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Featured Job's Resurrection Verse: Job 19:25-26

Discussion in 'Baptist Theology & Bible Study' started by asterisktom, Sep 10, 2014.

  1. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    Job's Resurrection Verse
    What does Job actually "know" here?
    It is different from what many today say He knows.


    "For I know that my redeemer lives, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:"
    Job 19:25-26



    This is the version often quoted. But already we have an unfortunate problem. This rendition has several problems. Mainly, for my purpose here, two problems:

    1. There are no "worms". The King James Version added that in their attempt to be helpful.

    2. More importantly, the "see[ing] God" does not come "in" the flesh, but "from" the flesh. In other words, Job is not voicing a confidence that he will, in some future time, have a fleshly body with which he will see God. He is saying that even after his body will be destroyed he will still - afterward - see God. The destruction of his body will have no bearing on his assurance of seeing God. And this interpretation I didn't get from my fellow Preterists. I knew about it long before. Consider these mainline sources:

    "And after my skin, thus torn to pieces,
    And without my flesh shall I behold Eloah,"

    "Therefore by far the majority of modern expositors have decided that Job does not indeed here avow the hope of the resurrection, but the hope of a future spiritual beholding of God, and therefore of a future life;" -
    Keil & Deilitsch

    “After they shall have destroyed my skin, this shall happen - that I will see God.” - Gesenius

    "The literal meaning is, “from, or out of, my flesh shall I see God.” It does not mean in his flesh, which would have been expressed by the preposition ב (b) - but there is the notion that from or out of his flesh he would see him;"

    It cannot be proved that this refers to the resurrection of that body, and indeed the natural interpretation is against it.

    - Barnes

    "And after this skin of mine is destroyed I will yet, without flesh, see God." - Luther (translated from the German)

    Both of these points I went in greater detail because they help do away with core objections against the Preterist understanding of both human nature and of the resurrection.

    Our blessed hope does not include eternal life in physical bodies, however glorified. We will have perfect spiritual existence,individual and corporate. This is neither (as I have been accused) gnosticism or Eastern pantheistic oversoul existence. It is plainly what the Bible teaches. To get to the proof of this - and it admittedly is a slow and painstaking process - one must first deal with each and every passage that seems to teach otherwise. These two verses in Job are prime candidates, seeing that they are often quoted to teach what they pointedly do not teach.

    Just for the record. Preterists like myself...
    do believe in Christ's literal death on the cross,
    do believe in his literal and bodily resurrection,
    and that he presented a literal body as proof to his disciples,
    also that He rose again in a literal body.

    I often run into this misunderstanding concerning what Preterists believe and needed to set this straight. To deny those points is to be beyond the pale of orthodoxy. Scripture provides abundant proof for all of these.

    One thing that Scripture does not teach is that Christ will return physically. Of course, I believe that He had already returned (but that has been covered in other articles). The issue here is how He appeared.

    He has/had no need to return in a physical body. Consider this: The reason why Jesus went through the whole spectrum of physical experience - incarnation, perfect life, suffering, death on the cross, resurrection, ascension - was so that He would "fulfill all righteousness". All the bases have been touched (if I am allowed to use a mere baseball metaphor for this awesome doctrine).

    There is no similar requirements concerning His coming again, or concerning His judgment. Likewise there is no similar requirement that we live on forever in limited physical bodies. The only reason that it seems to be a requirement - and a cardinal doctrine to boot - is because of all that tradition we have inherited over the centuries, not the Bible.

    As always, however, we need to always distinguish between what Scripture teaches and what tradition has taught us that Scripture teaches.
     
  2. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    So are you saying the destiny of the believers is not resurrection but a bodiless existence?

    If so, that is very Gnostic and neo-Platonic.

    But I'm wanting to be sure I understand you correctly.
     
  3. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    I imagine my beliefs on this topic are the same as yours except that our resurrection will not be physical, but spiritual. But "spiritual" does not imply vague, unreal, gnostic, or neo-Platonic. It is very much real. We will always be individuals. We will always have personality.

    We both agree that Christ existed non-physically throughout eternity past. He did not need a physical body, of course. Likewise, there is no need for us to have physical bodies. Neither is there any passage that teaches that.

    If God has from eternity past until the Incarnation existed purely as spirit, and the Father and Holy Spirit are still entirely spirit (though Preterists would say Christ is too) why do some view it as cultic or gnostic for us to be the same way?

    If the Trinity, eternally self-communicating and self-loving (as John Owen writes in his Christologia) was already perfect how can this perfection be "improved" by a change of essence of one of them? How can perfection be improved? If there is room for improvement that implies that what God was before was not perfect.
     
    #3 asterisktom, Sep 10, 2014
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  4. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    I think we are worlds apart.

    There is a need... part of that is implicit in the imago dei! And to say there is no passage that teaches a physical resurrection is absurd. Valley of dry bones was the first to come to mind.

    Because that is what it is. Gnostics wanted to escape the material world. They did not want a physical resurrections. No more than the Sadduccees wanted a resurrection. This is neo-platonic influence on western theology rearing its head... again and again and again.

    Who said the incarnation was an improvement for Jesus??? Paul speaks of it as humbling. But he is forever the God-man. He will always have that physical body. His resurrection was physical. Our resurrection is physical.

    This is my problem w/ full on preterism.

    I defy you to read N. T. Wright on resurrection and refute it. He has quintessentially shut the door on gnostic ideas of a spiritual resurrection.
     
  5. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    And also your view of divine/sacred space and the metaphysical world is very much Platonic and thus Gnostic. Ancient Near Easterners did not conceive of God is such a way. They believed he was very presently with them while in heaven as well as earth. The temple was the bridge, but it was not such a duality as your neo-platonic influence would have you think.
     
  6. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    Last item first. Unless you can point me to an online source for Wright it ain't going to happen. Hard copy is hard to get here in China. Besides, much more important is what scripture teaches on this subject. In lieu of Wright's book perhaps you can summarize his scriptural rebuttal of my supposed gnosticism.
     
  7. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    This just seems to me an attempt at guilt by association. Or perhaps I am just not clear in how I wrote.

    I am not concerned about incidental similarities between Preterism and gnosticism - and that is what they are, as far as I understand gnosticism- but what the Bible teaches.

    Your first sentence shows me that you are pouring a foreign meaning into my words. I don't even know what you mean by "divine/sacred space and the metaphysical world". Perhaps you can enlighten me.

    And your last sentence is totally wrong. I was not influenced by neo-platonists. I was just reading the Bible and playing closer attention to passages that have always puzzled me. I love it when people pretend to know what my influences are. Should I play this same game with you?
     
    #7 asterisktom, Sep 10, 2014
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  8. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    So then you would have Christ - as part of His glorification - forever humbled to suit your theology?
     
  9. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Suits Scripture more like.
     
  10. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Actually, the Western post-enlightenment world has been greatly influenced by neo-platonic thought. Duality runs in your veins deep. You are sadly unaware of this philosophical mooring you are so engrossed in. Don't worry, we all are (were).
     
  11. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    I know this feeling. I'm in Central America. But even Wright's Surprised by Hope would be helpful. You can read it on your computer or tablet if you bout the kindle version. However, his Resurrection and the Son of God is the salient work on this topic.

    Here is an article, though I've not read it. Only his books on the issue. http://ntwrightpage.com/Wright_Jesus_Resurrection.htm
     
  12. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    Perhaps this Scripture comes to mind:

    "And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was." - John 17:5
     
  13. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    Thanks. I will read it.
     
  14. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    So where does that verse say anything about the kind of bodily existence the Father or Son has? It is about glory, is it not?
     
  15. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    I am not denying this general influence. But I was speaking of those influences that led me to preterism. It was not those influences, but just a determination of finding out how the scriptural dots connected.

    Your earlier comments re my influences seemed clearly to have these specific influences in mind, not general ones common to all of Christendom or, even, Christianity.
     
  16. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    Do you not see something jarring in Christ's glorification while still being humiliated? I say this in reference to your earlier comment concerning an ongoing Incarnation that would also necessarily be eternally "humbling".
     
    #16 asterisktom, Sep 10, 2014
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  17. Greektim

    Greektim Well-Known Member

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    Not really. Otherwise the humility/emptying of Jesus would mean little if it was only temporary. And perhaps your problem is that you cannot see glory in a glorified body.
     
  18. percho

    percho Well-Known Member
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    YLT 1 Peter 1:21 who through him do believe in God, who did raise out of the dead, and glory to him did give, so that your faith and hope may be in God.

    What glory did God the Father give to the Son of God born of woman.

    But God raised him from the dead:
    God hath fulfilled the same unto us their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again; as it is also written in the second psalm, Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Wherefore he saith also in another, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Acts 13:30,33 - 36

    It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. 1 Cor 15:44-46

    Who is the only one born of woman that has experienced, "afterward"?

    And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. Romans 8:17

    To date who is the only one born of woman that has inherited, "glory"?

    the firstborn from the dead; that in all he might have preeminence. Col 1:18
     
  19. Aaron

    Aaron Member
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    Here we go again. Tedious verbosity saying the divines were close, but have had it all wrong for two millennia.

    But I'm glad you were rash enough to go after the bodily resurrection. I can't think of a better orthodoxy to illuminate your hermeneutical offenses—unless it's the Virgin Birth.

    :wavey:
     
  20. asterisktom

    asterisktom Well-Known Member
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    I would say it comes to mind because we have been conditioned to think of the passage that way when in fact context and cross-reference point to a different application altogether. Because (like I wrote earlier) the majority of Bible readers under-estimate the Jewishness of the Bible they overlook the (relatively) more immediate application of this passage in Ezekiel.

    If I have time later I hope to write on this very topic. But the outside world is asserting itself once again.
     
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