Reacting against Gnosticism, we often take unfair advantage of the Incarnation. A good example of this is the way we’ve developed the adjective “incarnational” as a stand-in for material. That something is situated in space and time hardly makes it “incarnational”, otherwise paganism, with its holy places, time, people, etc. would be more “incarnational” than Christianity. A bizarre argument indeed for a Christian to make.
Another, more pertinent example is the way we’ve almost completely sidelined or ignored New Testament references that suggest a spiritualized or quasi-bodily existence in the next life. In his comments on marriage, for example, Jesus likens human beings to angels (you can’t get more spiritual than that!). Also, both Paul and Peter speak of their present bodies as “tents” from which they desire to escape. Paul uses a special phrase to speak about “spiritualized bodies” which of course aren’t simply the flesh-blood-and-bone “bodies” we have now.
It’s good for Christians to accent the Incarnation, but we can’t be sloppy.
I’d suggest that areas like virtual reality (esp. virtual bodies) and transhumanism offer promising resources for thinking about what the Scriptures mean when incarnation, transfiguration, and resurrection are discussed.
That said, I think the so-called rapture is bunk.
Zwingli, you're right to protest the cheapening of the word Incarnation to matter. In fact, the Incarnation means Emmanuel, God with us. Many folks think of the Incarnation as a temporary measure: God became flesh Jesus of Nazareth to deliver a message, and then He left us so that we still await the absent Messiah, and interpret prophecies of His return. Instead, the Incarnation brought God near to man and man near to God. The Apostle Paul did not encounter Jesus for the first time on the road to Damascus, although that was the point at which he recognized Jesus. Paul had already encountered Jesus at the stoning of the Deacon Stephen. This is clear because of Jesus's question to Paul: "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" It's like Paul lived out what Jesus had announced in Matthew 25...
As for spirit, it's interesting to see that the Catechism of the Catholic Church discusses a bit the tripartite anthropology of body, soul, and spirit. Keeping with Aquinas, it notes that the soul is the form of the body (366); but then it says that "'Spirit' signifies that from creation man is ordered to a supernatural end and that his soul can gratuitously be raised beyond all it deserves to communion with God" (367). So, man's spirit here indicates his trajectory, his telos.
We also have the tantalizing line of 1 Cor 15:37: "what you sow is not the body that is to be but a bare kernel of wheat, perhaps, or of some other kind." The body which dies is to the resurrected body as a grain of wheat is to a stalk of wheat, or of an acorn to an oak tree.
So, Zwingli 2.0, welcome! I look forward to hearing more from you.
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