Jehovah's Witnesses And Christs Resurrection
Jehovah's Witnesses say that Jesus was raised
as a spirit rather than in a glorified physical body. What does the
Bible say?
Jehovah's Witnesses reason that Jesus had to give up (or sacrifice)
His physical body permanently in order to atone for mankind's sins.
Thus, God is alleged to have raised Jesus merely as a spirit creature.
And in a desperate bid to justify this false teaching, Jehovah's Witnesses
have repeatedly resorted to "Scripture-twisting."
The Bible, however, remains clear in confirming
Christ's bodily resurrection. In Luke 24:37, for example, we find that
the disciples were startled and frightened by Jesus' sudden appearance
in their midst, "thinking that they had seen a spirit;" in other words,
they mistakenly thought that their risen Lord was some sort of a spirit
creature. Did Jesus confirm their fears? Hardly. Instead, Jesus says:
"Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a spirit
does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have."
Now, Jehovah's Witnesses typically try to
dismiss such passages by arguing that even though He occasionally "materialized"
in a physical body, Jesus was in fact nothing more than a spirit creature.
However, if this really were the case, then Jesus would've clearly been
guilty of deliberately misleading His disciples into believing that
He was actually showing them His own body - as in Thomas's case, recorded
in John 20:27. Furthermore, in John 2:19-22 Jesus announced that He
would raise His own body from the dead.
Denying Jesus' physical resurrection spells
disastrous consequences for Christianity. For instance, a non-physical
resurrection would have absolutely no evidential value, and would undermine
Jesus' claim to be God. A non-physical resurrection would also mean
that Jesus still hasn't solved the problem of death, since His physical
body is still dead. Such false teachings are both unbiblical and, in
fact, destructive. By the way, the resurrection is the most well-attested
fact of ancient history. If you can't believe this, you can't even believe
Napoleon lived!
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