Many (not
all) Trinitarians who are “counter-cultists” tend to be very ignorant of their
own theology to the point where they will openly espouse Christological
heresies. For instance, commenting on the Jehovah’s Witness believe that Jesus’
resurrection was spiritual only, Jason Oakes would then claim that (1) Jesus
shed his resurrected body sometime after the resurrection and (2) while
embodied/incarnate, Jesus was not a
divine person with a human nature but was not
God until such a shedding of his human nature sometime after his
resurrection(!):
And, behold,
there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven,
and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it. (Matthew
28:2)
Why did the angel move the stone I it was a
spiritual resurrection? The angel could have explained Jesus’ body vanished and
he went back to the Father.
But they
were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he
said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts?
Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit
hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he
shewed [his hands and [his] feet. (Luke 24:37-40)
If Jesus was an apparition, and he was
appearing to them in visions, he wouldn’t have scars all over him, and he wouldn’t
be telling people to reach out and touch him. A spirit has not flesh and bones.
Jesus, in his resurrection body, had flesh and bones. He had scars. In fact,
when he talks to Thomas, he said, “Touch the wounds on my hands and my feet and
thrust your hand into my side.” I don’t think we have a grasp of what Jesus’
body looked like after the crucifixion, or even in his resurrected body. There
is one place in the resurrection accounts where it says Jesus intentionally appeared
in different forms (Mark 16:12). This may answer some questions as to why some
didn’t recognize Jesus immediately when he appeared to them. Mary thought he
was the gardener. Even when he appeared to the disciples when they were fishing
on the shore, it says “none dared ask him who he was because they all knew it
was the Lord” (John 21:12). There are many reasons why they might not have recognized
them, at least at first. Did Jesus always have a huge gash in his side as he
appeared to Thomas, or did he appear to Thomas intentionally this way?
I the disciples were making up the account of
his resurrection, they would not have included embarrassing details about women
being the first witnesses of the empty tomb or they not recognizing who Jesus
was, or experiencing doubt and fear when Jesus appeared to them. These are all
signs of honesty that one wouldn’t make up if they wanted others to believe
their story.
This raises another question. Does God have a
body of flesh and bones as Doctrine and Covenants teaches? (Doctrine &
Covenants 130:22). Absolutely not. How do we know that?
A = God
B = Spirit
C = flesh and bones
S . . .
A = B (God is spirit) (John 4:24)
B does not = C (A spirit has not flesh and
bones)
So . . .
A does not = C (God does not have flesh and
bones)
Now, if the cult member is thinking when you
walk them through this, they might come up with their own equation.
D = Jesus
C = D (Jesus had flesh and bones)
So . . .
A does not = D (Jesus cannot be God)
But, as we have discussed several times
earlier in this book, Jesus said this as a resurrected human.
So Jesus at this moment is not God. He is also human. Nowhere after
he is ascended do we find him appearing in a physical resurrected body of flesh
and bones with scars. Some metaphors imply Jesus might still have his scars,
but we are also to [sic?] Jesus was restored to the glory he had with the
Father before the world began. (Jason Oakes, Sharing Jesus with the Cults: How to handle the most common
conversations Christians get into with cult members [2017], 190-92,
emphasis added; note: in recent facebook discussions with a friend, Oakes is adamant
that John 17;5 and Jesus' restoration to his premortal glory means Jesus shed
his human body/nature[!])
In reality,
the Bible tells us Christ had a physical body at His resurrection (Luke 24:39).
The Bible tells us that Christ kept his physical body when he entered heaven
(Acts 1:11). The Bible tells us that Stephen saw Christ “standing” beside God
the Father (Acts 7:55-56). The Bible on numerous occasions describes Christ as
“sitting” and “standing” next to the throne of God after his ascension (Heb
1:3;10:12;12:2; Col 3:1). Many New Testament texts speak of Jesus as if he is
embodied (Heb 8:1, 3; 1 John 2:1-2; Rev 5:5-6). Lastly, we are encouraged that
Christ shall return with this same resurrected body (Acts 1:11). And, as Oakes
is a Trinitarian, we have the teachings of Chalcedon (451) and even his fellow
co-religionists like Robert Bowman (no friend to “Mormonism” [and me, for that
matter]) who also affirm that Jesus will eternally remain the God-man and that Orthodoxy Trinitarian
Christology states Jesus was never “not God” as Oakes believes about Jesus when
he had a body (during the Incarnation and [for him, briefly] when he had his resurrection
body), but was the God-Man.
For once, I
agree with Matt Slick when he writes that::
. . . Jesus retained His physical nature after His resurrection--along with His scars. This is why it says in Col. 2:9 that in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. Notice that the verb "dwells" is in the present tense. That is, right now Jesus has a body of flesh and bones. He is physical. He is in heaven. He is a man, the God-man. (Jesus' resurrection and ascension; on Col 2:9, cf. my article Christology and Colossians 2:9)
For the
biblical evidence for divine
embodiment, as well as a discussion of Chalcedon’s affirmation of Jesus being
forever the “God-Man,” John 4:24, Luke 24:39, and the other texts Oakes abuses
in cultic, eisegetical manner, see:
