Christ was the first to be truly resurrected from the dead, rather than “merely” being brought back to life.
His body was changed and, as a result, the tomb was left empty. Christ’s physical, fully Human, dead body was changed and He left the tomb.
Yet the rest of us are to follow despite approximately 1500 people sinking to the bottom of the ocean when the Titanic sank, their very bones disintegrating and spreading to the four corners of the Earth on sea currents… Their physical, fully Human, dead bodies are to be brought back together and changed in the same manner, rather than God simply creating for them a new body?
God would rather, despite it still being a trivial act to Him, sift through the entirety of the dusts of the Earth for the EXACT particles that used to be you? Even if you were cremated and your loved ones cast your dust into the wind atop a high mountain?
Would it not make more sense for Jesus’ Human body to be left where it was, and Him inhabiting a new, glorified body? Rather than “recycling” the old?
You bring up a good question. It gets even more complicated in that the particles that used to be you are no doubt recycled into other people. And perhaps more complicated than than even, in that the your body constantly is turning over the very molecules that make you up, so that the particles that you were a few years ago are no longer the particles you are now, and they will not be the particles you are when you die. So, what does it mean when Jesus’s body was gone when the tomb was found open? I think we have to try to see it through the eyes of the those there, rather than making it conform to our scientific ideas of atoms and molecules. The concept of body and soul being separate was not around at that time, so to be raised in the spirit also meant being raised bodily. Not that that doesn’t raise other questions, from our viewpoint.
The use of the old to create the new is baffling. And seems to be against His teachings with the wine skin. But I do also wonder how we’ll be us, rather than a clone anyway. I don’t actually believe we “have” a soul, but rather “are” a soul when body and life come together. My belief in a separate soul-ghost within us was destroyed when I was attempting to make sense of dementia and brain damage.
I guess I am of the current opinion that He did it for effect. To show Thomas His wounds, to make the women at the tomb realize something happened. And of course to avoid having to appear to every Roman and Jew who would simply parade the body around on a stick for all to see…
After all, those who are alive when He returns are going to be changed, instantly, while they live in their physical bodies.
I suppose I answered my own question then. But I do enjoy views from others. I question my faith EVERY day and this forum can only help get me back on track.