I. 2) it is stated that the bodies of the dead shall be raised exactly as they were when committed to the ground. After this has been done for purposes of recognition by friends, a glorious change will take place : ' they shall be made like unto the angels, and be made equal to the stars, and they shall be changed into every form they desire from beauty into loveliness, and from light into the splendour of glory' (li. 10; cf. the more spiritual ideas prominent in Enoch, e.g. 1. 4, civ. 4, 6, cviii.
II, etc.). The changed body is still, however, described largely in sensuous physical terms, while
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RESURRECTION OE CHRIST 347
liere, in tlie case of the Risen Christ, was a bodj' so spiritualized that they thou;;ht it was a spirit. On the otlier liand, tlie Alexandrian tireel< concep- tion was tliat of emancipation from the body and continued existence as pure spirit. But, besides the fact that the tomb was empty, liere was a body which could be not only seen but touched and felt, and presented evi<lent marks of identity with the body of earth. ' Feel me and see, a s)iirit hath not tlesh and bones.' The marvel of the records is the perfect simplicity, the perfect naturalness with which tlie two sets of characteristics are combined in the same narratives, ' as if those who put the facts together were conscious of no ditliculty in the a])parent contradiction' (Westeott, Gu.ipcl of the licsurrertiini, p. ix). If we take one series of events, the Resurrection might appear to liave been a mere coming back to life ; if we take another, it might appear to be purely spiritual or spiritual- istic. But the records combine both, and thus differentiate the apostolic representation of the resurrection of Jesus from the two current concep- tions— from the sensuous conception of it held by the Pharisees, and from the spiritualistic concep- tion of the Alexandrian or Greek philosophers.
Such a representation had no precedent, and can be explained only by the new revelation conveyed to the disciples through the appearances and inter- course of the Risen Christ, as recorded for us in the narratives. Through these appearances and self-manifestations Christ sought to impress on His disciples, on the one hand, the identity of the Risen with the Crucified Jesus, and on tlie other, that His resurrection was not a mere restoration to life but a triumph of His whole personality over death and His entrance on a new and higher mode of existence. So Jesus ottered Himself to the senses of the disciples, even to their touch and handling, if this were needed to convince them of His identity — even, it may be, to the eating of bread, if only so the feeling that He was a phantasm or apparition could be removed. But when this was attained, when doubt of His identity was removed and the disciples thought to resume the old familiar intercourse. He manifested the charac- teristics of a more spiritual form of existence, and they learned the truth, that the Resurrection was the entrance on a new order of life and a higher kind of fellowship. So the Ascension is represented in the Gospel narratives as the natural and neces- sary sequel of the Resurrection. The visible lifting from the earth marked the close of the visible in- tercourse and the beginning of the more spiritual for which the disciples were gradually prepared by the teaching of the forty days ( Jn 20" ; cf. Lk 24^", Ac 1", Jn 14-16) (see Denney, art. 'Ascension,' UDB i. 161). The contention (e.g. Newman Smyth, Old Faiths in New Light, London, n.d., p. 156 f.) that the body of Jesus during the forty days underwent a gradual process of spiritualiza- tion or glorification, a ' process of resurrection,' which was consummated in the Ascension does not seem to be supported by the narratives. On the very day of His resurrection the spirituality of His risen body was as manifest as in the case of the appearance by the Sea of Tiberias (cf. Lk 243i. 36^ Jn 21'"f- ; see Forrest, Christ of Hist, and of Exper.'', p. 411 f.).
With the essential nature of the Resurrection- Body the Evangelists were not concerned. But from the temporary manifestations of the Risen Body during the forty days there were two things, either of wliich they might have thought it to be, which they came to know it was not. It was not simply the old earthly body resumed, and it was not a mere phantasmal existence. And one thing they knew it was — it was a body no longer subject to physical limitations and restrictions, but com- pletely under the control of the spiritual nature
or will, so under control that it could manifest itself in such material form or forms, if this were neces.sary, for evidential ]iUiposes. Already dur- ing the earthly ministry there were, according to the Gospels, ])reglimpses of this control of body by spirit. Two of the best attested incidents in the narratives — His walking on the sea and the Transliguration — are instances in point. The chief signiliiaiice of the Transfiguration has been found by scjiue to consist just in this, that it was meant to piejiare the disciples for the Resurrection and for the appearance of the Risen Jesus in glori- fied form (see, e.g., H. A. A. Kennedy in JThSt iv. [1903] 270 If.).