06/01/2024
Shared from another bahai page:Christian topic on the resurrection:
Physical resurrection had very little to do with invigorating the early followers to pursue and spread the teachings of Jesus Christ. In 1850, we have had similar ex*****on of a young man (30 years old) named the BĂĄb (it means the Gate) who claimed to be the promised One. He was suspended on the wall of a barrack with one of his followers tied to his chest and 750 riflemen shot them and their bodies were mangled as one. After their ex*****on their bodies by the order of the Shah were dragged and dropped off at a moat so wild animals can consume them. Fifteen soldiers were placed there to make sure the body does not get stolen by the BĂĄbâs followers. Despite that, the bodies were still taken away by the followers of the BĂĄb and secretly taken to a silk factory and placed in a safe casket. For 65 years the bodies were transferred from place to place secretly and eventually in early 20th century through the instructions of BahĂĄâuâllĂĄh (the Founder of the Bahaâi Faith) and also His eldest Son (the Center of His Covenant) âAbduâl-BahĂĄ were finally to put to rest on Mount Carmel in Israel near the cave of Elijah. But despite the ex*****on of the BĂĄb, the vigor of his followers never died, and it advanced even more. Thousands of people gave up their lives for his teachings, knowing that He was from God. Numerous people both friend and foe have testified that they have seen the BĂĄb alive even today, though His ex*****on took place in 1850. However, the persistence and the growth of the faith has had nothing to do with physical resurrection stories. Itâs the transformative power of the divine revelation and the kind of life that the BĂĄb lived which propelled people to be well-assured and confident in the divine Source of that Being. It was exactly the same with early apostles of Christ. Resurrection is symbolic and has spiritual meanings. Early apostles were similarly well-assured, and had willingly given up their lives for they knew that the true reality of Christ transcended all physical limitations and death, and that he was truly and eternally aliveââ guiding them in their teachings and helping them to become fully detached souls despite the presence of all their enemies. They were like gnats before they had discovered Christ, but after knowing Christ, he turned them into indomitable eagles for his cause.
Bahaâi understanding of Christ (the Word, the Logos, the Primal Will) is that he is a preexistent reality which transcends time and space, and therefore, he has been great eternally in the past and will be great eternally into the futureââwith or without a physical body:
âIn the beginning the Word already existed. The Word was with God, and the Word was God.â
(John 1:1 NLT)
Also,
âThe Father and I are one.â
(John 10:30 NLT)
Therefore, Christ is an unsurpassed spiritual Realityââwith or without a physical body. Both the Bible and the Bahaâi Faith rationally, scripturally and inductively/ deductively assert that this divine Reality (Christ) has revealed His will and purpose from age to age, bearing a new name according to the limits and requirements of each age. There are also NO time limitations which we humans can apply to try to box in the creative âWordâ (Christ). Thatâs what the Bible teaches. Reflect on what the Bible says about God. Does Christâs eternal reality consist of mere flesh/ physical body, or is he a Spirit!
âGod [is] a SpiritââŚ
(John 4:24 KJV)
Of course, as Bahaâis we believe God is All-Powerful and His will and purpose do not have to fit into our human wishes and desires. Two thousand years ago, as in every other age throughout all human history, Christ (the Word, the Logos, the Primal Will) had chosen to reflect his divine âattributes and willâ through a physical body for some 30 or 33 years, but most Christians forget that âhis greatnessâ did not begin 2000 years ago, nor upon revealing his will through the physical body of the manââ the Jesus of Nazareth. His greatness is eternal, and therefore, timeless and independent of all his earthly sufferings throughout human history.
What else does the Bible teach about the physical body and resurrection?
âWho in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplicationsââŚ
(Hebrew 5:7 KJV)
Therefore, the Bible teaches that Jesus had flesh or a physical body during his life on earth but that there came a time when he no longer was in flesh. Read the whole chapter so you can grasp the whole context.
What else the Bible teach about physical body or flesh:
âNow this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.â
(1 Corinthians 15:50 KJV)
Therefore, no physical body which is a corruptible biological entity can have any association or entrance into the Kingdom of God. After all, the Bible teaches that âGod is Spiritâ, and that the Word which is Christ existed eternally as Spirit before the earth was created or even before the current state and conditions of our universe.
What else can we learn from biblical scriptures? The Bible teaches that the teachings of Jesus Christ were revealed directly through the instrumentality of the Father. Jesus made sure to tell Simon that flesh and blood are not important in this equation:
âJesus replied, âBlessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by flesh and blood, but by my Father in heaven.â
(Matthew 16:17 NIV)
What else do we learn? Everything Jesus Christ taught and spoke, about his flesh and body had a spiritual meaning and cannot be taken literally even though Jesus Christ were using literal words such as âflesh and bloodâ:
âJesus said to them, âVery truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven. Your ancestors ate manna and died, but whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.â
(John 6:53-58 NIV)
Those who took him literally later on were accusing Christians as being cannibalists. Therefore, much of the language that Jesus used must be viewed and interpreted allegorical or symbolically even though they appear literal.
Jesus also taught that it is the spirit that matters and not the flesh:
âThe Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to youâthey are full of the Spirit and life.â
(John 6:63 NIV)
People had a very hard time understanding the symbolic and allegorical language that Jesus used, and this frustrated even the Lord Jesus Christ:
âWhy is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say.â
(John 8:43 NIV)
So, if people 2000 years ago had a hard time understanding Jesus Christ, we should not be surprised to hear that there are over 45,000 conflicting sects within Christianity. This should awaken all of us and humble us to the truth of what the Lord Jesus Christ were stating.
What else can we learn from the topic of resurrection? Well, Mary Magdalene couldnât recognize Jesus after the resurrection:
âAt this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. He asked her, âWoman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?â Thinking he was the gardener, she said, âSir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.â
(John 20:14-15 NIV)
If this was a âliteralâ bodily resurrection of Jesus, why did he look like the âgardenerâ and was not recognized by Mary? We canât make a claim that Jesus was not recognized by Mary âbecauseâ Christ was in a âglorified bodyâ! This is because the verse says Mary simply thought the man who was talking to her was just âthe gardenerâ and not some glorified body.
We also read that the Lord Jesus Christ appeared quite differently to apostle Paul:
About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, âSaul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?â â âWho are you, Lord?â I asked. â âI am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,â he replied.â
(Acts 22:8 NLT)
What else can we learn about resurrection? Well, physical body cannot go through doors and walls, but yet, Jesus suddenly appears in a room with the disciples when all doors were locked:
âA week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, âPeace be with you!â
(John 20:26 NIV)
We believe Christ can do whatever he wishes. He can dematerialize from one place and materialize in another location. He can appear as a flash of light from heaven to one person, or as a gardener to another, and he can even eat a piece of fish right in front of you to prove he can do anything. Therefore, we are not questioning or doubting what Christ can or cannot do, however, we must be honest and just, and read the entire Bible and weigh the question of resurrection in that balance. When we investigate the entire sacred texts about the resurrection, all the stories we read about Christâs appearances, do not indicate the characteristics of that same physical body Jesus Christ had before his crucifixion; and the Bible in numerous verses makes this fact clear and irrefutable. More, importantly, if we believe Christ has been great and All-Powerful from eternity to eternity, even long before he was born, then why should Christ need a literal body after his crucifixion?! Why should our Christian brothers and sisters assume that after his physical birth from the womb of Mary, he (Christ) had, forever, trapped his own infinite/limitless true eternal reality into some fixed and crystallized form?! And the Bible clearly demonstrates that Christ appeared in different forms in order to demonstrate this exact point that his true reality is not a fixed and crystallized shape, form, or Reality which could comfortably fit into our finite human minds. Thus, it is clear that to insist on the physical resurrection would be tantamount to superimposing our limited human understanding on an All-encompassing Reality whose âEssenceâ is far beyond our time and space.
As Bahaâis, when we state that Christâs resurrection was a spiritual event and not a physical one, it doesnât mean in anyway that Jesus Christ was incapable of resurrecting physicallyâârather it is, that the Bible, when studied meticulously, and reflected upon with detachment, it makes it clear that Christ didnât need any form of physical body both before his birth and after his crucifixion, and that his true and eternal Reality transcends beyond any connection with our physical reality as we know it.
Moreover, in numerous passages, the body of Christ has been interpreted to be the body of the believers or the church itself, and therefore, the resurrection is a spiritual reality which demonstrates the spiritual triumph of the Cause of Christ, symbolized as a âbodyâ which is none other than the body of the believers, ârisingâ fearlessly in promulgating the cause (the body of his teachings and his church) of Christ:
âAnd the church is his bodyââŚ
(Ephesians 1:23 NLT)
âŚâand build up the church, the body of Christ.â
(Ephesians 4:12 NLT)
âChrist is also the head of the church, which is his body.â
(Colossians 1:18 MLT)
âAnd we are members of his body.â
(Ephesians 5:30 NLT)
âAll of you together are Christâs body, and each of you is a part of it.â
(1 Corinthians 12:27 NLT)
Resurrection of all the manifestations of God are spiritual in nature and not physical or material. Investigate the Bahaâi Faith for more in-depth insights and reflections.
Photo: Steps to Caiaphas home. Following Jesus arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was taken to Caiaphas home, where he was questioned by the Jewish Religious leaders. It was here that Jesus was rejected by his own people and even deserted and denied by his closest friends.
