I was browsing old threads and found one with some strange ideas about Jesus’ Resurrection. I initially meant to revive the thread but after seeing someone posting there whom I know to be heterodox if not heretical I decided instead to start over.
Here are some of the statements with my comments; this first one is about the idea that Jesus could not be touched on Resurrection morning:
Then some that are related:
Both sets are strange ideas, and for one thing I’m wondering where they came from.
The real question is, why did Jesus say to Mary “Do not touch/cling to me for i have not yet ascended to the Father”?
The feast of Unleavened Bread which commenced with the Passover and was followed by Firstfruits/Wave Sheaf offering (Leviticus 23) in the
Old Testament Sanctuary Service explains why he said this to her.
Lev 23
9And the LORD said to Moses, 10“Speak to the Israelites and say, ‘When you enter the land that I am giving you and you reap its harvest, you are to bring to the priest a sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest. 11And he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD so that it may be accepted on your behalf; the priest is to wave it on the day after the Sabbath.
12On the day you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a year-old lamb without blemish as a burnt offering to the LORD,
Also we note that Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 5:7&8
7Get rid of the old leaven, that you may be a new unleavened batch, as you really are. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. 8Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old bread, leavened with malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and of truth.
IF we look at the chronology of Christs interractions with people on the Sunday:
John 2016Jesus said to her, “Mary.”
She turned and said to Him in Hebrew,c “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).
17“Do not cling to Me,” Jesus said, “for I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go and tell My brothers, ‘I am ascending to My Father and your Father, to My God and your God.’ ”
19It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them. 20After He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side.
26Eight days later, His disciples were once again inside with the doors locked, and Thomas was with them. Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”
27Then Jesus said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and look at My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Stop doubting and believe.”
So some time between Jesus statement to Mary and his later visits with the disciples he ascended to heaven to present Himself before God according to the Wave Sheaf offering.
Given we know from the Old Testament Sanctuary Servivce model that this wave sheaf offering was to be presented on the day after the Sabbath. This means that Christ presented the Wave Sheaf offering to the Father in heaven on the Sunday “AFTER” he said to Mary “dont touch/cling to me for i have not yet ascended the father”!
The important point is, the wave sheaf offering Christ presented to the Father could not be defiled by the touch of sinful human hands…hence His statement to Mary early on Sunday. Remember in the Levitical service, the High priest had to sanctify himself before engaging in the services associated with the passover…Mary obviously was not a high priest and only priests were allowed to perform this task according to the Old Testament Model (according to the book of Hebrews ch 4:14-16, Christ took on that role at this time)
Indeed the book of Hebrews explains Christs role in fulfilling the Old Testament Sanctuary Service and is well worth reading in parallel with Leviticus…it illustrates the theology of the Type/Antitype principle.
'This also leads to another false doctrine…that Christs statement on the cross “it is finished” refers to the keeping of the law and particularly the Seventh Day Sabbath. It does not mean that at all.
To keep this part of my response short…we know that it isnt finished simply because according to the propehcies in the books of Daniel and Revelation, the plan of salvation is not finished until:
Christs statement only refers to his atonement for sin…he has completed that task. I mean lets face it, we all still sin right, the world is still full of evil and, WE ARE ALL STILL HERE… so obviously the claim has a huge problem.
That’s some wild conjecture based on a questionable linkage.
I’ve never heard that before.
Not according to Paul; that was just one thing Jesus finished on the Cross. He also defeated death and Satan.
ST Roymond, not once in what you have written above do you refer to, or show any knowledge of, the Old Testament Sanctuary Service.
This suprises me, because unless you do have an understanding of the process of Sanctification from the Old Testament model, you do not have a clue what you are trying to refute. The straw plucked quotes, when read in context…agree. They are not a refutation (im not sure what you are doing there, but it makes no sense)
Im sorry but here you are demonstrating a severe deficiency in Old Testament theological studies.
Again, the reason why Christ told Mary not to touch/cling to Him was because of the need to fulfill the Wave Sheaf offering “on the day after the Sabbath”.
Before making unlearned confused attempts at rebuttal, please read about the Sanctuary Services in the book of Leviticus and develop an indepth understanding of what they mean and how they apply to Christs death and resurrection and the how the atonement principle is enacted by Christ.
You spend so much time harping on about translation issues and yet here you clearly do not understand the very principle/model that explains how the prophecy given to Eve in the garden of Eden, that Christ would one day die for us, actually works (O/T Sanctuary).
For one thing, you are straw plucking quotes thinking that you are refutting my claims…however, when read in context, the very quotes you straw pluck are in agreement!
You plucking out that Christ defeated death and sin…you do not understand that is why atonement must be made. Romans 6:23 tells us, “the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal life through Christ our Lord”…so an atonement must be made. Christ substituted Himself for us by making that atonement dying on the cross. That is how this works, that is the point!
This is where those who refuse to accept that Adam and Eve’s sin in the garden had physcial consequences get this all wrong. Christ died physcially on the cross, was physcially raised, physcially ascended into heaven, and will return physcially at the second coming, and the saved will be physcially raised and return to heaven with Him. It is my belief that Christs own resurrection and ascention demonstrate that at the second coming, we will also get new physcial bodies (remember no one recognised Christ initially after he was raised from the dead)
The Bible in my mother language translates it as the English word “touch” —> “Do not touch Me”. But I don’t know the answer from the Christian in my country (no forum) if somebody ask: “Why Mary is not allowed to touch Jesus?”.
If the answer: it is because …
I think the answer is strange.
It’s just something like saying to a blind man “don’t stare at me”.
However if the English word should be “cling”, then the word in my mother language should not use “touch” (in English word), because we have another word for “cling”.
So the situation is something like this (not a verse):
Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned, then hurriedly sat on the floor, hugging Jesus’ feet, and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” Jesus said to her, “Do not cling to me too long for I need to ascend to the Father. Just go to my brothers…".
Just my own imagination if the word is “cling”.
of course your statement there has a problem, do you actually believe that Christ ascended to heaven on the Sunday morning after He appeared to Mary, and the made it back again by evening to appear to the disciples on the road?
Also, if Christ did ascend into heaven after meeting Mary, WHY?
that is the reason for my own post pointing out the purpose of the Wave Sheaf offering in the Old Testament Sanctuary Service. This offering prophesied that Christ would ascend into Heaven on the Sunday morning to present Himself before the Father (just as the Priest did with the Wave Sheaf offering on the Sunday morning).
food for thought!
It’s fulfilled, no longer important.
I don’t need to refer to it; Paul’s statements about Christ are sufficient. That you say Christ only atoned for sin but Paul says He died to defeat death and Satan is more than sufficient refutation.
LOL
You refuse to even study the scripture as God gave it; I at least can read Hebrew, understand the ancient culture the Hebrews lived within, and recognize a few of the basic literary types.
Your approach puts Jesus as lesser than Temple ceremonies, which is backwards: He does not have to “conform” to them because they are all based on Him.
And they no longer have a hold on anyone at this point: at the Lord’s Supper, the first Eucharist, Jesus established the New Covenant, using the language from the establishment of the former covenant, "this is the blood of the covenant’, save that He indicates that this is a new covenant when He says “My blood”.
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second.
We know that the Father’s will for the Son was finished at the Cross, thus the “sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” were done away with as the inspired writer says. The “wave sheath offering” is an offering, and thus was included in what was “done away with”.
Then when He shed His blood on the Cross, that was the final offering; the New Covenant reigned and the Old was put back on the shelf. There was no need to offer Himself in the Temple; the Father had already declared Him a priest of an order superior to any in the Temple, and He was/is greater than the Temple, so He was already in fulfillment of everything.
And yes, that includes the Old Testament Law.
I understand that Christ was greater than the Temple even before the Crucifixion, and was already a priest superior to any in the Temple, so the sanctuary service was irrelevant.
Keep telling lies about us . . . .
Why do you insist on making claims that have been shown to be false? Even if Adam and Eve never existed Christ had to die physically since that is how blood is shed, and as it is written, without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sin.
There is no reason why everything has to be physical, or allegorical come to that. The Bible is not about all or nothing…
How else could God demonstrate resurrection? He could not show us a form that is not physical. Jesus’ resurrection is a demonstration of God’s power over death. it does not have to be an indication of what the continuance will be. I, for one, do not want to spend eternity Eating, sleeping and sitting on a toilet.
Richard
Yeah, that’s kind of a no-brainer; back then “resurrection” with reference to a person meant the body “standing up” again, alive.
Though even some rabbis speculated that there were two kinds of resurrection, a lesser and a greater; lesser would be what Lazarus experienced, being raised yet still going to die again, the greater what Jesus did, the body being transformed into something that will never die.
I’ll take eating if I can skip the last one, and definitely want to be able to take naps.
For me, Heaven is to be with God. Nothing more, nothing less. Physicality would be an unwanted distraction and besides, God is not known for His physical form.(Jesus excepted)
Richard
Omg
To keep this simple…
Christs destiny was to “save His people from their sins” (you should be familiar with that text)
Romans 6.23 say, “the wages of sin is death”
The Old Testament Sanctuary Service is an explaination and model of exactly how salvation works…thats the whole ideaof the sacrifical system…it was never intended that we keep sacrificing sheep and goats, they dont save us from anything.
OT sacrifices were the type, Christs death the antitype.
Your statement is as absurd as a teacher instructing students, then the students throwing out the very instruction they were given once school is completed because the teacher says, its finished you can go home now!
Christ lived by the law and he died to fulfill the wages of sin! Unless you accept this, you cannot understand the gospel and are lost…its that simple. The crucifixion was a literal physical death to pay the physical wages of sin. The cross isnt the final part in the salvstion process…
Salvation is not complete yet because we are still here on this planet. Earth is still full of sin, pain, suffering and death!
So if its fulfilled/finished, why are we still here?(rhetorical question btw)
Finally, show me the bible proofs that we are to no longer follow the law of Moses…the 10 commandments. While you are contemplating an aswer for that, tell us… what was it Christ said? Was it not “love God” (first 4 commandments) and “love your neighbour as yourself” (last 6 commandments) Mark 12:30,31?
You are obsessed. You make things more complicated than they are.
It is blindingly simple.
Humannity is imperfect. God knows this. So, how to rectify the imbalance?
forgiveness is not about eternity, or even salvation. It is balancing the books.
Any imperfection should separate us from God, and for those that care (let’s admit it many don’t) it caused an impossible conundrum. We cannot be perfect without God’s help.
So God provided the solution.
It is nothing more than that.
You can live in the knowledge that God does not hold your imperfections against you. You can make mistakes. You can live! without worry or guilt. So stop worrying about eternity and live!
This life is not a trial or rite of passage. it is to be lived.
Otherwise Christ’s death and suffering are for nothing.
Richard
How can being what we were intended to be make “a distraction”?
Jesus is human, and being human means having a material body. His being the Image of God validates our being images of God; being material is not only not contrary to that image but is part of it.
You do not understand the Gospel: when Jesus declared “It is finished!” He wasn’t talking about His hours on the Cross (there’s a better verb for that), He was talking about everything He came to do. This is why a perfectly good answer to the question “When were you saved?” is “On Good Friday outside Jerusalem”. With the completion of His life’s work on the Cross, salvation was accomplished, redemption was accomplished, atonement was accomplished.
I’ve shown you a number of times before. You respond by taking scripture out of context and making it say something that just isn’t in the text.
But I’ll inform you again:
For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: that you abstain from what has been sacrificed to idols, and from blood, and from what has been strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well. Farewell.
That’s it. The context is clear that this means “the law of Moses” because that is what the text says. And since this “seemed good to the Holy Spirit” then opposing it means opposing the Spirit.
Putting human theology into the mouth of Christ is a great way to go astray. You are insisting that something which the Apostle declares cannot save, saying that in Christ’s death God did what the Law could not do, is what we must do.
As he wrote:
For if a law had been given that could give life…
indicating that the Law cannot give life.
You also make Paul a liar, since he wrote:
Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made . . . .
That offspring is Christ, and He has come, and thus the law is no longer of any effect, as he also wrote:
… Therefore the Law has become our guardian to lead us to Christ, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian…
We are not under the guardian, which was the Law! But you would have us back under the guardian – which is to deny Christ.
Intended for when?
Jesus can only be in one place at one time when in human form. I cannot be permanently with such a form. I would have to share Him with millions. That is not Heaven.
In practical terms, let alone theological, was Jesus In human form? He had to be the same as us. That does not prove anything about the form of God… We like to think of ourselves as on God’s image, but that is just human vanity.
Our “image of God” is our place in the physical world where we are His hands and feet. It has nothing to do with what we look like.
Vanity, vanity…
Richard
Now understand what He meant.
Love encompasses the Law. If you Love both God and your neighbour (basically everybody) you cannot break the Law. Laws can be broken, or stretched, or even justifiably ignored, love cannot. It is a principle. It has no limits. It needs no clarification. It is. Love both encompasses and exceeds the law of Moses.
Richard
He also makes a serious error: the Mosaic Law sanctuary service is not about how, it is about who, and the who is Christ. It was so to help the Jews recognize Christ. This theology is totally backwards: Jesus is not the Lamb of God in order to fit something in the sanctuary service, the sanctuary service is the way it is in order to fit Christ!
That’s a bit overstated. Forgiveness is not the whole “package”; one could be forgiven but remain forever in the grave – but one cannot have salvation without forgiveness; the books must be “balanced” before we can be healed, because those books are not just a legal fiction but a representation of a deeer reality.
As Jesus put it:
Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
We don’t need the Law, or the sanctuary service, to know that we are weary and/or burdened!
Indeed, in fact He comes to share them!:
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart…
This isn’t about casting off our burdens; when two are yoked together, both share the burdens of each, thus Christ shares our burdens an teaches us.
Amen! As the prophet said, we no longer need any Law, because He has written the Law on our hearts, and more: He has given us His Spirit!
An old saying is true, “Love God and do as you please”; as it is often explained, if you love God then what He pleases will transform what you please into what pleases Him.
True – and returning to the Law of Moses makes Christ’s death and suffering and death for nothing.
Sounds like some selfishness there.
And I wouldn’t be so sure about the geometry of Heaven!
Not just in form, but in truth: the Word became flesh. That flesh has become an integral part of Who He is.
I guess Heaven is selfish. It is very easy to make Christianity all about self. I am alright Jack!
Actually I am pretty confident about the Geometry of Heaven, It is very simple. We are with God. The dynamics are not important. Whether we are basking, or singing praises or whatever. God is there and we (I) am happy. Hell is to be separated from God, having known what it is we are missing.
Richard
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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