Wednesday, March 20, 2019

Flesh and Blood Still Matter


Both Adam and Christ are real flesh and blood. God deals with you bodily and there will be a resurrection of the body. The Holy Spirit, together with the Father and Christ Jesus (for they are One), sanctifies body and soul, visible and invisible.

There is no need to create some kind of dichotomy between the two (or three as some would state it, body, soul, and spirit). God is, and deals with, all of it out of love because He is and always will be love. Sacrificial love. Love with true and real flesh and blood.

If the flesh were inherently bad, then why was it created in the first place, and why did Christ Himself take it upon Himself to suffer and die in the flesh for our sins? How is the forgiveness of sin and righteousness of Christ going to be delivered into our bodies without bodily hearing, washing, and yes, eating?

The lives we are given to live in Christ are lived with our bodies as well, for they are now given to love and serve our neighbor, not merely with spiritual thoughts, but in deeds done with our bodies of flesh and blood.

No, it is not the act of eating the body of Christ that makes us righteous. His life and body have been given up for us, raised up for us, and are now delivered to us both by hearing, by washing of baptism, and by supper, each of which have been specifically established to strengthen and encourage you who walk in the valley of the shadow of death. His disciples are not only cordially invited, but urged to receive these gifts.

God does not deal with us in flim-flam, think-it-up, self-help ways. Never has. Never will. He deals with us by making known His mercies from of old and delivering them wholly and completely into our entire being.

The Kingdom of heaven is often described as a feast. But you, like the disciples take offense at what Christ says of Himself, His flesh, His body.

“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.”

“Jesus said to them, ‘Come and have breakfast.’ None of the disciples ventured to question Him, ‘Who are You?’ knowing that it was the Lord. Jesus came and took the bread and gave it to them, and the fish likewise. This is now the third time that Jesus was manifested to the disciples, after He was raised from the dead.”


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