1 Corinthians 6:14 “And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.”
Once Jesus had destroyed principalities and powers in the lower parts of the earth, He then ascended to the surface of the earth where He entered His body that had been lying in the tomb the whole time. The above quoted passage of scripture confirms the truth to us that Jesus body was raised from the dead by the power of God, for it links that concept to the saints also receiving their resurrected bodied at the end of the age. And so the moment that Jesus entered His body, it was instantly transformed from a dead mortal body to the live spiritual body that He now inhabits. But let us not forget that when our Lord left His body to descend into Hell, that His body was still contaminated with the sin of the world. Nevertheless the moment Jesus entered His body after He was raised from the dead; all sin was purged from His body. In other words, the sin and death that was in His body was swallowed up by His new life (2 Corinthians 5:4).
1 Corinthians 15:42-53 “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. (43) It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. (44) It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (45) And so it is written, "The first man Adam became a living being." The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.”… (49) And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man. (50) Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does corruption inherit incorruption. … (53) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”
By describing to us in the above quoted passage of scripture what the resurrected bodies of the saints will be like, the Holy Spirit through the apostle Paul also describes what our Lord’s resurrected body is like, for the scripture declares that we will receive a resurrected body that is just like His. And so we see that our Lord no longer has a natural mortal body, but rather He has an immortal spiritual body that is incorruptible and is full of glory and power. And so whereas before the cross it was possible for our Lord’s natural body to be contaminated with the sin and death of the world, that has now become impossible, for His spiritual body is incorruptible and immortal.
John 20:17 “Jesus said to her, "Do not cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and your God.'”
After our Lord Jesus was raised from the dead He did not immediately ascend to the Father, for the above quoted passage of scripture is the account of our Lord appearing to Mary, in which Jesus told her that He had not yet ascended to the Father. It was essential for the Lord Jesus to appear before the throne of God completely unspotted from the world, in order to present His offering for the sin of the world, which is why He would not allow Mary to touch Him that morning. Later that evening however, after He had presented Himself before God, Jesus once again appeared to His disciples and on this occasion He allowed them to handle Him (Luke 24:39). The reason that Jesus could do that was because His eternal sacrifice as the spotless Lamb of God had been accepted by God once and for all, and Jesus could now interact freely with His disciples. But I also want to draw your attention to something else about our Lord’s body, which we pick up in the comment made by the apostle Paul in the earlier passage quoted, when he said that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. In making this comment, the Holy Spirit teaches us that the Lord’s spiritual body is not made of flesh and blood. We do know however, that His body is made of flesh and bone, because Jesus said it was when He invited His disciples to handle His body on the first night that He appeared to them (Luke 24:39). And so clearly our Lord’s spiritual body has no blood in it.
Michael E.B. Maher
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