No Hoax, No Hype - Beckaroo Bulletin #4

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Peter began to curse and swear, “I don’t know that man!” Matthew 26:74, CEV
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Jesus’ followers gave up on him. They’d pinned their hopes and dreams on a man who failed them. He at first seemed to have the whole package – wise words (though sometimes perplexing); astounding works - like healing a life-long cripple, stilling a storm, even raising a friend from the dead.

But that was then. This was now. Now Pilate had all the power. Jesus was a pawn. God’s kingdom Jesus spoke about looked like a pipe dream. All Peter could think of was to save his own skin. At that point I’d probably have done the same.

Fast-forward a few days. Jesus’ followers are startled out of their deep funk when they run into the grand miracle. Jesus appears, talks to them, eats with them, asks doubting Thomas to touch his nail-scarred hands. How can this be?

These Jesus followers try to understand it all and later write about it. From their own experience they tell others. A little later the Jew who had tried to rid the world of these misguided religious fanatics becomes one himself. And when he writes about the living Jesus, he tries to make it plain what happened.

So what did happen? Paul the turnabout Jew, tried to explain what it was and what it wasn’t in one of his letters to the Corinthian Christ followers.

Paul, who got to know the early followers after becoming one himself, explained it the best he knew how a score of years later. For the last 30 plus years I’ve tried to understand it. I even tried to explain it in Life in a Fishbowl and admit I probably didn’t do a very good job.

At the time I couldn’t figure out how to say what I understood Paul to be saying without being misunderstood. I recently ran across some books by N.T. Wright which have helped. The most thorough is The Resurrection of the Son of God, but others, such as The Challenge of Jesus deal with the same issue.

A key passage in Paul’s letter nails the new life Jesus now lives better than any I have found. Look at First Corinthians 15:35-55 and keep in mind that Paul’s description of the believer’s new life is based on what the earliest followers saw about Jesus’ new life.

Verse 44 mentions two kinds of bodies – before death bodies and after death bodies. Here’s where we need to take a closer look at just what Paul meant.

Some translations use the words "physical" and “spiritual” to contrast these two bodies. That can be misleading, especially if one takes this to mean "physical" in contrast with “non-physical.”

Here we need a touch of Greek. The terms are “soma psychikon” and “soma pneumatikon.”
Most have run across uses of the term “psyche” today and throughout the Bible. Think of “soul” (Hebrew – “nephesh”) or “psychology” and you get the picture of the before death body.

But how is a “soul” body a “physical” body? You normally think of “soul” also as non-physical. You can explain this only if you see what Paul was getting at. He was talking about what animates, enlivens, or empowers the body. Once you realize that, the body issue becomes a little clearer.

The present body, Paul is saying, “is a [physical] body animated by ‘soul’”; the future body is a “[transformed physical] body animated by God’s Spirit.” The Challenge of Jesus, 144.

For those of us who look to the risen Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, things are only going to get better.