The Resurrection of Jesus

rbaitz

Have you ever asked yourself, "Why was the stone rolled away and the tomb that Christ was laid in, empty?"

There are many thoughts,

1. The Pharasees stole the body. If this were so, when the story went out that Jesus rose from the dead, they (pharasees) would have produced the body.

2. The disciples stole the body. Roman solders were the baddest dudes on the planet in those days. If they had fallen asleep they would have been executed. Peter cut off the ear of one man attempting to take Jesus, showing his poor fighting kills. So the disciples didn't fight off the Romans, nor could they then have taken the body.

3. Jesus rose from the dead bodily. Why would God open the tomb unless it was to show others Jesus had risen from the dead, not just in spirit but bodily. Jesus said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it again... talking about the temple of His body." John 2:19-21

Even when the disciples were in the presence of Jesus after the resurrection He said, "Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have." The body He died in is the same body risen from the dead, but it has been changed to a glorified body!

Which view do you agree with?

Robin

Carmel

None of the above!

caveman

dedalus

You forgot number four:

4. Barny the Purple Dinosaur broke into the tomb while Bert and Ernie distracted onlookers. They all flew away on Aladdin's magic carpet and now live in Never-Never land with Peter Pan, who masterminded the whole thing.

Dedalus

gsx1138

Or....there never was a Jesus. Or...it's a well known fact that the Romans didn't bury criminals, so if someone else buried him it is likely they found out got pissed and removed the body to let it rot in the sun somewhere else. Or...the resurrection never happened and the whole story was fabricated after Jesus died in order to justify his deification, considering that the new testament was not written until 70 years after his death and the Bible itself was not put together, with the exclusion of Bible books, until 230 years after his death this is the most likely scenerio.

JosephMalik

The body He died in is the same body risen from the dead, but it has been changed to a glorified body!

Robin,

This statement is almost correct. The body He died in is the same body risen from the dead but it was not changed. It was already a glorified body before being executed. This glorification took place at the transfiguration.

Our Lord raise His own body just as He prophesied. But our Lord did not raise himself from death. The hope of our Lord was not to be raised as a human again. His hope and prayer was:

John 17:5 And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.

Or in other words the hope of our Lord was to be restored to life as the WORD that created man in the beginning. In this state our Lord could easily raise His own body and use it as He pleased. This would in no way change history nor would it nullify the value of His sacrifice in any way. The Watchtower does not understand this since they do not have the truth as they claim. Therefore our Lord now has two natures which He can use interchangeably at will, both of which He demonstrated to His disciples and the apostle Paul. The scriptures continued to refer to Him as a man for the same reasons, the only human to obtain immortality in fact. This will also be the case when He returns here to earth to rule in his kingdom and raise the dead. During this time He will give resurrected mankind a human body like His immortal human one during the symbolic 1000 years.
Joseph