Hello everyone and welcome back to Deeper Waters where we are diving into the ocean of truth! We’ve been looking lately at the doctrine of the resurrection. We established some historical bedrock upon which we can say the resurrection is true. Now, we’ve been going through the rest of 1 Corinthians 15 to see what else we can learn about the resurrection. Tonight, we’re going to look at the topic of flesh and blood.
When we get to verse 50, we are told that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. What does Paul mean by this?
There are other times this phrase is used. Let’s look at the text.
Matthew 16:17
And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
Ephesians 6:12
For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.
Hebrews 2:14
Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,
The first reference would be to contrasting heavenly revelation from earthly revelation. The source of the truth of what Peter believes is not man but God. Of course, we cannot say “You cannot be man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” It would fit in just fine in contrasting an earthly nature with a heavenly one.
The same could go for the Ephesians passage. Our war is not on Earth per se but with heavenly powers. The evils of the world may be represented by those on Earth, but they are not those on Earth. Again, we can say that flesh and blood refers to something of an earthly nature. Of course, we could contrast that what we fight is not of a heavenly nature, but of a hellish one, which would be a fallen heavenly nature.
In the last one, we find that Jesus took on flesh and blood to be like his brothers. It is implied that in doing so, he destroyed the power of death by taking on death. Only one of an earthly nature could die. Again, the idea that we have seen throughout 1 Corinthians 15 fits in.
Repeatedly, we see two different types playing against each other and this is found in the contrast between Adam and Jesus. Adam was earthly and Jesus is heavenly. It is not talking about their make-up but rather where their source of energy is from. The earthly man is from the Earth and desires the things of the Earth. The heavenly man is from the heavens and desires the things of the Heavens.
Thus, there is a strong case against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and others that this passage teachings that we must be immaterial. In fact, we’ve seen throughout our study that nothing there teaches immateriality and better fits with the idea of physicality, such as was the case with Christ’s own physical body.
So what difference does this make?
We’ll see tomorrow.
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