First Thanks for your explanation. I really love Baha'i faith. When I read Bible today about ressurection I saw Mark 12/18-27. and I think it talks about phisical ressurection. what you think?
In Mark 12 Jesus was asked a question about a woman who had 7 husbands when she was alive. After she died and went to heaven, Jesus was asked which of these 7 men would be her lawful husband.
Jesus explained that in heaven men & women do not marry, they do not have sex and they do not have children.... since they now are spirit (original Greek: PNEUMA) like the angels.
This answer is consistent with Paul's explanation in 1 Corinthians 15 where he explains what kind of bodies people have after they have died and have been raised. Paul says that here on earth people have a body of flesh & blood & bone (original Greek: PSEUCHE) and after they die they are resurrected with a body made of spirit. (original Greek: PNEUMATIKOS SOMA)
The original Greek word translated as "resurrection" is ANA-STASIS. ANA means to rise up or to do again. STASIS is a fixed position.
In other words, while some people translate ANA-STASIS as "resurrection", it might be just as accurate to translate it as "afterlife". The regular earthly body dies and returns to the earth while the incorruptable resurrection body... the heavenly, spirit body lives on.
Looking at Mark 12 again and the woman with 7 husbands.... Jesus said:
When the dead rise, they will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels -Mark 12:25
Paul explained that the angels are spirits:
And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits (PNEUMA), and his ministers a flame of fire. -Hebrews 1:7
In other words...in the afterlife people will be like the angels... who are spirits.
and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God's children, since they are children of the resurrection. Luke 20:36
Since they are now spirits they can no longer die.
Paul further explains that when we die, our spirits leave our bodies & go to heaven...
we know that if the earthly tent (here we live in a tent) we live in is destroyed, we have a building (in heaven we will have a mansion) from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.
Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body(original Greek: SOMA= body) we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight (by what we can see). We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad. -2 Corinthians
This explanation is consistent with Baha'u'llah's explanation of life after death...
"And now concerning thy question regarding the soul of man and its survival after death. Know thou of a truth that the soul, after its separation from the body, will continue to progress until it attaineth the presence of God, in a state and condition which neither the revolution of ages and centuries, nor the changes and chances of this world, can alter.
It will endure as long as the Kingdom of God, His sovereignty, His dominion and power will endure. It will manifest the signs of God and His attributes, and will reveal His loving kindness and bounty. The movement of My Pen is stilled when it attempteth to befittingly describe the loftiness and glory of so exalted a station. The honor with which the Hand of Mercy will invest the soul is such as no tongue can adequately reveal, nor any other earthly agency describe.
Blessed is the soul which, at the hour of its separation from the body, is sanctified from the vain imaginings of the peoples of the world. Such a soul liveth and moveth in accordance with the Will of its Creator, and entereth the all-highest Paradise.
The Maids of Heaven, inmates of the loftiest mansions, will circle around it, and the Prophets of God and His chosen ones will seek its companionship. With them that soul will freely converse, and will recount unto them that which it hath been made to endure in the path of God, the Lord of all worlds. If any man be told that which hath been ordained for such a soul in the worlds of God, the Lord of the throne on high and of earth below, his whole being will instantly blaze out in his great longing to attain that most exalted, that sanctified and resplendent station...
(Baha'u'llah, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah, p. 155)
In answer to your question about Mark 12, Jesus was not talking about a physical resurrection of fleshly bodies. Instead he was talking about the afterlife where our souls continue to exist in spirit bodies. Would you please share this email with your Turkish Baha'i friends. -Joel in Florida USA
REPLY BY JOEL SMITH
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