I previously addressed most of the following in a comment I made elsewhere on the Internet, now since removed, so I thought I would share my answer here while expanding on it a little bit more.
I hope it will be a blessing as something new and refreshing that will make a happy spark of trusting faith and light up within and shine forth until it is as if your whole being smiles.
Question: Did Jesus leave his physical body behind before ascending to Heaven?
My answer:
Never. Jesus was physically raised from the dead (John 20:19-25, 20:26-29, 21:14-15)
as the pre-eminent one from before the birth of Creation. He was
witnessed by, and his identity confirmed by, at least 120 men (Acts 1:15) at his post-resurrection Mount of Olives ascension, which happened with the visible eye (Acts 1:9-11). Jesus
was transformed into the an eternal Resurrection body (the example for which we have 1 Corinthians 15:51-54), that fulfills the
requirement of Scripture for His appearance upon His return (Revelation 1:7; Zechariah 13:6, 12:10). The wording used in John 20:17 does not disqualify a glorified resurrected body because in the Greek, when Mary grabs Jesus in His Resurrected Body reads to the word picture effect of "Stop touching (and grabbing) and pushing Me all over!"
Nor do we disqualify Jesus as having a physical body because He in His glorified state can pass through walls, like a ghost or spirit-being (as is inferred in John 20:26-27), solid one block stone walls 3 and 4 feet thick as they were in Jerusalem in this period. What the basic atomic composition of the new glorified body is, I do not know. But it is no different in capability to materialize and dematerialize at will from what we know of the angels of Heaven who can materially manifest or not at will, and travel at what seems to us as instantaneous speeds regardless of distances be they very small (perhaps a matter of yards to outside a distance one can throw or shoot something) or move seemingly instantaneously across distances so vast that they are as concepts of thousands of light years in our own reckoning (but for those who grasp the hypotheses of worm-holes and transitional planes in which one can step here to there as easily as a performer might step or dance through a very thin vertical frame held plastic sheet).
The words of Psalm 47:5 being fulfilled at the ascension, indicate the time of morning the ascension occurred.:
GOD is gone up with a shout,
YHVeH with the sound of the shofar.
When Jesus ascended on Mount Olivet (cf. Acts 1:12), I believe the testimony of Scripture in Psalm 47:5 therefore places the sound of a heavenly shofar or Ram's Horn as He so ascended, which also would have made others around Jerusalem look in the direction of the event from Olivet outside its walls, because a ram's horn from thence would have been to then an alarming thing. Further, Jesus would have also ascended, not silently, but with a shout, as it says there. This is the reversal of His return for those who believe into Him (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17), when He comes to a height no lower than most clouds above the Earth, and removes us from the 7 Year Judgement at the Enochian Rapture, and at 3 1/2 years later at the Elijahn Rapture which immediately precedes the Day of the LORD for the following 3 1/2 years in which most of humanity gets wiped out.
[For more information on the Rapture, see: http://brianroysinput.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-rapture-revisited-by-brianroy.html ]
Nowhere in ancient Jewish Literature or anywhere else is there any evidence that Jesus stayed dead after dying upon the Cross. In fact, there was a passing of a dreadful fear that was passed on. In Jewish oral tradition centuries later, it was hinted at when they attributed his many miracles to sorcery...perhaps not just meaning those miracles he did before death, but especially His miracle of conquering death, and rising again from the grave. Certainly, it would have been investigated by the Sanhedrin, and Jesus would have also been seen and confirmed also by these agents of Caiaphas the 44 or so days He was up and walking around following His resurrection in the pre-dawn hours of the morning of the Leviticus 23 festival day of Firstfruits.
https://youtu.be/IBfpmBlNqcM
which festival was stopped by the Jews after A.D. 70 because it was too great a witnessing tool as to Jesus' resurrection, lest all Jews one day be Christians. That day will indeed come when Jesus returns (again Revelation 1:7; Zechariah 13:6, 12:10).
Had Jesus not risen from the dead, the scandal and mockery in the ancient world would have reached so many writers and commentators that they would easily have survived in manuscript discoveries as well as in Jewish Teachings from that time of the First Century A.D. to this. Instead, the historical proof rests with Jesus INDEED rising from the dead and physically ascending to Heaven by more than a sufficiency of witnesses, both friendly and hostile, and this same pattern held by the traditions of the same for centuries afterward with no refutations of the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus for generations and generations and generations and more afterwards.
We see the confirmation in the silence of the high priest to the resurrection testimony in Acts 5:17-42. We see the confirmation in the fact that the disciples were not stoned for blasphemy or burned at the stake for mass healing miracles they conducted at the Holy Temple. We see the confirmation of the resurrection by passivity of the very generation of Jews that saw Jesus, who refused to promote in writing from that day to this that Jesus' resurrection was not true. Instead, on occasion, it was leaders obtaining writs of permission to pursue and kill Christians, they were using other legal technicalities for their persecutions. In testifying Jesus was raised from the dead, and ascended to Heaven, there had to be Sanhedrin witnesses of at least 2 or 3 or more when the Acts 1:9-11 event occurred, probably watching in shame from the Temple. And these multiple or many witnesses would have both lived and given sworn testimony in their own Court Records as to that fact, if they held to their tradition in how they conducted themselves in both the Lesser and Greater Sanhedrin. So even Judaism's hostile passivity to deny the resurrection and ascension of Jesus in the First Century A.D. confirms the bodily resurrection and a bodily ascension of Jesus Christ that put the matter beyond all refute. Never would they ever say that he did not do thus and thus. Instead, the freedom of speech to share that He did thus and thus was demanded of Christians not to be repeated (e.g, Acts 4:17-18) .
Think about it. Why is it that NO Christian in the New Testament or in Early Christian writings is ever put to death by their fellow Jews in Jerusalem or eretz Israel for the premise of "lying about a resurrection and ascension of Jesus"? That historic fact speaks volumes of guilt and shame upon those who persecuted those innocent ones who merely spoke the truth that Jesus did physically rise from the dead and Jesus did physically ascend into Heaven before many witnesses. Of these witnesses, this must include irrefutable numbers and irrefutable prestige of the 30 A.D. Kohen priests in the Temple Courts performing their duties there, and very likely that of the Sanhedrin's most senior leaders themselves. If that is the case, and I believe it is, then I would argue that one of these eyewitnesses includes the High Priest in that eyewitness group who from the Temple clearly saw and recognized Jesus over on Olivet and saw His bodily ascension, recognizing Him without any doubt that this was indeed Him and indeed Jesus WAS and IS the Son of GOD. I cannot positively prove this, but the clear inference of such can be logically drawn and has an extremely high probability to it, it seems to me.
Nor do we disqualify Jesus as having a physical body because He in His glorified state can pass through walls, like a ghost or spirit-being (as is inferred in John 20:26-27), solid one block stone walls 3 and 4 feet thick as they were in Jerusalem in this period. What the basic atomic composition of the new glorified body is, I do not know. But it is no different in capability to materialize and dematerialize at will from what we know of the angels of Heaven who can materially manifest or not at will, and travel at what seems to us as instantaneous speeds regardless of distances be they very small (perhaps a matter of yards to outside a distance one can throw or shoot something) or move seemingly instantaneously across distances so vast that they are as concepts of thousands of light years in our own reckoning (but for those who grasp the hypotheses of worm-holes and transitional planes in which one can step here to there as easily as a performer might step or dance through a very thin vertical frame held plastic sheet).
The words of Psalm 47:5 being fulfilled at the ascension, indicate the time of morning the ascension occurred.:
GOD is gone up with a shout,
YHVeH with the sound of the shofar.
When Jesus ascended on Mount Olivet (cf. Acts 1:12), I believe the testimony of Scripture in Psalm 47:5 therefore places the sound of a heavenly shofar or Ram's Horn as He so ascended, which also would have made others around Jerusalem look in the direction of the event from Olivet outside its walls, because a ram's horn from thence would have been to then an alarming thing. Further, Jesus would have also ascended, not silently, but with a shout, as it says there. This is the reversal of His return for those who believe into Him (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17), when He comes to a height no lower than most clouds above the Earth, and removes us from the 7 Year Judgement at the Enochian Rapture, and at 3 1/2 years later at the Elijahn Rapture which immediately precedes the Day of the LORD for the following 3 1/2 years in which most of humanity gets wiped out.
[For more information on the Rapture, see: http://brianroysinput.blogspot.com/2015/01/the-rapture-revisited-by-brianroy.html ]
Nowhere in ancient Jewish Literature or anywhere else is there any evidence that Jesus stayed dead after dying upon the Cross. In fact, there was a passing of a dreadful fear that was passed on. In Jewish oral tradition centuries later, it was hinted at when they attributed his many miracles to sorcery...perhaps not just meaning those miracles he did before death, but especially His miracle of conquering death, and rising again from the grave. Certainly, it would have been investigated by the Sanhedrin, and Jesus would have also been seen and confirmed also by these agents of Caiaphas the 44 or so days He was up and walking around following His resurrection in the pre-dawn hours of the morning of the Leviticus 23 festival day of Firstfruits.
https://youtu.be/IBfpmBlNqcM
which festival was stopped by the Jews after A.D. 70 because it was too great a witnessing tool as to Jesus' resurrection, lest all Jews one day be Christians. That day will indeed come when Jesus returns (again Revelation 1:7; Zechariah 13:6, 12:10).
Had Jesus not risen from the dead, the scandal and mockery in the ancient world would have reached so many writers and commentators that they would easily have survived in manuscript discoveries as well as in Jewish Teachings from that time of the First Century A.D. to this. Instead, the historical proof rests with Jesus INDEED rising from the dead and physically ascending to Heaven by more than a sufficiency of witnesses, both friendly and hostile, and this same pattern held by the traditions of the same for centuries afterward with no refutations of the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus for generations and generations and generations and more afterwards.
We see the confirmation in the silence of the high priest to the resurrection testimony in Acts 5:17-42. We see the confirmation in the fact that the disciples were not stoned for blasphemy or burned at the stake for mass healing miracles they conducted at the Holy Temple. We see the confirmation of the resurrection by passivity of the very generation of Jews that saw Jesus, who refused to promote in writing from that day to this that Jesus' resurrection was not true. Instead, on occasion, it was leaders obtaining writs of permission to pursue and kill Christians, they were using other legal technicalities for their persecutions. In testifying Jesus was raised from the dead, and ascended to Heaven, there had to be Sanhedrin witnesses of at least 2 or 3 or more when the Acts 1:9-11 event occurred, probably watching in shame from the Temple. And these multiple or many witnesses would have both lived and given sworn testimony in their own Court Records as to that fact, if they held to their tradition in how they conducted themselves in both the Lesser and Greater Sanhedrin. So even Judaism's hostile passivity to deny the resurrection and ascension of Jesus in the First Century A.D. confirms the bodily resurrection and a bodily ascension of Jesus Christ that put the matter beyond all refute. Never would they ever say that he did not do thus and thus. Instead, the freedom of speech to share that He did thus and thus was demanded of Christians not to be repeated (e.g, Acts 4:17-18) .
Think about it. Why is it that NO Christian in the New Testament or in Early Christian writings is ever put to death by their fellow Jews in Jerusalem or eretz Israel for the premise of "lying about a resurrection and ascension of Jesus"? That historic fact speaks volumes of guilt and shame upon those who persecuted those innocent ones who merely spoke the truth that Jesus did physically rise from the dead and Jesus did physically ascend into Heaven before many witnesses. Of these witnesses, this must include irrefutable numbers and irrefutable prestige of the 30 A.D. Kohen priests in the Temple Courts performing their duties there, and very likely that of the Sanhedrin's most senior leaders themselves. If that is the case, and I believe it is, then I would argue that one of these eyewitnesses includes the High Priest in that eyewitness group who from the Temple clearly saw and recognized Jesus over on Olivet and saw His bodily ascension, recognizing Him without any doubt that this was indeed Him and indeed Jesus WAS and IS the Son of GOD. I cannot positively prove this, but the clear inference of such can be logically drawn and has an extremely high probability to it, it seems to me.
At any rate. It is something to think about.
Peace.
Peace.
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