Tradition is a very hard thing to shake. I am convinced that is why Christians have a hard time believing in (as some have put it) a "ghostly" or "merely spiritual" Jesus.
The implication of this phrase in Hebrews 2:14 is that Christ’s being flesh and blood was mission-specific. The purpose for that, according to Scripture, is long gone. The body He has now, post-ascension, is spiritual, like it was pre-Incarnation. He has no need for a body of flesh and blood now.
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy (καταργήσῃ – “render of no effect”) the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil”.
He became flesh and blood - and suffered in His flesh and shed His blood. I doubt we can fathom the depths of what He did to rescue us and to destroy the one who had the power of death.
However some people assert that Christ is flesh and blood now because of 1 Tim. 2:5:
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς)”
But this does not prove that Christ is flesh and blood, but that He is the God-Man. And this begs the question: What does it mean to be human? Is flesh and blood required for that? If so, then my Christian father ceased to be human eleven years ago when he died. And all saints of previous generations, when they died, by this logic, lost their humanity as well. But this obviously isn't true. Rather, they joined “the spirits of righteous ones made perfect”, Heb. 12:23, referring to all those righteous persons of the previous chapter who had run their course by faith. Are these somehow no longer human? Thus, since they are clearly still human, our Savior being called “the man Christ Jesus” does not require Him to be physical.
Our goal is to be like Christ – Christlikeness - not that the Second Person of the Godhead should forever from the time of His Incarnation onward remain flesh and blood. Scripture has no proof - and the Gospel no need - of this.
Objection 1: He rose from the dead in His physical body. He showed Himself to His disciples and over 500 people in a forty-day period. And He was taken up bodily in the sight of His disciples. Doesn’t this prove that He is still physical?
Answer: The Apostle John, who plainly confesses “we have seen with our eyes … we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” also wrote “it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”, I John 1:1-3; 3:2
So apparently John’s earlier “seeing” and “handling” the post-resurrection Christ did not give him insight on His nature at the Parousia or he would not have written this.
“We shall be like Him”. And, according to Luke 20:36, we shall also be “like the angels”. The connection here seems clear:
1. We shall be like Christ.
2. We shall be like the angels.
3. The angels (in this regard, at least) are like Christ.
I think the locked door encounter, John 20:24-29, was still part of His Incarnational mission, the “days of His flesh”, as Hebrews 5:7 puts it. It seems there is also a hint of this in 1 Tim. 3:16:
“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.”
Notice that these are all in the past tense, or at least, because the last of the six events is clearly in the past the preceding five ought to refer to events before it.
Objection 2: It is necessary for the Messiah to be a son of David. But what is required here for this to connection be satisfied? Physicality?
Answer: Most certainly – but only in connection with the days of His flesh. The significance for us now is that He is, was, and always will be the Son of God.
“Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the descendants of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”
“Declared”, not “made”, as in v.3. Christ was always the Son, but in Paul’s writing His Sonship is always founded on His “metaphysical Sonship” (Meyer) . Rom. 8:3, 32; Gal. 4:4; Col 1:13ff; Phil. 2:6ff
Objection 3: Christ no longer being in the flesh now sounds disturbingly similar to the Corporate Body View taught by the Covenant Eschatologists, that His flesh and bone body underwent a process of “divest and destroy” at the Ascension (Preston), replaced with the Corporate Body of the saints.
Answer: “Destroy” is truly erroneous. But Christ as the Sacrifice, in keeping with the type and reality built up in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New, did seem to follow through here as our offering. The end of the “days of His flesh” seems to have been when the last action was accomplished, He was presented to the Father as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain”, Rev. 5:6
Objection 4: This means Christ died twice, once at the Cross and then at the Ascension, Rom 6:9:
“We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.”
Answer: What happened at the Ascension was certainly not a death, but a returning to the glory that the Son had with the Father in eternity past per His prayer in John 17:5.
Objection 5: James 2:26 tells us that when the spirit is separated from the body, the body dies. If Christ’s divested Himself of His body would that not be death?
Answer: Enoch and Elijah no longer were in the flesh at their respective taken up. They did not die.
Mark 12:27-28 also comes to mind here:
" But concerning the dead rising, have you not read about the burning bush in the Book of Moses, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”"
Clearly at this time the spirits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were certainly separated from their bodies (as James wrote) yet God disavows their being dead, saying the opposite.
More later.
The implication of this phrase in Hebrews 2:14 is that Christ’s being flesh and blood was mission-specific. The purpose for that, according to Scripture, is long gone. The body He has now, post-ascension, is spiritual, like it was pre-Incarnation. He has no need for a body of flesh and blood now.
“Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy (καταργήσῃ – “render of no effect”) the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil”.
He became flesh and blood - and suffered in His flesh and shed His blood. I doubt we can fathom the depths of what He did to rescue us and to destroy the one who had the power of death.
However some people assert that Christ is flesh and blood now because of 1 Tim. 2:5:
“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (ἄνθρωπος Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς)”
But this does not prove that Christ is flesh and blood, but that He is the God-Man. And this begs the question: What does it mean to be human? Is flesh and blood required for that? If so, then my Christian father ceased to be human eleven years ago when he died. And all saints of previous generations, when they died, by this logic, lost their humanity as well. But this obviously isn't true. Rather, they joined “the spirits of righteous ones made perfect”, Heb. 12:23, referring to all those righteous persons of the previous chapter who had run their course by faith. Are these somehow no longer human? Thus, since they are clearly still human, our Savior being called “the man Christ Jesus” does not require Him to be physical.
Our goal is to be like Christ – Christlikeness - not that the Second Person of the Godhead should forever from the time of His Incarnation onward remain flesh and blood. Scripture has no proof - and the Gospel no need - of this.
Objection 1: He rose from the dead in His physical body. He showed Himself to His disciples and over 500 people in a forty-day period. And He was taken up bodily in the sight of His disciples. Doesn’t this prove that He is still physical?
Answer: The Apostle John, who plainly confesses “we have seen with our eyes … we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life” also wrote “it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.”, I John 1:1-3; 3:2
So apparently John’s earlier “seeing” and “handling” the post-resurrection Christ did not give him insight on His nature at the Parousia or he would not have written this.
“We shall be like Him”. And, according to Luke 20:36, we shall also be “like the angels”. The connection here seems clear:
1. We shall be like Christ.
2. We shall be like the angels.
3. The angels (in this regard, at least) are like Christ.
I think the locked door encounter, John 20:24-29, was still part of His Incarnational mission, the “days of His flesh”, as Hebrews 5:7 puts it. It seems there is also a hint of this in 1 Tim. 3:16:
“Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.”
Notice that these are all in the past tense, or at least, because the last of the six events is clearly in the past the preceding five ought to refer to events before it.
Objection 2: It is necessary for the Messiah to be a son of David. But what is required here for this to connection be satisfied? Physicality?
Answer: Most certainly – but only in connection with the days of His flesh. The significance for us now is that He is, was, and always will be the Son of God.
“Concerning His Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who was made of the descendants of David according to the flesh; and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.”
“Declared”, not “made”, as in v.3. Christ was always the Son, but in Paul’s writing His Sonship is always founded on His “metaphysical Sonship” (Meyer) . Rom. 8:3, 32; Gal. 4:4; Col 1:13ff; Phil. 2:6ff
Objection 3: Christ no longer being in the flesh now sounds disturbingly similar to the Corporate Body View taught by the Covenant Eschatologists, that His flesh and bone body underwent a process of “divest and destroy” at the Ascension (Preston), replaced with the Corporate Body of the saints.
Answer: “Destroy” is truly erroneous. But Christ as the Sacrifice, in keeping with the type and reality built up in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New, did seem to follow through here as our offering. The end of the “days of His flesh” seems to have been when the last action was accomplished, He was presented to the Father as “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain”, Rev. 5:6
Objection 4: This means Christ died twice, once at the Cross and then at the Ascension, Rom 6:9:
“We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him.”
Answer: What happened at the Ascension was certainly not a death, but a returning to the glory that the Son had with the Father in eternity past per His prayer in John 17:5.
Objection 5: James 2:26 tells us that when the spirit is separated from the body, the body dies. If Christ’s divested Himself of His body would that not be death?
Answer: Enoch and Elijah no longer were in the flesh at their respective taken up. They did not die.
Mark 12:27-28 also comes to mind here:
" But concerning the dead rising, have you not read about the burning bush in the Book of Moses, how God told him, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”"
Clearly at this time the spirits of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were certainly separated from their bodies (as James wrote) yet God disavows their being dead, saying the opposite.
More later.
