Is Jesus Sitting on a Throne in His Flesh?

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by mental

Interesting. Are you thinking Christ has (and our resurrected bodies will have) spiritual flesh? I’ve always thought of it as being a spiritual body as opposed to flesh. In other words a spiritual body won't have flesh. That is part of the natural body.

I think most make that response when they first read this issue. But I honestly think it is mistaken. I have long researched Paul's words on this since I am partial preterist and have been shown the prospect of full preterism which denies a physical resurrection. I think we often make the mistake of thinking natural means physical, and so when we see natural contrasted with spiritual we think it is physical versus non-physical. However, Paul uses the same terms in 1 Cor 2 in comparing natural believers with spiritual believers. That is not a contrast of composite material. It is a contrast with what motivates a person. And in Chapter 10 the same idea of spiritual is used again in speaking of drink and meat which were very physical although also spiritual.

So, the idea is a physical body of either natural empowerment or spiritual empowerment.

The IKOS or INOS suffixes determine the issue. In these cases, IKOS is the suffix used. According to Greek scholars IKOS is used to describe what DRIVES a thing rather than what a thing is made of. For example, a wind machine that was quite physical was said to be a PNEUMATIKOS, since it was DRIVEN by wind. It did not mean it was made of wind, but driven by it.

Barnes said of 1 Cor 2:14:

Now the “natural man” is there opposed to the spiritual man, the ψυχικὸς psuchikos to the πνευματικὸς pneumatikos, and if the latter be explained of “him who is enlightened by the Holy Spirit” - who is regenerate - the former must be explained of him who is not enlightened by that Spirit, who is still in a state of nature; and will thus embrace a class far more numerous than the merely sensual part of mankind.

Bodies are containers. And they contain, in our cases, soul and spirit. But the SPIRITUAL BODY is not something like spirit that contains spirit. It is rather a spiritually and supernaturally driven physical body that contains spirit and soul.