I just have to admire the way both of you have managed to avoid the question. Is it uncomfortable to you?
Moses died, for the record I never denied that, and he was buried, for the record I never denied that, and Scripture says no one knows where he is buried.
But, and this a BIG but, Moses appears with Jesus at the Transfiguration along with Elijah.
Now we know that Elijah was taken up to heaven in a chariot, so Elijah being with God in body is not a surprise. But, Moses?
There are three possible answers.
Moses is a ghost or apparition. But, no God wouldn’t do that.
Moses received a new body, as per metmom, even though we know that it is the body we have now which is resurrected and not a new body. So, does that mean that Moses’ old body is rotted somewhere in a grave and his soul is cavorting around heaven in a new body?
Or, the most likely answer, Moses was assumed into heaven by God and is now there body and soul.
Something Scripture does not say, but which can only be the most reasonable answers given that there are no ghosts and that we do not receive a new body but the same body is resurrected and glorified.
Now, I am sure there will be howls of “Scripture says nothing about Moses being assumed.”
Yet, there he was with Jesus and Elijah.
Okay, then explain without saying he was a ghost or given a new body, two things that make ABSOLUTELY no sense.
Here's the deal: WE DON'T KNOW - Ergo, we should not presume. That includes just making stuff up to explain it.
We have no idea what happened at the transfiguration - whether it is tied to the future... whether the figures present were temporarily transported from the past... whether it was a vision supplied to the disciples simultaneously... We can pull stuff out of our hats all day long, speculating until the cows come home... But that is all it will be, is speculation, because what it is (transfiguration) is not well defined - and if we trust YHWH, it was intentionally left undefined.
It is one of the irksome characteristics of the Roman church to define things it knows nothing about - It seems there is no end of things which are defined from whole cloth, in a similar fashion to this example... Pulling an argument from a few disparate verses and building whole classes of doctrinal clap-trap right out of the air - Whereupon everyone must needs believe it simply because it has been ordained by some hierarchy of stuffy old men.
In almost every case, no proofs are required of them, nor any reliance upon the things which have come before (which all things are required to be derived from). It is just proclaimed as if it were fact.
it is not fact. We don't know. And that's OK.
Nobody is trying to avoid any question. Perhaps it is only a question to you.
Paul gave us much information on the fact that our biological bodies cannot endure trans-physical conditions, and therefore must be replaced with incoruptible bodies to endure heavenly conditions.
There are two OT persons that we know for sure had to have gotten new bodies back in their own times: Enoch and Elijah. It flows from that, that Moses also had to either have been resurrected to biological life, or given his incorruptible body.
The only problem we have is that we do not know which it was. Someday we find out.
If as you surmise, Moses is in the presence of God, then he has his incorruptible body. We are never told that some won’t get their new bodies before the resurrection (’Rapture’). The two prophets that testify during the Great Tribulation apparently will be resurrected biologically, since they will be killed by the beast.
This human body is not capable of displaying that kind of glory and surviving.
1 Corinthians 15:35-56 35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. 38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. 40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. 41 There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory.
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell 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 trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.” 55 “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Claiming that Moses was assumed is in direct contradiction to the clear statement of fact recorded in the Word of God.
The Holy Spirit inspired Scripture. I'd think that He knows better what God did with Moses than any mortal who wasn't there.
If you are going to insist on believing that Moses was assumed instead of dying as Scripture clearly and plainly teaches, then you are going to be in a position of choosing to believe a lie someone told you. It's dangerous ground to tread on.
What about the people who have been burned up and their ashes scattered across the globe...They have no bodies to be resurrected...
Rev 1:12 And I turned to see the voice that spake with me. And being turned, I saw seven golden candlesticks;
Rev 1:13 And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle.
Rev 1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;
Rev 1:15 And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
Rev 1:16 And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength.
Rev 1:17 And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead.
John saw Jesus in Heaven...And it liked to have scared him to death...This was not the same figure he was familiar with while he chummed around with Jesus...
1Jn 3:2 Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.
John spent 3 years with Jesus and saw him like he was...But John has no idea if Jesus will appear as he was in the past or something completely different...
Jesus may show up with 3 arms and 5 legs...Nobody knows and John didn't know...
Your pope doesn't know...My Pastor doesn't know...And it doesn't matter and it doesn't have to make sense...We don't have to understand it...We just have to believe it...