Life After Death_ A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion - Alan Segal [262]
Notice that the Bible uses the same vocabulary of image and likeness as does the Ezekiel theophany, when speaking of God’s glory:
Like the appearance of the bow that is in the cloud on the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness round about. Such was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the LORD. And when I saw it, I fell upon my face, and I heard the voice of one speaking. (Ezek 1:28)
Paul explicitly says that the body of Christ is arsenothelous, androgenous, bisexual (genetically), hermaphrodite:
for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:26-28)
The term “son of God” is without sexual implication, a common gender, and it has throughout Jewish tradition denoted angels. Through baptism, this passage says explicitly, the Christian overcomes the antinomies of ordinary life, including the gender distinction, to become children of God-angels. To be an angel in this context means to have transcended flesh and gender. This means for Paul that the transformation that is effected through faith in Christ is begun in the act of baptism. It will end at the eschaton with the transformation of the faithful, just as Matthew will later say: “For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels59 in heaven” (Matt 22:30).
FIRST CORINTHIANS 15:51-57
From this follows the apocalyptic end:
Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die [Gk: fall asleep], but we will all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled. (1 Cor 15:51-54)
Here is a full accounting of the apocalyptic end. It does not have the bizarre imagery of some of the apocalypses but the crucial issue of the disposition of the dead is handled fully. The mortal body will not be destroyed, to be left behind by the soul. Instead, it will put on immortality as a garment and be transformed by it. This is clearly another baptismal image and it suggests that what the natural body puts on to be transformed is the Spirit of God. For Paul, the self that sees the resurrection is the same as the old self but transformed, leaving behind sexuality and gender and becoming a new creation. The new creation is, in fact, a recovery of the original innocence of the primal human. This is the principle of identity for the Christian in the resurrection. It is not just what we are now but what we can be with God’s Spirit. It is a transformed body.
In an effort to understand the relationship between transformation and justification, we must turn briefly to a later part of the Corinthian correspondence, where Paul discussed the effect of the spiritual transformation. The relationship between transformation and community is clarified there, so we will have to ignore momentarily the differing social context between the two letters. In 2 Corinthians 5:15-6:1, Paul spoke of the Christian as a new creation.
The “human point of view” is literally “according to the flesh” (kata sarka), whereas the believer is “a new creation” of spirit (pneuma). Again it is hard for us to imagine a spiritual body. But that is what Paul was suggesting. The reformulation experience changes the believer from a physical body to a new spiritual creation. It makes him become the righteousness of God, although the final