The Watchtower Bible and Tract Society denies the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ. They believe that He was resurrected only as a Spirit. However, the Scriptures are quite clear that the Lord was raised bodily. All quotes are from the NASB (emphasis mine):
Matthew 28:9
And behold, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they came up and took hold of His feet and worshiped Him.
Matthew 28:11-13
Now while they were on their way, some of the guard came into the city and reported to the chief priests all
that had happened. And when they had assembled with the elders and consulted together, they gave a large sum of money to the
soldiers, and said, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep.’ ”
Commentary:
If Jesus was only resurrected in the Spirit, then why would the chief priests have to pay off the Roman soldiers to tell people that the body of Christ was stolen?
Luke 24:23
…and did not find His body, they came,
saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who said that He was alive.
Commentary:
If Jesus was only resurrected in the Spirit, then why was Jesus’ body missing?
Luke 24:39
“See My hands and My feet, that it is
I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
Commentary:
There could not be a clearer text of His bodily resurrection.
Luke 24:42-43
They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took
it and ate it before them.
Commentary:
Jesus had to have a body in order to eat the fish.
John 20:6-7
And so Simon Peter also came,
following him, and entered the tomb; and he saw the linen wrappings lying there, and the face-cloth which had been on His head, not
lying with the linen wrappings, but rolled up in a place by itself.
Commentary:
Jesus’ body was missing, and the text obviously suggests that He was resurrected in the flesh in order to take off the face-cloth and throw it away from where He was.
John 20:13
And they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because
they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.”
Commentary:
His body was resurrected, and that is why it was missing.
John 20:17
Jesus said to her, “Stop clinging to Me, for I have not yet
ascended to the Father; but go to My brethren and say to them, ‘I ascend to My Father and your Father, and My God and your God.’ ”
Commentary:
She had to be clinging to something material.
John 20:27
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.”
Commentary:
Thomas had to be able to put his finger into a material body in order for this verse to be relevant.
A Possible Objection
One possible objection that may be made is that Jesus only seemed that He had been resurrected in the flesh. However, this objection
falls dead on two grounds. First, many of the above verses are made completely meaningless (such as Luke 24:39) if such a belief
is true. Second of all, this was the position of the Docetic Gnostics, a heretical group that appeared about the time of the
apostles. In fact, as was shown in the article on the Deity of Christ, the Apostle John’s Gospel is geared specifically toward
refuting these Gnostics. Thus, to say that Jesus only seemed like He was resurrected in the flesh is to argue against the Apostle
John and agree with the Docetic Gnostics. [Note: In fact, the word Docetic comes from a Greek verb which means “to seem”.]
The
One Verse Used to Support the Doctrine
1 Peter 3:18
For Christ also died for sins once for all, the just for the unjust, so that
He might bring us to God, having been put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit;
Commentary:
Matt Slick comments:
“But they don’t read the next verse that says,
‘in which also He went and made proclamation to the spirits now in prison…’ This verse is talking about Jesus before His resurrection. There are different theories concerning what Jesus did between His death and resurrection, but one very plausible explanation is that
He went to the spirits that were imprisoned from long ago and proclaimed to them the truth. It was after this that He was raised
in His physical body.”
- Matt Slick, Right Answers for Wrong Beliefs (
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Some helpful online reading can be found here:
http://www.carm.org/witnesses.htm
http://aomin.org/Witnesses.html
http://www.ntrmin.org/apologetic-tools.htm
Suggested
reading:
- Matt Slick, Right Answers for Wrong Beliefs (
The Bodily
Resurrection of
Christ