Christ's Return: Spiritual or Physical?

Acts 1:9 - 11 is a favorite passage for those who believe Christ returns in a physical body. But it shows the manner Christ went and was to return. Manner, not form.

He went in a cloud. And in the cloud He was then out of their sight. There is no explicit mention of a corporeal (flesh-and-bones) body.

If we do imagine that this passage teaches a physical return of Christ we will have a hard time reconciling this with other cross-references.

And how do we reconcile Luke 24:39 with 1 Cor. 15:50?

Here are those two verses:

"Look at My hands and My feet. It is I Myself. Touch Me and see—for a spirit does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have.”"

"I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable."

Now unless we see the two underlined phrase as not being synonymous we have a serious problem; Christ is Lord of a Kingdom He cannot enter.

But I believe the answer is actually clear. The body Christ had post-resurrection was still part of His Incarnational mission.

But there is no reason now for Him to put on that body. It was part of His humiliation according to Phil. 2. He is glorified now, not humiliated, with the same glory that He had with the Father before His Incarnation, per His prayer in John 17.

 

I started to respond when Adam Clarke tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Yo, I got this. You go get some coffee and I'll answer this. And comb your hair."

…………
"Verse 7 "Behold, he cometh with clouds" - This relates to his coming to execute judgment on the enemies of his religion; perhaps to his coming to destroy Jerusalem, as he was to be particularly manifested to them that pierced him, which must mean the incredulous and rebellious Jews.

And all kindreds of the earth - Πασαι αἱ φυλαι της γης· All the tribes of the land. By this the Jewish people are most evidently intended, and therefore the whole verse may be understood as predicting the destruction of the Jews; and is a presumptive proof that the Apocalypse was written before the final overthrow of the Jewish state.

Even so, Amen - Ναι, αμην· Yea, Amen. It is true, so be it. Our Lord will come and execute judgment on the Jews and Gentiles. This the Jews and Romans particularly felt. "

 

That Hebrews verse is what keeps me from being a Full-full Preterist. It is necessarily. Well, there are actually two non-futurist ways to read it, IMO; either
1. by "men" he was referring to those of his time and the judgment had already passed (which view I don't accept) or
2. the verse is a basic, gnomic truth. We all will die. We will all face God. The judgment here is not that of AD 70 but a meeting with God that occurs continually throughout history as mortals die. This makes the most sense to me.

The fact that judgment is singular is not a problem, as it is a common usage to have a singular noun refer to distributive (plural) event. We say things like, "That professor is very strict. His final exam is very difficult." Yet he has given the exam over many years.

Anyway this is how I see it. A preterist "see" : )

 

LOL, Speaking of wrenches, my favorite mixed metaphor is "throwing a wretch into the buttermilk"!

The passage is intriguing. But I don't think these were 1 Cor. 15 resurrections but rather of the Lazarus type. I don't think the word "resurrection" is used for them. I believe they died again, having served their purpose of being attesting walking miracles.

 

Excellent job of addressing my points!

 

But seriously, this is one of the reasons I understood the validity of Preterism: the responses to points raised (like the apparent contradiction I posited) were either non sequiturs or crickets.

 

It is a relatively minor issue for me what happened to those who were brought back. And like you say speculation is all we can do.

 

Please quote the whole verse.

"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever."

What was Jesus's "yesterday" - from the perspective of the writer of Hebrews? Physical? I think not.

His being in the flesh was part of his self-abasement and humiliation, a brief but necessary period. It doesn't strike us as humiliation because the world is so much with us. We are quite at home in the flesh. For our Lord it was definitely degradation of position.

 

This is the verse that just keeps unpacking, brother. What is involved in that glory that He had with the Father in eternity past? I cannot imagine - and do not think for a moment that Scripture teaches - that the two halves (so to speak) of the Son's eternity (before and after the brief period of "the days of His flesh") - should be so profoundly and essentially different.