The following paragraphs are some reflections on the transference of information, immortality, mankind and God. When I write about Jesus’ resurrection body and resurrection, I am intending to clearly delineate it from the physical body he had before His death at crucifixion.
In many Biblical traditions there are visions of the final
coming of the Son of Man. They deal with eschatological (End Times) visions,
and these are only visions. Not actual pictures of actual events as they
will happen in the future as they haven’t happened yet. Why? It is because the
resurrected and exulted one will not come only in a specific year or to a specific
area of the world at the end of the age. The resurrected and exulted one comes
in all times and to all areas of the world. He judges, as the Apostle's Creed
says, 'the living and the dead'. This is a vision that necessarily transcends
all natural and empirical conceptions. It is important to understand that this vision
opposes all explicit and implicit egoisms of particular cultures and eras and
attempts to pin it down to a specific time. Jesus comes to all in death. Men
die once and then face judgement. Whether guilty or not, all face Him. If we
only have a vision of the Son of Man coming from the heavens at the end days with
his angels, we’re in serious trouble. Mostly because we are severely
misunderstanding our Bible and our God.
The talk about the 'coming' Christ becomes comforting
because the one who is 'coming' will not be revealed for the first time only at
the end of all times and eras, but rather, he is already among us now as the
crucified and Resurrected One; and because the crucified and Resurrected One is
the one who has been revealed in his incarnational nearness of his human life
and work. For this reason, we cannot separate the memory of the historical
Jesus from the realization that the crucified and resurrected one is present now
and will 'come again' for his full and complete revelation of Himself forever at the Second Coming when He comes to rule supreme. The creating, maintaining and
saving of our existence requires that God is present here, now. He is Immanuel.
He is immanent. He is surrounding and carrying his creatures in his word or ‘yes'
or affirmation to life against the powers of sin and death. These powers are
dramatically depicted at the cross of Christ. At the cross, Christ is condemned
in the name of politics and religion. He is executed in the name of both Jewish
and Roman law. Even public opinion is against him. All principalities and
powers. work together, and the worldly 'immune systems' collapse. The
reciprocal checks and balances between religion, politics, law, and morality
fail in the event of the cross. Conflicts between the occupiers and the
occupied, the world superpower and an oppressed people, are simply glossed
over. Even the disciples betray Jesus, abandoning him and fleeing,
Everything collapses in the
face of the Kingdom. Why? Nothing can stand against it and the
crucifixion is part of the plan of that Kingdom. Everything goes according to
God’s sovereignty.
The cross reveals, as the Biblical. texts say, 'the world under the power of sin'. It reveals 'the night of godforsakenness', not only of Jesus himself…but of the whole world. The cross reveals the presence of this dire need and misery, not only in Jesus' hour of death, but as a real and present danger in all times. The resurrection liberates from this night of godforsakenness. God's activity alone, and not human initiative, brings salvation. The true saving power and vital necessity of the resurrection only become manifest against the background of the cross.
God, and God alone, brings salvation to humanity becomes recognizable in view of the harrowing possibility and reality that, despite the best intentions and the best systems, humanity alone is doomed. Even the 'good law' of God can become fully corrupt and be abused by humanity under the power of sin. Perversions of religion, law, politics, and public opinion then triumph. Therefore, it is crucial to recognize that God has saved and saves humanity, which is completely lost without God.
How God saves is also crucial: In a powerful yet growing
embryonic way without loud fanfare or drumbeats. Although the experiences of
the resurrected Christ both of th e first witnesses and of contemporary
witnesses do have the character of . visions, memories, and anticipatory
imaginations, they are not mere mental or psychic phenomena. They respond to
the self-presentation of the resurrected and elevated Christ in a Resurrection
body and they participate in that real Resurrected life.
The structured multitude of witnesses intercommunicating. The
ecumenical witnesses. People from all walks of life. A concert of the
individual witnesses in truth seeking peoples both while Jesus walked the Earth
in a Resurrection Body and now in Spirit. The reaction in faith to this
knowledge is the honest and realistic response to His presence and His word
that purifies those exact witness to Christ and hearers of His word.
From His word we are told our whole perishable person will be transformed metaschematizo / μετασχηματίζω (Philippians 3:21) into a new and imperishable heavenly person that will be qualitatively different from our first. It will be much better untainted by the Fall and sin. Both continuity and discontinuity are expressed here. The body as flesh is dominated by non-divine powers will decay and die. The body as the spiritual body will be recreated by God 's grace in the resurrection. Just as Christ did when changing from pre-Crucifixion flesh/sarx/σάρξ to post-Crucifixion Spirit body or soma pneumatikon / σῶμα πνευματικόν. We will be transformed into His likeness.
Until then…the Spirit enables co-presence, contact, and even
interaction with He who appears absent, respectively a presence in absence.
Through his Spirit, the invisible God communicates with the human spirit and
imparts to it creative impulses. But the communicative power of the spirit can
also be defended in an anthropological (man-based) bottom-up approach.
According to Paul, even those who are absent can have authentic contact with
others 'in the spirit', despite their different locations in space and time. By
remembering his own visits, his teaching and preaching, and through his
petitions before God, but also through the letter s and messages of others,
Paul is present to the community 'in the spirit ' just as I am with you the
reader right now. I am one with you in Christ now who is eternally present.
This presence is not merely a figment of Paul’s or our
imagination. Paul sees himself becoming 'spiritually ' present in the
community. In 1 Corinthians 5, he describes this process of spiritual
communication and a form of communal cooperation:
1 Corinthians 5:3-4 For though absent in body, I am
present in spirit; and as if present, I have already pronounced judgment on the
one who did such a thing. When you are assembled in the name of the Lord Jesus
and my spirit is present, with the power of our Lord Jesus.”
'The name ' and 'the power of our Lord' and the Spirit of
God, play the critical role here in the connection of the community. However,
one does not need a theology degree in order to understand the spiritual process
of communication between Paul and the Corinthians. We can explain basic
function s of the human spirit without direct reference to theology. Memory and
imagination are not just 'mental constructs'. They are shared mental constructs
that are interacting in our minds even when we are not present with respective
or individual people. In this way there is common understanding and consensus between
all of us based in thinking, thoughts and memory of Christ and Scripture. The
commonality and points of reference are Christ, the Word made flesh. A
commonality that doesn’t need space or time to mediate it for it is thought in
the a priori metaphysical realm.
Through the transference of information, words and idea immortality
via the Spirit is imparted to a finite being from and Eternal One.
In other words, the download has already taken place into an
old outdated hard drive. We are now just awaiting a new indestructible hard
drive. Those that can’t receive this download are either plugged into the wrong
source of their units are turned off completely.
James 1:8 ~ Of his own will he brought us forth by the word
of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.
There is a path to salvation for a reason. A path. You need to go somewhere. You need to go to the Cross and Christ. If you turn inward and try to rely on yourselves for any form of salvation or even a single step toward that salvation…you will most assuredly screw it up. That is what the entirety of the Bible showed us. All the way through the Old Testament until the New Testament. It isn’t until Christ physically enters the Creation according to a preordained plan that the worlds begins to rectify.
No comments:
Post a Comment