It is essential for God, as spirit, to be immortal (''who alone has immorality'' - 1 Timothy 6:16). God, being spirit (John 4:24) cannot die but the Word himself (being God) can die, having become flesh [mortal] (John 1:14). Without a body of flesh, Jesus would not be able to taste death. Jesus died precisely because he was mortal, he had a mortal body, a corruptible body and a body of flesh and blood.
he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, Colossians 1:22
Jesus died (his lifeless body was there inside the tomb) and was alive again (meaning, he's now with his body again). The risen Jesus is now having a ''body of spirit'' (previously, he had the ''body of soul'') based on 1 Corinthians 15:44. A body of spirit refers to a Spirit's body whilst the body of soul refers to a Soul's body. It was recorded in the Bible that 8 souls have been saved during the great deluge. Human beings are souls with bodies. Genesis 2 spoke of God breathing the breath (Grk. pneuma, spirit) of life into the nostrils of the man (i.e. in his body) and the man became a soul (i.e. a living being). A Spirit's body refers to the resurrected bodies of the Spirits who formerly were Souls (people with living bodies). They are called ''bodies of the Spirits'' (singular: ''body of spirit'', as employed by Paul) because these Spirits were bodiless (without bodies) because of death and because of the resurrection, these Spirits were said to have bodies, specifically, resurrected bodies.
Isaiah 14:9-15 "Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come; It arouses for you the spirits of the dead, all the leaders of the earth; It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones. "They will all respond and say to you, 'Even you have been made weak as we, You have become like us. 'Your pomp and the music of your harps Have been brought down to Sheol; ... I will make myself like the Most High.' "Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit.'' Isaiah 14:9-15
Luke 16:22:23 And it came to pass that the poor man died, and he was carried away by the angels into the bosom of Abraham. And the rich man also died and was buried. And in Hades, having lifted up his eyes, being in torment, he sees Abraham from afar, and Lazarus in his bosom.
The dead bodies of Jesus (and of God's people) will be the same body to be given immortality at the resurrection.
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. 1 Corinthians 4:10
The Hebrew word sheol is a versatile word. It can refer to the mere ground where the dead is placed (Psalm 146:4) or to the place of the dead under the earth ( every knee...will bow... under the earth....and every tongue will confess... Jesus is Lord, Philippians 2:10). So those under the earth (Grk. hades, Heb, sheol) can bend their knees and confess with their tongues, they can speak and acknowledge Jesus as Lord. The spirits of the dead in Sheol in Isaiah 14:9-15 were also able to speak.
Isaiah 14:9-15 "Sheol from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come; It arouses for you the spirits of the dead, all the leaders of the earth; It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones. "They will all respond and say to you, 'Even you have been made weak as we, You have become like us. 'Your pomp and the music of your harps Have been brought down to Sheol; ... I will make myself like the Most High.' "Nevertheless you will be thrust down to Sheol, To the recesses of the pit.'' Isaiah 14:9-15
The word spirit (Greek: pneuma) can refer to either the human spirit/spirit of man (which refers to the mind of man) (1 Corinthians 2:11) or breath (Genesis 2:7) or the wind (John 3:8). It's also a divine name in Matthew 28:19.
The spirit of man (1 Corinthians 2:11) is the ''inward man'' which is different from the body of man (''outward man''). The self without a body does continue existing because the body decays and dies and perishes but the spirit does not perish. It is renewed daily (2 Corinthians 4:16).
''For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day'' (2 Corinthians 4:16).''
The spirit does not perish after death, but rather, it returns to God: ''the spirit return to God, who gave it'' (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Other texts speak of the spirits going down to Sheol with consciousness (Isaiah 14:9-15). The New Testament teaches that the spirit of man continues to exist even after the body of man perishes (2 Cor. 4:16, 5:1-8).
The human spirit (the spirit of man) does not cease to exist but remained conscious after death. "When his spirit departs, he returns to the earth; in that very day his thoughts do perish'' (Psalm 146:4).The spirit of man is not the same thing as the thoughts of man. Thoughts are products of the mind, of the person (self) doing the act of thinking. That's the spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11). The verse itself says that the breath ''departs'' (not perished). Death is described to be like the state of being asleep in Scripture. When one sleeps, the thoughts perish too. But that does not mean the spirit or the mind cease to exist just because of sleeping.
Death in the bible is described as ''sleep'', not ''cessation of existence''. When one sleeps, he does not cease to exist. Yahweh himself (who is immortal) is even described as sleeping in Psalm 44:23:
''Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake, do not cast us off forever!'' (Psalm 44:23 NRSV)
In 2 Corinthians 5:6, 8, Paul spoke of his desire to be at home with the Lord (who is in heaven) and away from his body. How could Paul be at home with the Lord ''without a body'' ? Paul already spoke of the inward man earlier in chapter 4 (v. 16). The outward man perish but not the inward man. The inward man is being changed daily. The inward man refers to the spirit in man (1 Corinthians 2:11).
''For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For in this tent we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling— 3 if indeed, when we have taken it off we will not be found naked. 4 For while we are still in this tent, we groan under our burden, because we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5 He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. 6 So we are always confident; even though we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord— 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:1-8 NRSV).
2 Cor 5:6, 8 was not talking about the living body. The context shows that to be absent from the body is tantanmount to saying the earthly tent (i.e. body) is destroyed (2 Cor 5:1) and the outward man (i.e. body) perish (2 Cor 4:16). Further evidence for this is 2 Corinthians 12:1-3 where Paul spoke of a man who went into the third heaven either out of the body or in the body, only God knows. The phrase "out of the body" is that same bodiless existence in heaven earlier in chapter 5:6, 8. God showed Paul a vision of real events. Paul wasn't talking allegorically here. The man here was a real man existing 14 years ago according to Paul.
In Revelation 17:3 says that "the angel carried me away in the Spirit" (this corresponds to the being "out of the body, not in the body" in 2 Corinthians 12:1-3. It basically answered Paul's question of the ambiguity whether the vision occurred in the body or out of the body. It did occur out of the body because it occurred in the spirit. The point is that the distinction between being in the body and being in the spirit (out of the body) is here, even if the text is not speaking of death but of visions. 1 Peter 3:18-19 supports this distinction even further and in the context of the afterlife: Jesus was "being made dead in body but made alive in the spirit" and "in that spirit" he went to the "spirits in prison" and preached to them. It was definitely referring to the afterlife here since the body was spoken of as dead and the spirit alive, going to other the place where other spirits also existed. This was a conscious experience after death since after Jesus died, being in the spirit, He went to the place of spirits (not bodies) preaching to them ( the other spirits: the spirits in prison). Jude 1:6 is parallel to 1 Peter 3:19, the spirits there were the angels who sinned. Still, it occurred after Jesus' death, in the spirit and in the place under the earth, specifically in Tartasus (the lower part of Sheol/Hades). Here cannot mean the angels were put into the grave.
Isaiah spoke of spirits conscious and talking in Sheol/Hades, so it wasn't surprising or strange or impossible that the spirits under the earth (Sheol/Hades) were also able to bend their knees and confess that Jesus is Lord in Philippians 2:10, 11. Paul believed the spirits under the earth (in Sheol/Hades) were not allegorical. John 5 spoke of the dead in their tombs (obviously referring to the bodies of the dead, not their spirits in Sheol/Hades. The scripture speak of the spirits of the dead having abilities to hear and respond, so that when the dead heard the Son of God, they rise with their bodies from the tomb. This is the consistent N.T. interpretation.
When Jesus died, his human body was buried in the tomb but his human spirit did not cease to exist. According to the New Testament, his human spirit went to God the Father (Luke 23:46). Another text said that Jesus' spirit went to the spirits in prison (under the earth/sheol/hades) and he even preached there (cf. 1 Peter 3:19).
The apostles believed in spirits unlike the Sadducees
Paul himself said he was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5). It was the Sadducees who "denied the spirits, the angels amd the resurrection" (Acts 23:8). Paul certain believed in the spirit of man (1 Cor 2:11, 2 Cor 4:16). Peter too spoke of the spirits whom Jesus visited after he died and even preached to them (1 Peter 3:15).
The Sadducees also denied the existence of the angels (who are themselves also spirits, 1 Peter 3:19), the existence of the spirits (that is in man, 1 Cor 2:11, that does not perish , 2 Cor 4:16, that is alive after death of body, 1 Peter 3:18, 19 and the reality of the resurrection (the spirits of the dead united again to their bodies, but that have been made immortal bodies). The Sadducees denied all of them (Acts 23:8) but they were accepted by the apostles themselves.
The gospels (Luke 24:36-51, Mark 6:49-50) recorded the apostles got afraid for they thought Jesus was a ghost (Grk. Φάντασμά). The apostles thought they saw a ghost. That's what apparition meant in its basic sense. The Greek was phantasm (Φάντασμά). Yes it was an "apparition", a supernatural appearance of a person or thing, especially a ghost, as the dictionary definition says. It was an apparition of a spirit (πνευμα), as elaborated by the text (Jesus spoke of spirit as having no flesh or bones). The apostles therefore mistook Christ for an apparation, they thought that what they saw was a spirit of the dead (without flesh or bones) and were afraid. It was so logical in the gospels account of this that the apostles believed in the spirits, not as the Sadduccees.
