“…repent and believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15 NASB).
“…We affirm
that the bodily resurrection of Christ from the dead is essential to the
biblical Gospel (1 Cor. 15:14). We deny the validity of any so-called gospel
that denies the historical reality of the bodily resurrection of Christ” (The
Gospel of Jesus Christ: An Evangelical Celebration, 1999).
By MA Petillo
CONTENTS
Chapter 1: At the Beginning
Chapter 2: The Resurrection and Mormonism
Chapter 3: The Resurrection and the Church Universal and
Triumphant
Chapter 4: The Resurrection and A Course in Miracles
Chapter 5: The Resurrection and Freemasonry
Chapter 6: The Resurrection and Jehovah’s Witnesses
Chapter 7: The Resurrection and the Mind Science Groups
Chapter 8: The Resurrection and the Reorganized
Mormonists
Chapter 9: The Resurrection and Rosicrucianism
Chapter 10: The Resurrection and the Unification Church
Chapter 11: The Resurrection and the Urantia Foundation
Chapter 12: The Resurrection and The Way International
Chapter 13: The Resurrection and The Lost Tomb Theory
Chapter 14: Concluding Remarks on the Resurrection
Chapter
15: The Truth of the Bodily Risen King
Most Holy
Chapter 1: At the Beginning
“For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been
raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are
still in your sins” (1 Corinthians 15:16-17
NASB). The Christian Bible teaches that
the Lord Jesus Christ bodily rose from the dead. He rose in the same body. When He rose from the dead He rose in a
glorified body. The attributes of His
body are expanded: His body is glorified and it is deathless. He bodily ascended into heaven, He sits at the
right hand of God, and He reigns as the Incarnate King. He is fully man and fully God; He is the
sinless God-man. The resurrection is the
foundation to the Christian faith. It is
the heart and soul of Christianity.
Let’s turn to the divine Scriptures that speak to the reality of Jesus’
resurrection for Scripture says, “For I delivered to you as of first importance
what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the
Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day
according to the Scriptures…” (1
Corinthians 15:3-4 NASB). But before we
search the Scriptures, let’s understand what groups deny the bodily
resurrection of Christ, and the recent controversy about the resurrection of
Jesus. The common denial is about the
bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
But the Lord Jesus declared, “Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection
and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who
lives and believes in Me will never die.
Do you believe this?” (John
11:25-26 NASB). Most of the following
information is based on H. Wayne House’s book Cults, Sects & Religious Movements.
The references cited are found in the bibliographical section.
Chapter 2: The Resurrection and Mormonism
First is the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The
resurrection did not destroy death and sin:
“The facts of Christ’s resurrection from the dead are attested by such
an array of scriptural proofs that no doubt of the reality finds place in the mind
of any believer in the inspired records” (Articles
of Faith, pp. 385-86).
Chapter 3: The Resurrection and the Church Universal and
Triumphant
Second is the Church
Universal and Triumphant. The Lord
Jesus taught the resurrection but His bodily ascension is mistaken: “There was a tradition during the
sub-apostolic age and the second century of a long interval between the
resurrection and the ascension. Evidence
of it appears not in only in the writings of the eminent Church Father
Irenaeus, who held that Jesus suffered in his thirtieth year but taught until
he was forty or fifty years old, but also in a number of Gnostic works which
likewise deal with an extended post-resurrection stay on earth” (The Lost Years of Jesus, p. 429). But divine Scripture speaks of the bodily
ascension: “Now
when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a
cloud received Him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward
heaven as He went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also
said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven? This same
Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as
you saw Him go into heaven” (Acts 1:9-11 NKJV).
Chapter 4: The Resurrection and A Course in Miracles
Third is A Course in
Miracles. The Lord Jesus did not
literally rise from the dead: “…the
resurrection is the symbol of sharing because the reawakening of every Son of
God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know its wholeness” (A Course in Miracles, vol. 1, p. 87);
“It [the resurrection] is reawakening or rebirth: a change of mind about the
meaning of the world” (A Course in
Miracles, vol. 3, p. 65); and “A
slain Christ has no meaning. But a risen
Christ becomes the symbol of the Son of God’s forgiveness on himself; the sign
he looks upon himself as healed and whole” (A
Course in Miracles, vol. 1, p. 396).
Chapter 5: The Resurrection and Freemasonry
Fourth is Freemasonry. The name of Christ is thoroughly omitted
in Masonic rituals, and Mason writings disregard His resurrection: “In a well-ordered lodge, Jesus is never
mentioned except in vague, philosophical terms.
Prayers are never prayed in His name, and when scriptures are quoted in
the ritual, all references to Him are simply omitted” (Jim Shaw, The Deadly Deception, p. 76).
Chapter 6: The Resurrection and Jehovah’s Witnesses
Fifth is Jehovah’s
Witnesses (or Russellites). The Lord
Jesus rose spiritually and He did not rise in the same literal body: “Jesus
Christ…was the first to be raised as a spirit person. (1 Peter 3:18)” (You Can Live Forever in Paradise on Earth, 1982, p. 172); and
“Jesus thus gave up his fleshy body in sacrifice for humankind…Having given up
his flesh for the life of the world, Christ could never take it again and
become a man once more. For that basic
reason his return could never be in the human body that he sacrificed once for
all time” (You Can Live Forever in
Paradise on Earth, 1982, p. 143).
Chapter 7: The Resurrection and the Mind Science Groups
Sixth are the Mind
Science Groups. The resurrection is
about the spiritualization of the consciousness of an individual: “The physical disappearance of Jesus after
His resurrection was the result of the spiritualization of His consciousness. This so quickened His mentality that His body
disintegrated and His followers could not plane. Planes are not places; they are states of
consciousness” (The Science of Mind, p.
104).
Chapter 8: The Resurrection and the Reorganized
Mormonists
Seventh is the Reorganized Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. Christ’s resurrected body is unclear and not accessible to
people today. “It is really useless to
try to argue whether or not Jesus’ resurrection was a ‘spiritual’ or ‘physical’
event. Either term, or both terms
together, may well be inadequate to describe how he rose from the dead…we
cannot define with any real accuracy what resurrection in Christ means” (Exploring the Faith, 1987, p. 47).
The resurrection of Jesus is in personal experience not historical
evidence (Exploring the Faith, 1987, p. 46).
Chapter 9: The Resurrection and Rosicrucianism
Eighth is Rosicrucianism. The Lord Jesus had a physical (described as
“dense”), invisible (described as “vital”) and a “desire” body. “In order to function in the dense Physical
World it is necessary to have a dense body…we must have a vital body before we
can express life, grow, or externalize the other qualities peculiar to the
Etheric Region” (Max Heindel, The Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, p.
57). The dense body was destroyed. And the Christ not Jesus appeared in a vital
body to His followers (Max Heindel, The
Rosicrucian Cosmo-Conception, pp. 381, 408-409).
Chapter 10: The Resurrection and the Unification Church
Ninth is the Unification Church. The Lord
Jesus did not raise from the dead in a physical body. “Like most liberal Protestants,
Unificationists believe that Jesus’ resurrection was spiritual and not
physical” (Unification Theology, 2d
ed., p. 151).
Chapter 11: The Resurrection and the Urantia Foundation
Tenth is the Urantia
Foundation. Jesus’ corpse quickly
disintegrated. “The tomb of Joseph was
empty, not because the body of Jesus had been rehabilitated or resurrected, but
because the celestial hosts had been granted their request to afford it a
special and unique dissolution, a return of the ‘dust to dust’ without the
interventions of the delays of time…The moral remains of Jesus underwent the
same natural process of elemental disintegration as characterizes all human
bodies on earth except that, in point of time, this natural mode of
disintegration was greatly accelerated, hastened to the point where it became
well-nigh instantaneous” (UB, pp.
2023-2024).
Chapter 12: The Resurrection and The Way International
Eleventh is The Way
International. If someone can speak
in tongues it is absolute proof of Jesus’ resurrection: “…we know that God raised Jesus Christ out
from among the dead because we speak in tongues, which is the external
manifestation in the senses world of the internal reality of Christ
within. Speaking in tongues is our absolute proof, our present-tense
evidence that God did raise Jesus from the dead!” (L. Craig Martindale, April 1987 letter to all believers, p. 1). In
passing I can say with assurance that speaking in tongues has nothing to do
with the resurrection because there is no scriptural support for such a
teaching.
Chapter 13: The Resurrection and The Lost Tomb Theory
Twelfth is “The Lost
Tomb of Jesus” controversy. In
short, in the Talpiot Tombs the family of Jesus is claimed to have been
discovered. They claim that they have
found the bones of Jesus.
Chapter 14: Concluding Remarks on the Resurrection
Let’s explore what the Christian Bible teaches about the
resurrection of the Lord Jesus. The Gospel of John explicitly speaks of a
bodily resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ:
“So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when
the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews,
Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, "Peace be with
you." And when He had said this, He
showed them both His hands and His side The disciples then rejoiced when they
saw the Lord. So Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you; as the
Father has sent Me, I also send you." And when He had said this, He
breathed on them and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. "If you forgive the sins of any, their
sins have been forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they have been
retained." But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with
them when Jesus came. So the other disciples were saying to him, "We have
seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see in His hands the
imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my
hand into His side, I will not believe." After eight days His disciples
were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been
shut, and stood in their midst and said, "Peace be with you." Then He
said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here
your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but
believing." Thomas answered and said to Him, "My Lord and my
God!" Jesus said to him, "Because you have seen Me, have you
believed? Blessed are they who did not see, and yet believed” (John 20:19-29 NASB). The Lord
Jesus did not see decay: “…he looked
ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER
ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY. "This Jesus God raised up again, to
which we are all witnesses.” (Acts
2:31-32 NASB). He rose in the same body
yet it was heavenly and gloried. “Jesus
answered them, "Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three
days....But He was speaking of the temple of His body. So when He was raised
from the dead, His disciples remembered that He said this; and they believed
the Scripture and the word which Jesus had spoken" (John 2:19, 21-22 NASB). The
Lord Jesus predicted His own resurrection:
“As they were coming down from the mountain, He gave them orders not to
relate to anyone what they had seen, until the Son of Man rose from the dead”
(Mark 9:9 NASB).
Chapter 15: The Truth of the Bodily Risen King Most Holy
He appeared to women (Matthew 28:9), apostles in Galilee
(Matthew 28:16-17), Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9), two disciples (Luke 24:13-15),
Simon Peter (Luke 24:34), the apostles (Luke 24:51), the apostles (John 20:19,
24; 20:26), apostles at the Sea of Tiberias (John 21:1), five hundred people (1
Corinthians 15:6), Paul and James (1 Corinthians 15:7-8). For the New Testament writer, Peter,
declares, “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales
when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we
were eyewitnesses of His majesty” (1 Peter 1:16 NASB). Luke testifies to the accuracies of his
Gospel. He speaks to the trustworthiness
of the gospel that saves. It is nothing
less then the truth of God. He declares,
“Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile an account of the things
accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from
the beginning were eyewitnesses and servants of the word, it seemed fitting for
me as well, having investigated everything carefully from the beginning, to
write it out for you in consecutive order, most excellent Theophilus; so that
you may know the exact truth about the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:1-4
NASB).
The Christian Bible explicitly teaches the bodily
resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Have you believed the bodily Risen Savior-King? Have you faithfully
repented of your past and present sins?
The only way a person can truly repent
is by being born from above. You must be born again (John 3). Have you been born again? The Risen Lord Jesus will judge the world in
righteousness and truth. Every word,
thought and deed will be brought into account.
Will you be standing in His matchless robes of Jesus’ righteousness on
that day, or will you be in garments polluted by the world? God is holy and just. He demands the righteousness of His own Son
in behalf of sinners. People without His
holy righteousness cannot stand before a holy and just God. Hell is a place of God’s perfect
justice. You are in desperate need of a
perfect Savior. He sufficiently paid the
debt for His people. His saving work is
His perfect life and atoning death. The
unified righteousness of Christ forms the sole grounds justification. You are a sinner who is totally depraved
(Romans 3). Will you repent and live a life of obedience to the Blessed
Trinity? I plead with you: “…repent and
believe in the gospel” (Mark 1:15 NASB).
