WHY JESUS HAD TO RESURRECT PHYSICALLY?

 

WHY JESUS HAD TO RESURRECT PHYSICALLY?

Some times we may have encountered some Christians saying that Jesus’ resurrection was only spiritual, but not physical, because the spiritual death in Scheol was won over by Jesus, proving in Himself the fact that He had won over spiritual death, by resurrecting in spirit, and they quote:

“Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; BEING PUT TO DEATH IN THE FLESH, BUT QUICKENED IN THE SPIRIT”

1Peter 3:18.

THE ISSUE

This seems to be a mistaken idea, since the type of ‘death’ of the penalty issued to Adam by GOD, was not spiritual death, but ‘death’ itself, physical and spiritual. A literal ‘DEATH’.

(Genesis 2:16-17).

1 – The Jews considered ‘death’ to be the consequence of the sinfulness committed by Adam, but it was a complete annihilation of faculties, physical and spiritual.

Not that physical death was a result of spiritual death, putting matter to a secondary level, but that spiritual death was consubstantial with physical death. The type of ‘death’ GOD spoke about, it was a total cease of existence. The death of the human being, involved simultaneous cessation of existence of the human body as well as the life giving enery inside them called ‘spirit’ or נְשָׁמָה – NESHAMAH – BREATH OF LIFE.

2 – When the NT speaks about JESUS wining over ‘Death’ (Revelation 1:18; Matthew 10:28; 1Corinthians 15:55), it refers to Jesus wiping out that cessation of life we understand as death, physical and spiritual.

If only spiritual death would have been necessary to cancel, not physical, then Jesus would not have to resurrected physically, as the Christians who deny physical resurrection imagine, but ‘spiritual death’ separated from physical expiration, was never the punishment of Adam, neither implied by GOD ever; but the death of the whole person.

CONCLUSION

If physical and spiritual death was the condemnation of Adam, then the New Adam, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE SON OF GOD, had to incarnate as a human, lived and die as a human, and resurrect, physically and spiritually as a human, to redeem humanity from Death.

If JESUS would have resurrected only spiritually, then the atonement the NT speaks about, would have been incomplete, and nobody would resurrect from the grave, neither just or unjust, ever.

“I DIED, AND BEHOLD I AM ALIVE FOREVERMORE, AND I HAVE THE KEYS OF DEATH AND HADES”

Revelation 1:18

Omar Flores.