Spiritual Body

In the power of the Spirit Jesus was raised from the dead—‘by the glory of the Father’ (Rom. 6:4). Paul has in view the radical transformation of the very nature of Christ’s bodily existence. It has become a body of glory (Phil. 3:21). The resurrection body may be identified with the body that has died, but it is certainly not identical in properties, as is obvious from the behaviour of our Lord’s body following the resurrection. Its attributes contrast strongly with its previous ones; it is powerful and no longer weak and subject to death. It is a spiritual body, one brought into being and appropriate to the lordship of the Spirit. Such is the fullness of the Spirit into which Jesus entered at the resurrection that Paul is able to say that ‘the last Adam [became] a life-giving spirit’ (1 Cor. 15:45).

 

Sinclair Ferguson, The Holy Spirit, ed. Gerald Bray, Contours of Christian Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 53-54.