What was the need of this when the place had already been “prepared ... from the foundation of the world” ([Matthew xxv, 34])?
467
Did Jesus ascend bodily into heaven?
Luke: He ascended to heaven in a body of flesh and blood ([xxiv, 36–43], [50, 51]).
Paul: “But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die; and that which thou sowest thou sowest not that body that shall be” ([1 Corinthians xv, 35–37]).
“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body” ([44]).
“Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God” ([50]).
The whole theology of Paul is opposed to the bodily resurrection and ascension of Jesus. The “Bible for Learners” says: “In speaking of the resurrection, he [Paul] does not mean the reanimation of the body of Jesus; and indeed he expressly excludes such a thought by ascribing to the Christ a glorified and spiritual body not made of flesh and blood. It is equally certain that he thinks of the Christ as having appeared from heaven; and his ranking the appearance to himself—unquestionably the product of his own fervid imagination—as parallel with those which preceded it [his appearances to the disciples], seems to indicate that they were all visions alike” (Vol. iii, p. 467).