Resurrection, part 14

And now I'm going to talk about the bodily resurrection of Jesus. Remember what I said before, that Jesus' resurrection sets the precedent for our resurrections (Philippians 3:20-21). I'm going to give a few argues that I think show pretty clearly that Jesus' dead body actually came back to life.

The first argument comes from John 2:19-22. In this passage, Jesus drove the merchants and money changers out of the temple, and the Jews wanted him to give a sign. He said, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up." Since they were standing right there in the temple, the natural assumption was that Jesus was referring to the temple they were standing in. They said, "It took forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days?" It turns out, though, that when Jesus said, "this temple," he wasn't referring to the temple in Jerusalem. He was referring to his body. John says, "But he was speaking of the temple of his body." John goes on to say, "When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he said this."

Jesus didn't say he would be raised a spirit. He didn't even say that he would raise some other body. He said he would raise, "this temple," indicating his present body. It is that very body that he raised.

to be continued... Part 15