Friday 13 March 2015

Psalm: Psalm121

Background

Today we move onto another controversy around resurrection forthe Christians in Corinth. Again Paul is thorough in responding totheir challenges and issues. However, his response to issues forthe Corinthians in this letter later became a battleground betweenwhat we now understand as Christians and Gnostics (veryinaccurately portrayed in Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code).

It seems some of the Corinthians believed that because they hadbeen baptized in the Holy Spirit and had received a variety ofspiritual gifts that their physical bodies and physical existencewere no longer needed, they had achieved resurrection into aspiritual body and the rest could be left behind (or at least itdid not matter what they did with it).

Paul presents a number of different reasons as to why this isnot the case. In many ways it mirrors the state of the kingdom ofGod. Christians understand that Jesus ushered in the kingdom of Godat Easter but it is not yet complete, that is still to come.

In a similar way, Paul says resurrection has begun through thework of the Holy Spirit creating a spiritual body but forresurrection to be complete physical bodies also need to be raised.Both spiritual and physical are needed.

This became a major battleground as the Church tried to preventa takeover bid by the Gnostics in the 2nd century. Gnosticsbelieved in secret knowledge (a common theme to a number of GnosticGospels is that the writer alone was told the secrets of Jesus).Contrary to The Da Vinci Code revision of history these weredebated and rejected by the wider Church, not just EmperorConstantine. The Gnostics believed that 'Christ' and the historicalJesus were two separate realities that united at Christ's Baptism.The 'Christ', they said, became united to the historical man Jesus.For them, the spiritual Christ, not the man, is the focus of Paul'stheology. Hence, they also believed that we need to becomespiritual beings and leave our bodies behind.

To Ponder

• Do you find the idea of having both a Spiritual and physicalbody helpful? Why? Or why not?

• In what ways might Paul's teaching about the need for bothphysical and spiritual bodies address beliefs in our society? (NewAge Spirituality? Hedonism?)