Analogue 12: Embodied Light & the Resurrection Body

 Analogue 12

There are those who are afraid of being resurrected stripped bare. Their desire, therefore, is to be raised in a material body, not realizing that someone clothed in flesh is actually naked. Those who have become beings of light, however, have put off the flesh and yet they are not bare.

It has been said, “flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s kingdom.” So what is it that cannot inherit that realm and what is it that can? What inherits the Kingdom is that which is in communion with Yeshua’s blood— for it is he who said, “Whoever does not eat my flesh and drink my blood does not possess life.” So what is this flesh? It is Logos. And what is this blood? It is the sacred Spirit. Whoever receives these has both food and drink, and is fully clothed.

However, I must oppose those who deny that neither form or flesh shall rise from the dead, for both positions are in error—those who say the material form shall rise and those who say no form will ever rise. Here is what I affirm: those who say that it is the Spirit and the Light embodied, which shall rise. This is because nothing can exist or even be said without taking form, and nothing can arise apart from it. Everything rises through some form of incarnation, for everything is held there in its very heart.

SYNOPSIS

• We are privy to another inter-family discussion: An argument or polemic that is going on concerning the nature of the resurrection between fellow followers of Yeshua. They are discussing the experience of standing up, which we call resurrection. Is it physical or is it spiritual: an incarnated versus an embodied enlightenment perhaps? 
• The interlocutor in this discussion appears to be the Apostle Paul, his Pauline theology and the Occidental West. Paul’s contention is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. 
• The key phrase seems to be: Those who have become being's of light have put off the flesh and yet they are not bare (or unembodied)
• Spirit and Light are not enfleshed but they are embodied. This is the basis of understandings Philip’s definition of the resurrection body. 
• The Philippian author is aware of a distinction between occidental thought (which is moving toward literalist exoteric formulations) and oriental thought which is highly nuanced and moving toward an understanding of what "spiritual embodiment" means metaphorically. 
• The western tradition is "fear-based"—their formulations are based in fear, they are afraid, and so they cling to the notion of the physical resurrection of a purely biological kind returning to the body as it currently exists or as we experience it now. This is seen to be a limiting point of view. 
• This Gospel presents the doctrine of the middle way between two extreme viewpoints: No body and the physical body. 
• A new view of the incarnation and future incarnations, perhaps a new way of seeing reincarnation.
• Spirit and Light are embodied. The future body of humanity will be embodied light—light bodies or bodies made of eternal Light. 
• Some kind of form, some form of embodiment inhabits transcendent space. 
• Sacramental reality is beginning to be defined. This is a new definition of sacramental theology: partaking of a new form of “flesh” (the embodiment" of Light)—as the pattern of the Logos, and drinking "blood"; i.e., the wine of the Spirit understood to be the life's blood of Sacred Spirit. These are the true food and the true drink for the future body of humanity.

COMMENTARY

The Argument

Analogue 12 is a highly nuanced theological argument about the nature and consequences of Yeshua’s resurrection. The author is making a strong argument and it appears that his interlocutor is the Apostle Paul and the theology that has arisen from his writings in the West. Paul is quoted in this analogue and it is his more literalistic interpretation of the resurrection that appears to be the position with which Philip takes issue. Philip appears to see where the Occidental tradition and its subsequent theology based upon Paul is headed theologically. He clearly expresses an alternative vision which is being held in the Oriental tradition of Christianity whose unique theology and main arguments are outlined here in this text. He is drawing distinct lines of difference between the two viewpoints. These important contrasts have clear theological and even metaphysical consequences. He is exploring what they may mean for the ultimate outcome and destiny of humankind and the way in which we each move toward them as our own personal destiny.

The main argument has to do with the nature and kind of “body” that arises after death in resurrection (based obviously on the history of Yeshua’s experience). As Philip points out, many are afraid to imagine a body rising out of death other than the corporeal (biological) body of flesh and blood they had known previously. For them, Yeshua rose in the full physical form that he had been before his death. Philip points out, however, that this is contrary even to Paul’s own teaching, in particular, that flesh and blood cannot inherit God’s Realm (quoting I Corinthians 15:50). Philip asserts then that it is not our biological form (flesh and blood) that will survive death, but something quite different. The resurrection of Yeshua was not the flesh and blood he had known before, but it was nonetheless a form of complete and perfected embodiment—he was not without some kind of bodily form.

Literalism and Metaphor

To illustrate what he means, perhaps, Philip also takes a non-literalist view of the meaning of Yeshua’s words about the consumption of the Eucharistic body and blood. In both cases, something other than the literal physical reality is meant, and Philip expounds on its non-literal (or metaphoric) meaning and addresses the fear that is the cause for those who insist on its literal meaning. His argument expands more widely into an entirely new understanding of what resurrection and embodiment actually mean, which of course has implications for the future form of humanity as well as what the elements of the Eucharist actually are, and what is consumed spiritually.

For many in that day, the fear was that resurrection without a physical body of flesh and blood would expose one to the shame of nakedness. This could mean that if a person does not have a biological body they have nothing to hide behind (or hide inside of perhaps). Philip sees, however, that a corporeal body alone is actually a kind of spiritual nakedness if it does possess its higher form, the body of Light. This appears to be the key to understanding his whole argument.

Necessary Embodiment

Human beings (and the resurrection itself) does indeed require a form of embodiment, but not enfleshment (or biological incarnation). The future form of humanity will not be corporeal or biological in the same way it is now. It will not be powered by the material world alone (if at all), but made up out of and empowered by light. Human beings will become light-beings.

This is a new, higher, more enduring body-form unlike the biological body that presently experiences decay and death. Interestingly, it appears that the Apostle Paul makes a similar argument in I Corinthians 15–for two kinds of bodies, one terrestrial and one celestial. Philip appears to go further than Paul by naming the essential element that makes up that celestial body. However some apparently are insisting, based on Paul’s description, that Yeshua arose in a physical or biological body which again was literally flesh and blood.

Mysteries of the Eucharist

Philip makes this affirmation (and editing the translation in the Gospel text to make this point even clearer) he says: Here is what I affirm: I agree with those who say that it is the Spirit and the Light embodied which shall rise. This is because nothing can exist or even “be,” or said to exist without taking form, and nothing can arise apart from kind of manifestation.

Everything rises, therefore, through a form of embodiment, for everything is held there in its heart. It is clear from this his argument that for anything to exist there must be some kind of form or embodied manifestation for it to show itself. All things exist in an embodied state, this is at the heart of being (or existence) itself. But not all embodied forms are the same. Philip sees that Yeshua’s ultimate bodily form is actually what might be called “the body of the Logos” (which transcends the material world) and is metaphysically understood to be the unseen Source taking form for the purposes of manifestation so that it can be known. The real blood (its circulating energy or life) in the “Body of the Logos” is not hemoglobin but Sacred Spirit which is flowing throughout that transcendent form in the way blood would flow through a biological body. This is how the new embodiment in its Logos-form is understood cosmically and metaphysically.

Philip’s viewpoint is particularly visionary and encompasses multiple realms and levels which expresses aspects of the fullness of cosmic Being itself. His is a large and not a narrow viewpoint. For a human being to fully inhabit the cosmos (not just the part of it we see physically, but the one with multiple dimensions and many domains), they must ultimately come to possess a light-body that can access all of it at every level. In this way they can be embodied in some form throughout all of it. They must, therefore, become beings whose future embodiment transcends biology and is therefore made of celestial light.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

1. How do you imagine your future life beyond its present biological form? How much have you thought about the possibilities? If you try to image what you will know or experience after death, and what form you will take, how do you imagine it? Does Philip’s description help you in any way? 
2. What theological or personal viewpoint do you hold about the nature and history of Yeshua’s resurrection? 
3. Our current bodies are made up of the natural elements of earth (most of which is water). Consciousness is aware and lives inside that corporeal house. You know what it feels like to be incarnated or enfleshed. How would you describe that to an intelligence that does not exactly know what that it is like (or feels like) to be in or have a biological body? 
4. Try to imagine what it would be like to have a body made just of light photons instead of material atoms. Imagine how a constellation of photons might house personal consciousness. How might you see this? 
5. Are you afraid of giving up the biological body you currently inhabit? 
6. Philip takes Yeshua’s words about eating and drinking his flesh and blood well beyond a literalistic interpretation. What does his new interpretation regarding Logos and Sacred Spirit mean for you? Put this understanding in your own words. Write a description of the Eucharistic elements using his description.

Notes for Reference and Further Study

1. If someone is lying on the floor, not standing up, they are either resting and asleep, or perhaps they are unconscious or dead. That is how we view our bodies literally on the horizontal plane. Metaphorically we could make the same spiritual point: A being whose only orientation is to the horizontal world is either spiritually asleep, unconscious, or dead. To be able to stand up from that horizontal position signifies that one is alive and on one’s spiritual feet in a new way oriented to the vertical axis The word for that action is anastasis—to stand up (translated as resurrection). Historically Yeshua was said to have been killed and was lying dead in a prone position. When he rose up alive again he was clearly standing up, but Philip sees that he arose into a new form of embodiment after his death—even though he knew a kind of spiritual “standing up” along the vertical axis before he even experienced it after death (See Logion 10). The early texts are aware that his new embodied form had features and characteristics that the old form did not have, though it could function perfectly well in space and time. Clearly, however, it was also existing in regions beyond it. Read these various post-resurrection appearances and see what you can discover about that newly embodied form and how it operated: Matthew 28:8-20, Mark 16:9-20, Luke 24:13-49, John 20-11-21-25, I Cor. 15;3-9. 
2. Though scientifically we have learned much about the nature of light in this century, in truth the phenomenon still eludes us in many ways. We know that light is made up of photons with a scientifically determined wave form along the electro-magnetic spectrum. This is often described as a stream of massless packets of energy, each traveling with wavelike properties at the speed of light. Light is strangely both particle and wave and can only be understood by laws described in terms of quantum-mechanics. These descriptions often appear nonsensical in the normal world. Imagine then that a resurrection body which has the properties of coherent light and also possessing conscious intelligence can act in unexpected ways. Traditionally, encounters with such beings of light have been described as a contact with the angels. These descriptions suggest that they too possess light-bodies, though perhaps in their own unique form. The more we learn about light itself the more interesting is the traditional discussion about these entities and our own evolution toward becoming beings of embodied light. 
3. Discussions are now ongoing about states of consciousness which appear to escape or transcend the physical, biological form of the brain. These experiences are sometimes called out-of-body experiences, astral projections, and now with the advent of advanced medical science, Near Death Experiences. In these cases conscious awareness does not seem to be determine by the physical body but can escape or live outside of it. Experiences of being fully aware and present without a biological body are described on a regular basis in contemporary NDE literature. It would be helpful perhaps for you to explore reports of Near Death Experience reports that are regularly published on YouTube. Often these also describe dimensions transcendent to time and space where light-beings interact with the souls that inhabit or travel into these realms. Such reports clearly support the approach taken by this Gospel text. Further exploration of these accounts might be very helpful to you in interpreting this text. 
4. Understanding the position taken by this Gospel concerning the meaning and doctrine of the Resurrection requires that one think more explicitly about Interpretation Theory (called Hermeneutics). Clearly when we read and seek to interpret the meaning of a poem, for example, we are not in a world of literalism. The literal world is often used as metaphor for something else beyond itself, greater than the literal but to which the literal points. If we say, for example, a person was over the moon in love with someone else, we do not mean the literal moon, but the metaphoric moon that highlights or reflects the inner sensibilities and experiences of persons who, in their experience of love, are beyond their normal horizons. Much of this text demands that we learn both the language of metaphor (and these are sometimes very new and culturally different from the metaphors used in the West). Our task is to use them as pointers toward realities beyond the mundane world of our experience along the horizontal axis. They are used to help us understand how to live our lives differently, along the vertical axis. A metaphor is a vehicle, therefore, that can potentially carry us from the literal world to a reality outside the literal—and in the case of Philip, from horizontal to vertical dimensions. Metaphors are vehicles moving us to new horizons of understanding, carrying us away from our normal perceptions. That is their normative function. For further study of these hermeneutical principles, Paul Ricour’s The Rule of Metaphor is an excellent starting point. 

Notes for the Translation

• The quote saying that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom is from St. Paul and found in I Corinthians 15:50. The quote from Yeshua is found in John 6:53. 
• The term communion has something to do with possessing or belonging to the blood of someone, in this case Yeshua. It means perhaps to be “blood related.” 
• The term translated oppose could also be translated as “resist,” or “censure.” 
• The translated use of the terms form or flesh relate to a Greek word in the original text (sarx). However in this context it is used as both enfleshment or taking a form which is embodied. Incarnation would mean, then, taking a biological body or form. Other English equivalent terms are employed here to make those different meanings clearer.