Article 3 - Of the Resurrection of Christ
“Christ did truly rise again from the dead, and took again his body , with all things appertaining to the perfection of man’s nature, wherewith he ascended into heaven, and there sitteth until he return to judge all men at the last day.” – BOD
The question of the resurrection concerning Christ is one of constant debate especially in the company of people with a Jesus Seminar persuasion. I will admit that there are some issues here of time, space, and matter. Such questions like with the vast expanse of space is Jesus still traveling through space to get to heaven are silly but do actually need to be raise because people need to think about what they mean when they say Christ was resurrected and ascended into heave. This doctrine is harder and harder to keep because of the nature of science today. I’m not even going to talk about whether Jesus was actually dead or not when taken down from the cross, because it’s pointless to pursue. The question about time, space, and matter to me again is pointless to answer the reason being simply that I could reply that when Christ was resurrected it was a resurrection body we have no clues as to the actual nature of it except to say that it was like normal matter.
In the end this is strictly a matter of faith regardless of scientific discovery. Because humanity is fallen and we operate in an imperfect system and sin has infiltrated our very DNA we cannot even begin to understand what the resurrection was or will be.
Some people might say that this doctrine is not essential. It only doesn’t matter if you don’t mind calling Jesus a liar. The Jesus Seminar in my opinion doesn’t work in this regard, how can they make judgment on whether or not something was actually scripture or said by Jesus when they get to the end of their process and can’t even agree on who Jesus is (for an example compare Crossan with Borg).
To be honest I never really directly struggled with this particular doctrine. The reason being I was to busy fighting with the concept of Jesus’ divinity that I couldn’t really think about the resurrection. Suffice it to say that for me when anything that has to do with death is being spoken about we need to remember that it’s all a matter of faith and speculation.
The question of the resurrection concerning Christ is one of constant debate especially in the company of people with a Jesus Seminar persuasion. I will admit that there are some issues here of time, space, and matter. Such questions like with the vast expanse of space is Jesus still traveling through space to get to heaven are silly but do actually need to be raise because people need to think about what they mean when they say Christ was resurrected and ascended into heave. This doctrine is harder and harder to keep because of the nature of science today. I’m not even going to talk about whether Jesus was actually dead or not when taken down from the cross, because it’s pointless to pursue. The question about time, space, and matter to me again is pointless to answer the reason being simply that I could reply that when Christ was resurrected it was a resurrection body we have no clues as to the actual nature of it except to say that it was like normal matter.
In the end this is strictly a matter of faith regardless of scientific discovery. Because humanity is fallen and we operate in an imperfect system and sin has infiltrated our very DNA we cannot even begin to understand what the resurrection was or will be.
Some people might say that this doctrine is not essential. It only doesn’t matter if you don’t mind calling Jesus a liar. The Jesus Seminar in my opinion doesn’t work in this regard, how can they make judgment on whether or not something was actually scripture or said by Jesus when they get to the end of their process and can’t even agree on who Jesus is (for an example compare Crossan with Borg).
To be honest I never really directly struggled with this particular doctrine. The reason being I was to busy fighting with the concept of Jesus’ divinity that I couldn’t really think about the resurrection. Suffice it to say that for me when anything that has to do with death is being spoken about we need to remember that it’s all a matter of faith and speculation.
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"You ask me how I know he lives; he lives within my heart."