"How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?"

I’m big on Christian basics. I mean that I emphasize basics in my preaching and teaching because I have learned that one can never assume that professing Christians are set on them. It has been proven time and time again that one can never assume that just because a person has been a professing believer for years that they understand some of the most fundamental tenants of the Christian faith. I’ve learned that many Christians despite their many years in the church cannot define basic doctrines such as the fallen nature of man and our need for divine enablement in order to believe (human depravity), that God is Triune in nature, that Jesus was crucified not for being a “good teacher,” but for blasphemy in that he claimed to be the unique Son of God, that the Bible teaches that God “chose us in him before the foundation of the world” (Eph. 1:4) and there are other basics, but you get the point. Church leaders have been lamenting this fact for years, but in all honesty we are partly to blame.

On one occasion the physical resurrection of Jesus was the topic for our Wednesday Bible study. After hearing me say “physical” repeatedly a certain person spoke up and said, “But I do not know what you mean by physical. You keep saying that, but I do not know what you mean.” To their astonishment I told them that the post-resurrection Jesus invited his disciples to touch him so that they could determine for themselves that they were truly seeing the same Jesus that had been buried, but was now back from the dead. He needed them to be convinced that they were not seeing a “ghost” i.e. a spirit. They looked at me as if I were making this up and asked, “He really did that?” At that point we went to Luke 24:

36As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, "Peace to you!" 37But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. 38And he said to them, "Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39See 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." 40And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. 41And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, "Have you anything here to eat?" 42They gave him a piece of broiled fish, 43and he took it and ate before them (Luke 24:36-42).

The passage clearly indicates that the disciples “thought they saw a spirit,” (vs 37) but the point of the passage is to correct this false perception. This is the reason why Jesus invites them to examine him physically saying, “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" (vs 39) and thus why he also asked for something to eat so that he could further demonstrate his physicality (vs 43). This particular person at our Bible study was astonished and confessed that they had never known this. They’d always thought of Jesus as rising from the dead in ghostly fashion. They recognized that their view had been colored more by the popular notions of life after death that is rooted in Greek philosophy and not in Judeo-Christianity. This knowledge opened up a whole new understanding for them about what God has in store for those who love him. We’ll be physically raised from the dead and possess bodies just like Jesus’ glorified one. “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven” (1 Cor 15:49).