:** (http://peacebyjesus.witnesstoday.org/The_Lord%27s_Supper.html )

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I believe this is how I originally got here, in some discussion on the Catholic teaching about the Eucharist with metmom...

A topic which is completely uninteresting to me, outside of the fact that no one should take communion without understanding what Jesus said about it: “do this in remembrance of Me”....

While this article is written by a Catholic, I admire it for honing in on the history of this strange doctrine of a bloodless resurrected Christ.

Which is a Mormon and Jehovah Witness cultic false teaching! Quite alarming.

[daniel1212]

. In 1 Corinthians 15:50, St. Paul says that “I tell you this, brethren: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Taken literally, this passage poses serious problems to any orthodox Christians.

Poor translation. The word translated "perishable" here is better translated "corruption," this being the reason it is perishable, versus incorruption, and not just imperishable. Thus the KJV, "neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.imperishable" Flesh and blood refers to those in their corruptible flesh, versus a glorified body. Thus the next verse states, "Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed." (1 Corinthians 15:51)

St. John Chrysostom’s exegesis of John 19:34, from 407 A.D.: “There flowed from His side water and blood.” Beloved, do not pass over this mystery without thought; it has yet another hidden meaning, which I will explain to you. I said that water and blood symbolized Baptism and the holy Eucharist. From these two Mysteries (Sacraments) the Church is born: from Baptism, “the cleansing water that gives rebirth and renewal through the Holy Spirit”, and from the Holy Eucharist

And the author believes this eisegesis yet criticizes flesh with the blood being excluded in Heaven. John is not talking about a church ritual, but of evidence of the Lord's incarnation, in opposing those who held to a christ whose manifest physical appearance was an illusion, as Catholics are to regard the bread and wine of their Eucharist.

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I’m really only interested in shutting down the idea that the resurrected Christ had no blood in His “flesh and bones” body.

You’ve highlighted the least interesting part of the article, for me.

[daniel1212]

I believe this is how I originally got here, in some discussion on the Catholic teaching about the Eucharist with metmom... A topic which is completely uninteresting to me, outside of the fact that no one should take communion without understanding what Jesus said about it: “do this in remembrance of Me”.... While this article is written by a Catholic, I admire it for honing in on the history of this strange doctrine of a bloodless resurrected Christ. Which is a Mormon and Jehovah Witness cultic false teaching! Quite alarming.

Yes, that is a worthy correction, though not as validating the wore error of the source (even a broken clock is correct twice a day) while the same Bible Christians who in order to resolve an apparent contradiction explain "flesh and blood" as meaning flesh with the blood, are also typically strongly affirm the physical bodily resurrection of Christ, versus the Watchower denial of it. I have been one.

[teppe]

I’m LDS, and I have heard this said, however, I consider it more speculation rather than doctrine, as it is not defined in any scripture.

However, I had thought that non-LDS christianity had for the most part ignored the Bibilical story of the resurrection body of Christ since it does not conform to the super-biblical nicene creed?

It has been described to me that Christ pretty much ditched his resurrected body, that it was more for show, and that he resides as the complex spiritual being in heaven known as the Trinity. Again, this does not conform to the bible .... but when your doctrine is in conflict .... you either have to choose the bible or the nicene creed.

[teppe]

No, this doctrine is not taught in the LDS church, but I have heard it as speculation. I am a 57yo active LDS member, BYU graduate, and so I’ve been in this church for a long time. You have to separate doctrine from speculation.

The LDS doctrine is that a resurected/glorified body is incapable of death again.

Some have speculated that this would require the absence of blood, and that blood is somehow the aging element of a body. Also, since blood distributes nutrients and oxygen to the body .... would that be necessary to a resurected/glorified body which can never die?

Again this is speculation along the lines of “Does a resurrected/glorified body require food”. There is no scriptural source for this and is speculative musing only.

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Don’t look at me about the Creed.

But I am happy that you don’t seem to believe, as did Joseph Smith, that the Bible needed a correction or to be rewritten or added on to.

How hard is it to leave LDS these days? What a nightmare, I’m sorry for you and pray that you find the Jesus of the Bible.

[teppe]

A greater question is does Christ now occupy a glorified/resurrected body? Bible says yes .... Nicene Creed would philosophically say no (unless it is lumped in as another non-biblical mystery).

Which is correct, Bible .... or Nicene Creed? (and don’t say the two are compatable .... historically, we have centuries of blood-shed that prove otherwise)

[teppe]

ea where is Elisie .... my favorite mormon-hater?

[daniel1212]

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.

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Looks like Joseph Smith taught this bloodless body of a resurrected Christ... but in case you guys change your books and writings and prophecies after the fact, this site has a pretty complete list, with page numbers:

http://scottwoodward.org/resurrection_bloodsupplantedbyspirit.html

[Elsie]

Who cares?

[Elsie]

This strikes me as “overthinking”.

It sure is!

Thousands of words to come up with some kind of additional 'belief' to get all atwitter about.

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“In the beginning was the Word...

And the Word was with God

And the Word was God...

... and the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us.”

The Nicene Creed is not the Eternal Word of God and is not to be regarded on the same level as the Word, no matter what churchy tradition exists.

Jesus taught us how to pray in the Lord’s prayer. That’s enough for me:

“Every word of God is pure: He is a shield unto them that put their trust in Him.
Add thou not unto his words, lest He reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.”

I just don’t get how Mormons don’t understand: you cannot add to the New Covenant, because if you add on the Book of Mormon to the New Covenant, or contract, you have changed that contract. Forbidden.

[Elsie]

Who cares whether Jesus; after His resurrection; had blood in His body or not?

One can ALWAYS get it at yer local Catholic church.

==Catholic_Wannabe_Dude(Hail Mary)