The Resurrection Series Part II–Where We Begin

[todaysdate]

Read part one of this series.

By Corbin Croy

It is prudent to begin with definitions and a general statement of my own position. So, I will do so now. I do not intend to argue for my position now, but I do not want to hide a bias that I may have in future dealings. As I critique the aforementioned arguments, it will be important to know beforehand where I actually stand on the issue. I try to remain fair and impartial, but I will not make the presumption that I am immune to self-deception.

A zombie is a body without a soul. A ghost is a soul without a body. What is a resurrection? In order to even discuss whether or not Jesus was resurrected, we have to come to terms with what this word even means. We have to be able to distinguish a resurrection from a zombification and a haunting. Is it simply a resuscitated corpse? When Jesus raised Lazarus from the grave, Lazarus was resurrected. Is that what we mean when we say that Jesus was resurrected? Clearly this will not do. Lazarus, for all intents and purposes, died at some point after Jesus raised him from the dead. In his resurrection, he received in his body all the same mortal conditions that all our bodies are subjected to, and when he died his soul still became detached from his body.

This brings us to an interesting realization, for now we have to make a decision about what is more important about the resurrection: the state of Jesus’s body, or the purpose to which this body was given? Let me explain. We cannot accept any of the above descriptions for the resurrection because they fail to explain the reality in which Jesus exists. The reality is that Jesus was exalted into heaven and exists with God. Jesus’s resurrection is something more than the life we know being repeated after death. The resurrection of Jesus only has meaning if we throw out our previous understanding of life, and say that the resurrection of Jesus means that he has new life in God. This is the only way to hold on to a sense of Jesus’s resurrection as an important moment in the salvation history of humanity. If what we mean by resurrection is simply that Jesus was given the same kind of life that we all have right now, then there is really no point in talking about the resurrection of Jesus, for it does not signify anything important between man and God. However, if the resurrection of Jesus signifies a new life that exists in God, then we have something worth talking about.

This begins with a rather interesting twist, for there seems to be no prima facie reason to think that a resurrection which is believed to be a culmination of human salvation needs to contain any physical elements. A salvation which is of the caliber we find in Jesus does not, by reference to the essential terms implied by necessity, involve a physical risen body. We could quite easily say that Jesus is resurrected as long as we can point to a heavenly existence of Christ with the Father. This is merely a cursory speculation. There are historical and contextual considerations to make in our synthesis, but it is rather significant to note that in the most basic representation the resurrection of Jesus Christ does not require a physical body.

For the moment I will leave what a new life with God would mean, and I will turn now to what I believe are the main distinctions that need to be addressed if we are going to relate the meaning of the resurrection to the arguments made about the resurrection. It seems clear that the apologist has a more specific idea of the resurrection in mind when he sets about the business of proving that the resurrection happened. The apologist who works so hard to prove that four highly probable events occurred, which demonstrate via the best explanation that the resurrection did happen, is more keen on adding to our initial concept of the resurrection as being given New Life with God to something more physical. For him, the resurrection is something that was witnessed, like a car accident or a football game. It is something that occurred as a historical event. To put it another way, he believes that there is adequate information to conclude that the events which describe the resurrection can be reliably reconstructed in order to produce a warranted belief that it happened as a historical event. This means that when we read about Jesus appearing in the middle of rooms and that he can change his appearance, we can conclude that events like these actually happened. They give us supporting evidence that Jesus walked out of a tomb in a body that was once dead and, having been raised, is glorified in some sense. So all the movies and stories we read about Jesus, for the most part, actually happened.

I would posit that, for the historical resurrection theory to gain any ground as a more reliable definition of the resurrection than the general one, the apologist needs to show why these physical manipulations of the divine are somehow required or more beneficial for human salvation so that it would be something to be expected or hoped for over other alternatives. In our current state, we are lacking such a reason.

Let the above scenario be termed as what we defined in the previous chapter as a “historical resurrection.” This is the general model under which most Christian apologists work. This model has many great virtues. It is the most reliable historical construction of what Christians have meant over the centuries by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It also has the virtue of being what is written about in the Gospels. However, it is not the only version of the resurrection that exists, and since there is no overriding reason to accept the historical resurrection model, we have the epistemic rights to consider which other models could be acceptable. One such model is the spiritual resurrection model.

For argument’s sake, a spiritual resurrection would be anything that a historical resurrection is not, as long as it accurately describes the meaning of a new life with God. I understand that this is a very vague description and could be used to describe a great deal of things which would be outright heresy. So there is admittedly a great deal to discuss when it comes to what could qualify as a spiritual resurrection. Could a hallucination be a resurrection if what we hallucinate is a risen Christ with God? If we do not have good enough historical reasons to think that the stories which describe Jesus’s resurrection are warranted, then what other options are left for us in coming to terms with what the resurrection could be? Since we have no prima facie commitment to a historical resurrection, what can we say of the alternative? There is a fundamental difference between the historical and spiritual resurrection theories–one you will notice right off the bat. It is monumentally easier to construct a historical model for the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Since the basis of a spiritual resurrection is largely dependent upon how we relate to this concept of new life, it is intrinsically difficult to propose that one model is more likely than another. But I do think that there is a model that can emerge once we begin to consider our source material.

There are two models which I believe to be the most reliable. One model is the vision model. The first experiences of the risen Lord came by way of the visions that early believers like Paul, James, and Peter had, and then these visions developed into narratives and stories which later came to construct the Gospel. The other model that I believe is equally valid is the dual body model. In this scenario, early believers had physical contact with a glorified body of Christ privately, and the empty tomb narratives developed with the post mortem appearances. I propose that both models equally accommodate certain soteriological biases which might already exist. A common belief in relation to the resurrection is that the risen Jesus had to have an actual physical body in order to complete human salvation. I believe this argument is used primarily to convince others that a historical resurrection is more likely than a spiritual one, because in it God is saving the whole person of Jesus and not just a nebulous spirit, or disembodied soul. This idea will be fleshed out later, but for now I do not think it is a conclusive argument against considering a spiritual resurrection or for favoring a historical resurrection.