Nature of the Resurrection

A Spiritual Body

Jesus' resurrection was not a bodily resurrection. Nor did it have to be to accomplish God’s real goal of building the Kingdom of God on earth and in Heaven—that is saving all humankind, bringing all His sheep into His Pasture, not losing even one. 

At this point, we really need to ask the question, how would Jesus being raised bodily from the dead help believers come to God any more effectively than Jesus being raised only spiritually? Answer: Not at all. The bodily resurrection only adds an aura of “magic” to the whole equation, distracting people from the real Jesus whose whole mission was focused like a laser beam on building the Kingdom of God in substance, on earth.

But, some will say, Jesus at His resurrection must have been present in his physical body. Didn’t He eat food with His disciples, and didn’t Thomas touch the wounds in His hands and side? But, actually, this is no proof at all, because the Bible shows us that spiritual beings can take on the form of flesh and blood. Take the three angels that appeared to Abraham by the oaks of Mamre to announce that Sarah would become pregnant in her old age (Genesis 18:1-15). They were in appearance just like men. They ate bread, curds, meat, and milk that Abraham offered them. 

Not long after, two angels came to Lot in the city of Sodom (Genesis 19:1-15) and ate with him. They appeared so much like men that the males of the city, most of whom, the Bible reports, were gay or bisexual, pressed lustfully around Lot’s home to try to force sex on them.

Additionally, there are several clear evidences in the Gospels that Jesus’ resurrection was spiritual in nature. For example, after sitting down to eat with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, “they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight” (Luke 24:31). People don’t vanish, though spirits may.

Those same two disciples immediately returned to Jerusalem to tell the eleven apostles the news, and all of a sudden “while they were telling these things, He Himself [Jesus] stood in their midst” (Luke 24:36). In other words, He appeared out of thin air. Seeing they were about to panic over seeing a “ghost,” He told the group He was not a spirit because He had “flesh and bones as you see that I have”—a practical measure to “calm the troops,” as it were, and get them to focus on what He wished to tell them.

On two other occasions, one without Thomas present and one with him present, “when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst” (John 20:19). Again, the clear meaning is that He appeared out of thin air through locked doors.

The Apostle Peter, preaching to a crowd in Caesarea, says of Jesus’ resurrection that “God raised Him up on the third day, and granted that He should become visible, not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God, that is, to us, who ate and drank with Him after He arose from the dead” (Acts 10:40-41). Is it a spirit or a physical body that “becomes visible”? Clearly, it’s a spirit. A physical body is always visible, while a spirit appears, or “becomes visible,” to some and not to others. So clearly, Jesus’ resurrected body was a spiritual body, not a physical one.