Abstract
Recently, there have been shifts in response to Christ’s resurrection. One of these shifts has to do with human validation of the reality of the total tangibility or the physical body of Christ after his resurrection. This shift brought motivations in scholarship that relate to the use of human five sense organs to establish the veracity of apostolic claim of Jesus’ resurrection. To establish the ground adduced on whether the post-resurrected body of Jesus was a real human body or that of a ghost, the paper employs the use of the five sense organs to validate the claim of the apostles, church fathers, Medieval, and Reformation thinkers. The questions this paper address are, how has the five sense organs of touch, smell, hearing, sight, and feel validated the tangibility of Jesus’ material body? Was Jesus’ resurrection real, or it was just an ancient fictional imagination by Jewish philosophers? The objective of this study is to unveil how important the human five sense organs contributed in validating the tangibility of Jesus after the resurrection. Significantly, the study seeks to establish the certainty of the event that has brought a huge suspicious challenge to both ordinary and critical thinkers on its tangibility. The quest for confirmation and validation, if explained vividly could serve as a verifier of Jesus’ resurrection, and provide a credible explanation on the reality of the resurrection that began with the apostles. To this end, a historical and theological methodology is employed to determine the truth and significance of Christ's resurrection. This study demonstrates and contributes to the ongoing discussion not only on the fact of the resurrection but also on the tangibility of Jesus’ physical appearance beyond the suspicious appearance of a deceased ghost in human history. Furthermore, the study provides vital and legitimate reasons for contemporary Christians to adhere to their long-held belief in line with biblical and theological tenets.
2. Human Five Sense Organs Validate Jesus’ Resurrection
Biblical narrative presents the accounts of Jesus’ involvement with human beings to validate his physical appearance, using their five sense organs to ascertain the certainty or the reality of his post-resurrection life. The Gospel writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul in his epistles provide details descriptive analyses of the key accounts of Jesus’ post-resurrection life. Of the four Gospel writers, John F. Hart
believes John to be more detailed than the others. Thus, he says, "John's account of the resurrection is the most extensive of the four Gospels, with the specific details of the empty tomb.” This, however, does not negate the fact of the validity of the other accounts, but it places more emphasis on the emptiness of the tomb, which brought about the specious appearance of a ghost. This raises the concern of how human beings validate the resurrection of Christ Jesus as a tangible person? This concern begins with the central idea presented around the Thomistic approach that doubted the resurrection of Christ, which in turn raises the voice for the need to validate the resurrection that has been entrenched and indicated in the absence of Thomas, while other disciples were in a closed-door meeting. Of course, it should be established from this point that Thomas was not alone in doubting the resurrection. Hence, Mark reports, “While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in your minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have,” (Mark 24: 36-39, NIV). While Jesus himself wards off the doubt of the other apostles in the absence of Thomas, on arrival, Thomas was confronted with the fact of the resurrection, while Jesus was not physically present with them. In response, John reports, “Now, Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my hand into his side, I will not believe. A week later, his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ Then he said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe (John 20: 24-27, NIV).
Jesus’ response to Thomas invariably involved the five sense organs. To this end, we make a construct thus;
1) Encompass your finger here and see-seeing generate belief (John 20: 29).
2) Seeing provides a template for teaching and bearing lasting witness (2 Peter 1: 16; 1 John 1: 1).
3) Extend your hand- John repost this as a pattern of affirmation (1 John 1: 1).
4) Place it on my side, and
5) ‘Do not remain unbelieving but believing (John 20: 25-26).
All this resonates with the episode on the road to Emmaus and at the table (Luke 24: 13-35). We could argue from the Johannine and Lucan narratives of Jesus’s post-resurrection that Thomas was cleared from every form of doubt, and we could equally surmise that all the disciples doubted likewise. However, that of Thomas as a key to the first step for human beings’ using their human five sense organs to validate the tangibility of Jesus’ resurrected body and Jesus’ invitation to him for authentic validation of his embodiment manifestation as a person further attests to this conclusion. In line with this, Edward Wong
presents the three elements that involve all five human sense organs when analysing John. He states, "The appearance, multisensory, and testimony to Jesus’s reoriented woundedness.” This, however, strengthens the fact that the presence of Christ at the gathering where Thomas was present was an essential element of the reality of Christ's physical manifestation. Israel Munoz Gallarte
| [3] | Aquinas, Thomas. The passion of Christ’s Soul in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas: Scranton. PA University of Scranton Press, 2009. |
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comments on Christ’s invitation to Thomas. He notes articulately, “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Mark 24: 36-39, NIV); affirms the nature of the ghost in Greek and Palestinian society that the ghost could not initiate speech. This suggested certainty of the non-ability of the ghost to take both flesh and bones in ancient Greek. This, therefore, validates and proves the palpability of the convincing fact of the resurrection of Christ from the tomb.
Of course, the ghost in the Human cultural belief system is an ancient tradition that has been connected with history, past which has been attached to the experience of deceased relatives, both within the Jewish world and non-Jewish as well. These far-reaching histories that were attributed to the present appearances of the ghost of one of the members of the family or even more, is as old as human existence. Usually, the ghost takes the form of a deceased person to speak about an important subject. For example, Ian James Kidd
| [4] | Boersma, Hans. The real presence of hope and love: Christocentric legacy of Poe Benedict xvi; Claritas: Journalofdialogueandculture, books and culture https://wwwbooksandculture.com 2017. |
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highlights a significant variation of their appearances in Chinese beliefs, whereby he aptly states, “Ancient Chinese recognised various kinds of spirits or ghosts (Gui) Kidd
| [4] | Boersma, Hans. The real presence of hope and love: Christocentric legacy of Poe Benedict xvi; Claritas: Journalofdialogueandculture, books and culture https://wwwbooksandculture.com 2017. |
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further adopts Mozi grouping that categorised them into three parts: “The ghost of heaven, the ghost of mountains and rivers, and the ghost of men who have died.” Kidd
| [4] | Boersma, Hans. The real presence of hope and love: Christocentric legacy of Poe Benedict xvi; Claritas: Journalofdialogueandculture, books and culture https://wwwbooksandculture.com 2017. |
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remarks bluntly, “Some (ghosts—emphasis ours) were friendly to humans, while others were hostile, some took the form of humans or animals, others formless. Such beliefs run through Chinese history, Religion, and literature.”
James’ assertion affirmed three key areas about the ghost: its existence, the various forms it takes, and how it affects human beings. The implication of these beliefs has been in the form that the ghost usually takes, which has to do with physical body appearance. This explains why it became a crucial subject for theological reflection due to the attributive mindset that has been connected to the ancient worldview on the presence of ghosts. In the Jewish context, Rachel Elior
in her effort to unpin the ghost as the spirit of the dead, particularly from a historical point of view, echoes, “It refers to psychological states in which one experiences the entrance of a deceased’s spirit into the body.” These spirits, in the estimate of N. T. Wright
| [6] | Collins O. Gerald. Saint Augustine of Hippo on Resurrection of Christ. Teaching Rhetoric and Reception. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000. |
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, “Are considered to be the spirits of those who could not get access to paradise, or even hell.’’
The ghost's conceptual existence is one of the major phenomena and major anthropological oral traditions that have been in existence, and this belief became a central and fundamental heritage that have been passed throughout all generations in almost all cultures. Against this background, Rebecca Scharbach
| [7] | Dami, Caleb Danjuma. The Resurrection of Christ in Calvin’s theology and its implications to the Church in Africa. Pharos Journal of Theology ISSN 2414-3324 online Volume 101 www.pharosjot.co (2020) 3. Retrieved 22/2025: 3:00 am. |
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and Gallarte
| [3] | Aquinas, Thomas. The passion of Christ’s Soul in the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas: Scranton. PA University of Scranton Press, 2009. |
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, in separate essays, painted this fact that “Ancient history has a lot in regards to the historical beliefs on the existence of ghosts.” In traditional African belief and worldview, belief in the existence of ghosts is a well-known belief. All African traditions argue, Crispinous Iteyo
| [8] | Elior, Rachel. Dybbuk and Jewish Women in Social History, Mysticism and Folklore: Urim Publications Jerusalem 2008. |
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, “Believe in the existence of ghosts and portray the soul of the deceased as being able to move into another body and keep using it.” Wong
corroborates, “Spiritual entities take or separate themselves from their existing bodies.”
From the foregoing views, this paper argues that the belief in the ghost's appearance after a loved one dies is a non-questionable and non-contested fact in history. Therefore, it will not be totally out of place to contend that this belief may pose some potential threat to the genuineness of the physical body appearance of Jesus after his resurrection.
3. Divergent Views on Jesus’ Tangibility in Post-resurrection Theology
The recent approach in scholarly discourse lies in the tangibility of Jesus’ post-resurrected body. Most recent researchers have become sceptical about Christ's tangibility after the resurrection and have even become more aggressive and vicious in their tactics than it was in earlier centuries. Wright's
| [6] | Collins O. Gerald. Saint Augustine of Hippo on Resurrection of Christ. Teaching Rhetoric and Reception. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2000. |
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attestation is right when he says, “This is why the bodily resurrection of Jesus matters. Because generations of liberal theologians have tried to play it down or deny it altogether as though it was an early superstition, which we can now do without with all its entrenched and forceful approaches.”
The point here is that the foundation on which the liberals lay their building was faulty, therefore, Wright draws our attention to the unavoidable reality of historical beliefs on the bodily resurrection of Christ, devoid of the parading style of the arguments, with all its various phases. This current departure is more and more emanating now than from its historical past. Given this trend, the concurrent further departure from the past commonly held view on what was considered to be vital has now gone into a complete annulment due to the inconsistent approach to the biblical and theological definition of how belief is attached to human sense organs. This, however, can be attributed generally to the liberals becoming more sceptical of the certainty of the tangibility or the post-resurrection body of Christ in this age. This is basically because, the anti-resurrection was enthused and reinforced by the arguments against the tangibility of Christ’s resurrection. It is natural then, that recent theological reflection on Christ's post-resurrection tangible body should encounter some contradictory approaches; and the main focus of these differing arguments is whether or not the event of Christ's resurrection was original. Of course, these two contradictory views had ancient historical backgrounds. To understand why the tangibility of Christ’s post-resurrection body is unquestionably necessary, Harold Wilmington
| [9] | Gallarte, Israel Munoz. Luke 24: Reconsidered the Figure of the Ghost in Post-Classical Greek Literature’ in Journal for the Study of New Testament: University of Cordoba, Spain, American Theological Library 2017. |
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in one of his articles provide a substantial contribution to this. He views some scholars who completely denied the resurrection event as offering a negative paradigm shift. Hence, he offers a range of opinions, such as those of Dan Story and Ron Rhodes (Wilmington
| [9] | Gallarte, Israel Munoz. Luke 24: Reconsidered the Figure of the Ghost in Post-Classical Greek Literature’ in Journal for the Study of New Testament: University of Cordoba, Spain, American Theological Library 2017. |
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), who declared that the resurrection was not credible because it was highly likely that those who claimed to have visited the empty tomb as eye witnesses of the resurrection, particularly the women, John, Peter, and the other Jews, ended up visiting the wrong tomb. Doubtless, this view completely denied the credibility of Christ's resurrection. Another position pointed by Wilmington
| [9] | Gallarte, Israel Munoz. Luke 24: Reconsidered the Figure of the Ghost in Post-Classical Greek Literature’ in Journal for the Study of New Testament: University of Cordoba, Spain, American Theological Library 2017. |
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in this direction is the fraud theory, which also argues that Jesus was only a self-acclaimed resurrected Messiah, a man who only deceived his disciples about his resurrection. Furthermore, he (Wilmington
| [9] | Gallarte, Israel Munoz. Luke 24: Reconsidered the Figure of the Ghost in Post-Classical Greek Literature’ in Journal for the Study of New Testament: University of Cordoba, Spain, American Theological Library 2017. |
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), portrays another prominent view of Schonfield who argued that “Jesus conspired with Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, and an anonymous young man to convince His disciples that He was the Messiah. He allegedly manipulated events to make it appear that He was the fulfillment of the numerous prophecies.” Additionally, Wilmington
| [9] | Gallarte, Israel Munoz. Luke 24: Reconsidered the Figure of the Ghost in Post-Classical Greek Literature’ in Journal for the Study of New Testament: University of Cordoba, Spain, American Theological Library 2017. |
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painted how Schonfield staunchly maintained regarding the resurrection that Jesus allegedly took some drugs and feigned death, but was revived later.
Other theories postulated that Jesus either resurrected in the hearts of his followers, or it was a visionary or imagined resurrection. Thus, Wilmington
| [9] | Gallarte, Israel Munoz. Luke 24: Reconsidered the Figure of the Ghost in Post-Classical Greek Literature’ in Journal for the Study of New Testament: University of Cordoba, Spain, American Theological Library 2017. |
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wrote, “The Swoon's theory completely denied the death of Christ but assumed he fainted and later claimed he was resurrected.” This presentation, which tends to make the Christian faith an empty mirage instead of becoming tangible, thereby besmirching the historical understanding of the presence of God through Christ, further validates the resurrection. As this study believes, the crucifixion wounds could not be denied, and this further necessitates the study by contributing to traditional orthodoxy against the existing heterodox perspectives.
4. The Tangibility of Jesus’ Body in Recent Hermeneutic Approach
The tangible bodily presence of Christ at his resurrection has been questionable due to possible hermeneutical variation among theological scholars, and this equipoise textual presentation or its disparity served as the foundation for these ill-emancipative interpretative variations. The attempts to simultaneously arrive at a biblically plausible understanding of the reality of the bodily presence that has historically proven challenging have now generated another grotesque approach. Why it is perceived as a great challenge is due largely to the fact that it tends to destroy the pillar of the Christian faith. Hence, the bodily presence of Christ after the resurrection and his tangible presence as a person echo what we consider the hub that holds the Christian faith firmly. When Hans Boersma
| [10] | Hart, John F. Gospels of John: in the Moody Bible commentary: A One—Volume Commentary on the whole Bible edited by, Michael Rydelnik and Michael Vanlaningham: Moo Publishers, Chicago 2014. |
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states that "The Christian hope is not an empty mirage; instead, it is a hope that comes from the presence of God that has entered history and that people can touch," he is no doubt correct according to a seamless view. For Boersma, as for every orthodox evangelical, without the mirror of the resurrection of Jesus, as a tangible person, the Christian hope is just a hallucination that cannot be reckoned with. No one sees how disastrous such an unverifiable claim could be more than Paul. To that end, he could write that Christians would be the most disgraceful and pathetic people in the world if it were not for the resurrection (1 Cor 15). It is no surprise that Joseph Ratzinger
argues, “The resurrection is the hope and truth that is made and concretely present to humanity in history through love in Christ.” Ratzinger shaped and focused the Christians’ hope toward the ancient historical question that drives attention to the historical Jesus in trying to unravel the reality of the existentially and tangibly present of the resurrected Christ. His view, therefore, created no room for doubt; rather, it confirms the fact of the Christian truth claim. This ongoing question of the tangibility of Jesus affected both the proponent for His tangible bodily presence as not a ghost and the liberation approach to it, that argued against His tangible appearance this also informed the liberal’s scientific empirical metaphysical approach to the study, that encompasses a metaphysical approach to the reality of things which only assume one can only believe on the existence of something through the use of human five sense organs which without such existence become unreliable. This after-matter approach to the traditional orthodoxy on the tangibility of Jesus’s resurrection calls for a rethinking of the historical proof of Jesus Christ's presence in the bodily form for the reaffirmation of Christians’ faith.
4.1. The Proof for the Tangibility of Christ's Body
In this section, we argue against the theological construct and framework that presents Christ as only a ghost after the post-resurrection event. Against the misleading question on the credibility of Jesus’ resurrection, we offer a Bible-based position. The frame that tends to distort the biblical data, we believe, is rooted in the primeval mythical, historical, and theological constructions on the presence of ghosts in the bodily presence of the deceased in human belief systems, which critically challenges the argument on Christ's physical presence after his resurrection. This postulate, we believe, needs to be re-examined from a neutral frame. On this note, our argument is driven by three basic historical approaches: biblical, theological, and patristic history to validate the historical affirmation of the bodily resurrection of Christ.
4.2. Jesus’ Resurrection Body Is Not a Disembodied but a Personality: A Biblical Validation
On the beach while attending breakfast, eating, and interacting with His disciples indicated His ability with the physical world; and nature itself attests to the physical resurrection (John 21: 9-14; Luke 24). Interfacing with His disciples to come and eat with Him entails the reality of his physical or fleshly visibility.
Within the validatory evidence of the bodily presence of Christ, there were a couple of witnesses who served as the validatory pieces of evidence, as those who had all five human senses and validated the resurrected Christ. Both Luke and John, in their respective theological indexes, reported that. However, this is not without a level of variation in their reports. As Robert H. Stein
accelerates and says, “In Luke’s accounts, the events surrounding the resurrection all occurred on the same day, and all of them in or around Jerusalem.” What Stein elucidates and points toward various theological views and measurements of the authenticity of the resurrection. Ronald V. Huggins and Bart Ehrman
| [13] | Iteyo, Crispinous. Beliefs in the Spirits of the Death in Africa: A Philosophical interpretation; In a Thought and Practice: A Journal of the Philosophical Association of Kenya. PAK: Premier Issue, New Series, Vol. 1 No. 1, June 2009. |
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, on the other hand, raised an explicit question on how to harmonize Luke's report. He reports, “They stayed in Jerusalem and they saw Jesus there, whereas Matthew explicitly says they did not stay in Jerusalem but they went to Galilee and saw him there.” Of the other apostles, John provided a more detailed one-day events. The first internal eyes-witnesses of Jesus' resurrection in Luke’s account, were Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John, who had all complete senses to witness the events. In contrast to fraud theories that denied even the certainty of the physical appearance of Christ, Mary Magdalene was one of the first people to experience the empty tomb. She was inadvertently taken to the correct tomb rather than the incorrect one; she was able to verify and make a decision to inform the other disciples that Jesus was not present in the tomb; therefore, her confidence was in the fact that her five sense organs were alerted to the tomb's absence of Christ. She was able to inform the other disciples that Jesus was not there because she was in the place of the right tomb rather than the wrong tomb, as claimed by some liberals. John and Peter were the second cluster of disciples who had a level of experience after visiting the tomb. It could be deduced from the passage in John 20: 3–10 how both Peter and John were in the tomb, and they saw the empty tomb; they both saw the linen that was used to wrap the body of Christ. Against the earlier argument, which had denied a true empirical understanding of the reality of the physical resurrection body, became completely incompatible with the evangelists' presentations, such as those of John and Luke (Luke 24: 39; John 20: 27). Hence, the imaginable presentation of the liberals become untenable.
When the other disciples were in the clocked room receiving the unimaginable report from the two disciples who travelled with Jesus to Emmaus, Christ appeared. William A. Alston
notes that Jesus’ appearance here, “Brought a newer dynamic supposition related to fear, because His presence was signified as that of the ghost, which had no place in paradise, or hell.” Furthermore, Elior
maintains that “Their fears could be attributed to Jewish traditional beliefs in the presence of ghost of the deceased person appearing to the living to inflict unspoken negative curse.” However, the strong declaration Jesus made, “I am not a ghost, brings affirmation of his person as a bodily resurrected Saviour. Little wonder, Alston
strongly elucidates, “The Motif of doubt has been redirected to provide an occasion for massively physical demonstration that the risen one invites his disciples to touch him so that they can see for themselves that he is not a spirit or Ghost but a figure of flesh and blood.” From Alston, one could deduce the essences in which the disciples’ doubts were removed from fear to certainty. This did not completely mean anything to Dedimus known as Thomas, because for him, there were some sensory requirements for him to come to terms with the bodily resurrected Christ. He needed to have had an indicative apparatus to affirm to him it was indeed Jesus who was the one who resurrected. Thus, for Thomas, the apparatus has to do with the wounds that were inflicted on Jesus’ body by the Roman soldiers. Touching Jesus’ wounds establishes a case of tangibility which has to do with the use of five human sense organs: touching, handling, eating and drinking, and seeing. Because as Thomas believes, Jesus’ post-resurrection experience includes all of this. This explains why in his second appearance, he did not invite all but only asked Thomas to come and touch; by that touching, he handled the wounds, which demonstrated His bodily existence. Luke 24: 39; John 20: 27. The concept of smell is related to eating and drinking; this portrays the fact of His physical appearance in which the ghost has no flesh, no bone, let alone have the desire of thirst and hunger. The tangible nature of Christ therefore, provided a sense to mitigate the concept of ghost presence. Thomas Aquinas
| [15] | Loyola, Ignatius of, The Spiritual Exercise of St. Ignatius of Loyola. 1491-1556, Translated by Mullan, Father elder. Christian classic Ethereal Library 1491-1556. |
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unequivocally elucidates, “It is essentially important to note that Christ's humanity functions as a tangible means through which salvific divinities are to be carried out.”
4.3. The Language of the Bodily Resurrection
The significance of the bodily resurrection in both ancient Judaism and Greek contexts has traditionally been believed to have been both cultural and philosophical. In the Jewish traditional religious setting, the soul and the body were considered to be an integral part of the whole person. In ancient Greece mythology, it was unconceivable that the body was considered to be superior to the soul. Rather, the soul is considered to be superior. Against this background, the New Testament authors to some extent were influenced by these variant views while they were establishing the case of the resurrection. In line with this conceptual alignment for the language of resurrection, Caleb Danjuma Dami
is right to the point. For him, “The resurrection language presented by the early church to some extent reflected these cultural and philosophical nuances of the time.” Pauline's descriptive articulation in (1 Cor. 15 1 4; 12-20) provides a harmonised ancient approach to what resurrection represented. This reflected the captivating nuance associated with a physical body and the Spiritual one of an individual deceased related to the person. Jesus' physical presence as a human being has theologically validated the tangibility of his human flesh. We can submit accordingly that through the means of continuity of identity, the growing argument on the resurrection of Christ is on the fact that the pre-resurrection body of Christ was the same as the resurrection the body. This, makes the point very clear that both the pre-resurrected and resurrected body of Christ had continuity of identity—with the one being same as the other. This can better be explained by the fact of his traveling and passing through places at various days and times and then reappearing to his disciples in the post-resurrection body, indicating vividly that Jesus’ body interacted with the exterior world.
4.4. Tangibility as Proof of Christ's Resurrection
Human five sense organs, such as touching, hearing, smelling, tasting, and sighting, these human sensory organs contribute emphatically to having a lasting experience in one’s life. These components were necessary for the first generation of Easter morning experience.
The appearance of Christ after the resurrection has been critically important in theological reflection to make an affirmation of the tangibility of Christ and how believers throughout history felt and validated his post-resurrected body, using the five human sense organs. One of the biggest questions has to do with materialization, which we refer to as His physical appearance. To affirm the tangibility of his bodily resurrection and the nature of the body in which he resurrected, the two evangelists Luke and John, and Paul the Apostle provided highly descriptive affirmation of those who had all five sense organs to witness the bodily resurrection of Christ.
5. The 2nd and 3rd Centuries Views on the Human Sensory Organs
The foundation established by the apostles, created the backdrop for the tangibility of the post resurrection body of Christ. This however became a historical debate through the centuries. This section analyses how the resurrection was viewed after the first century of the Christian faith. The analysis used three historical periods: the Church Fathers, Medieval Period and the Reformation era. The section reveals their positions to fully unpack the fact that human sense organs were historically useful for ascertaining and establishing a far reaching conclusions on post resurrection body of Jesus Christ and also how it was being used to enhance the validity of the Christian faith.
5.1. Church Fathers on the Resurrection of Christ
The Foundation established by the apostles created the backdrop for the tangible presence of the post-resurrection body of Christ. This however assists in reflecting the use of human sense organs to establish a far reaching conclusions on how it was used to enhance it source and usage. Such a usage became a catalogue for historical theological debate in the 2
nd and 3rd centuries where the church fathers struggled for a better understanding of both the theoretical framework of the person of Christ before and after the resurrection. A reasonable number of them were considered to be heretics, while some became sound when they textually adhered to the biblical or the apostolic foundation. Historically, the church fathers thus defended the biblical and theological position on the debate that arose in the 2
nd to the 3
rd centuries of antiquity. This because the church wrestled with question of the resurrection of Jesus Christ as it was the only central tenet of Christianity. Saint Augustine
| [17] | Martyr, Justin. Athenagoras: Ante-Nicene vol. 2 edited by Rev. Alexander Roberts, D. D, and James Donaldson LLD v. Edinburgh: T and T Clark, 1909. |
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for instant, emphatically emphasised that “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ served as the corner-stone of the Christian faith, hope and as a central truth that defined the identity of the believers.” The centrality of the post resurrection body of Christ became the motivating factor for the church fathers struggled for a better understanding of both the humanity and divinity of the historical figure and the person of Jesus Christ before and after the resurrection. In like manner, John Chrysostom
| [18] | Mbiti, John S. African Religions and Philosophy. Nairobi: Heinemann Kenya Ltd 1969. |
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had shown that the Apostles everywhere they went made the notion of the physical resurrection as a sign of their confession. He notes, “We who did eat and drink with Him we are assured of his resurrection.” This argument that is anchored on the historical bodily resurrection of Christ is not only the hinge upon which the Christian theological and biblical truth claim stands but it is also based on first-hand experience passed unto them by the apostles. On the strength of Chrysostom’s assertion, this study maintains that such a view is sound; thus, a textually adhered principle of biblical interpretation built upon apostolic foundational truth. For this reason, Tertullian
remarked the, “Resurrection is the fundamental truth which cannot just be garnished away.” This nuance is not without critical reflection on the value of the human sense organs. Tertullian
further explained, “Human flesh was created with organs to support the sense of sight, hearing, smelling, feeling, and touching.”
Against this backdrop, we can now argue from Chrysostom’s and Tertullian’s standpoint that human sense organs are intentionally part of God’s creation to enable humanity to ascertain both tangible and nontangible facts of God and his creatures. In line with this, Ignatius of Loyola
| [20] | ONazi, Andrew O. and Tanka Van Wyk. Review on Joseph Ratzinger. Introduction to Christianity: Ignatius press London 2004. |
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concurred that “Human sense organs are created to established firmness in building relationship with him (God).”
From the foregoing argument, it is legitimate to state that Jesus’ call to his disciples in Mark 24: 36-39 to used their human sense organs to ascertain the validity of His resurrection become one of the major theological framework that keeps the Christian faith moving because it has adhered to creation order, and this answers the question of Docetism (Thomas D. McGlothlin Ir
| [21] | Schaff, Philip. Athanasius Nicene and post- Niceness Fathers Series vol. 2. Grand Rapid, Michigan: WM. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1993. |
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) that completely denied the reality of Jesus’ “Human nature, physical suffering and death.”
Answering the concern of another heretical sec on the resurrection of Christ, Ignatius of Antioch
| [20] | ONazi, Andrew O. and Tanka Van Wyk. Review on Joseph Ratzinger. Introduction to Christianity: Ignatius press London 2004. |
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argued that the, “Physicality of Jesus’s resurrected body served as counter to Gnosticism.” Justin Martyr
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also lends his voice arguing based on the biblical accounts of the first eyes witnesses.” Athanasius
| [23] | Tertullian Concerning the Resurrection of the Flesh. New York: MacMillan Company, 1922. |
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believed strongly that the post resurrection body of Christ was meant to deal with every form of doubt.”
It is obvious that the church fathers held firmly that Christ resurrected with the very physical, and sinless body that he died with and not the bodiless apparition of an ancient Jewish ghost.
5.2. Medieval Scholars on the Resurrection of Christ
Medieval scholars such as Thomas Aquinas, and Anselm of Canterbury held to an affirmative belief that underscored that Jesus’ resurrection with a physical body was necessary because it provided the assurance of salvation as well as the possibility of believers’ resurrected life to eternity. They believed that the bodily physical resurrection was necessary to affirm Jesus’ divinity and efficacy of his sacrifice for the redemption of humanity. Thus, God became a man so that the resurrection of Christ completes the sacrifice for the atonement of human sin.
5.3. Reformers on Jesus’s Resurrection
The Reformation period was not left out on this historical debate on the Jesus’ post resurrection body. History reveals that they like their forebears ventured into it to counter their contemporaries who could not stand side by side with the apostolic teaching and the church fathers as well. So, the Reformers had to break out from Catholicism of their time to build upon the apostles’ and the church fathers’ foundation and tradition. For example, John Calvin
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strongly believed, “The Resurrection of Jesus Christ serves as foundation for the believers’ hope.” It is clear that Calvin believed that without the post-resurrection body of Christ, the future resurrection of the believers is nailed on nothing rather than mere night mire that could not guarantee anyone hope to eternity. Martin Luther
| [25] | Wright, N. T. Resurrection and the Renewal of Creation: Renewing Minds through Biblical teaching: https://ntwrightonlie.org Source 1st Feb, 2025.5:30a. |
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also demonstrated that “Jesus’s resurrection was undoubted therefore for him it is the reason for the Christian belief.”
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