It Wasn't Just Jesus' Body That Was Dead

We can thank Plato for the unbiblical idea that when a person dies, the “soul” would still survive, thus immortal soul.  We have been programmed to think that the body is distinct from the person's  identity, i.e., individual personality - physical life. But to the Hebrew mindset the body or flesh, the person, were all one being.  When God breathed into the nostrils of Adam the breath of life, it says he became  “a living soul.”  Not that Adam had a soul implanted in him.  And people may not be aware, but animals are called “souls” as well.  We don’t have a soul, we are a soul.

We are not just a body.  We are a whole human being that is able to think, reason, communicate, and have emotions.  These are not separate from our body.   


Job says, “In my flesh I shall see God.”  He is not saying that his flesh, i.e., his body shall see God, but is talking about his "whole self."  The Hebrew people never separated the body from the soul (soul = living, breathing being).  God created us as a whole person.

The bible never teaches about an immaterial being that resides in a body and never dies. The lie from the garden still survives to this day (Gen. 3:4).   

When Jesus died, the whole person died, it was not just his body that died and somehow he was still alive in the spiritual realm. 

I keep reading Oneness (Modalists) and Trinitarians talk about how it was just Jesus’ body that was in the grave, as though Jesus was separated from his body at death and continued to live and then reunited to his body.   If this is the case, where did the "real" Jesus go when his body died?  He certainly didn't go to the Father (John 20:17). And the bible never speaks of him having any activity between his death and resurrection.  Most will say that while the body of Jesus was dead, he was still alive and preaching to the spirits in prison.  However, 1 Peter 3:18-20 says that was something that happened AFTER his resurrection (after he was "made alive").  Jesus was not doing any preaching while he was dead, because he was dead!  He was a mortal being that was put to death.

To say that it was just the body of Jesus that was dead (as though Jesus were still alive somehow) and "the resurrection of the body" when talking about Jesus, or people in general, is very misleading. Look up these verses and notice we will not find one phrase that says “the resurrection of the body!”  We have such phrases as “the resurrection,” “the resurrection of Jesus Christ,” “the resurrection of or from the dead,” or "resurrection of the just," but never the "resurrection of the body."  (Matt. 22:23; 28, 30, 31; Matthew 27:53; Mark 12:18, 23; Luke 14:14, 20:27, 33, 35, 36; John 5:29, 11:24, 25; Acts 1:22, 2:31, 4:2, 33, 17:18, 32, 23:6, 8, 24:15, 21; Romans 1:4, 6:5; 1 Cor. 15:12, 13, 21, 42; Phil. 3:10, 11, 2 Tim. 2:18; Heb. 6:2, 11:35; 1 Peter 1:3, 3:21; Rev. 20:5, 6).   The resurrection concerns the whole individual.

People can say "the resurrection of the body" till the moon gives no more light, but the fact is, it cannot be found in scripture.  That phrase gives a false impression of the resurrection, the nature and abode of the dead, and the grave.  One cannot separate the body from the person.  When a person dies, it's the WHOLE being that dies.  That person does not exist beyond the grave.  Our hope is to be resurrected from the dead - a time when we mortals put on immortality and death is swallowed up in victory!

The doctrine of immortality is the common denominator that binds mainstream christianity and the lost together.  They deny the resurrection of the dead, and though they may say they believe in a resurrection, what they really mean is that they don't deny the resurrection of the body but hold to the belief that when a person dies he "goes home to be with the Lord."  No such teaching is found in scripture.

No one can be dead and alive at the same time. This is doublemindedness (James 1:8). 

The culmination of the gospel ends with how Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and rose again on the third day.

In 2 Timothy 1:10 we read, 

“But now made visible through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus. He has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.”

The whole gospel collapses if there is no resurrection.

In 1 Corinthians 15 we read about the resurrection.  If Christ didn’t rise from the dead, where is our hope of rising from the dead? The gospel preached would have been a lie and futile if there is no resurrection from the dead.

In 1 Thess. 4:13-18, we have the fullest account of expectation of a future resurrection of the faithful dead and transformation of the faithful that are still living at the coming of Christ.

“Now we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, so also we believe that God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep as Christians. For we tell you this by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will surely not go ahead of those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a shout of command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be suddenly caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

 Amen!