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  CHRIST WAS POSSESSED OF A BODY AFTER HIS RESURRECTION
  by Ignatius of Antioch
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Summary: The sermon emphasizes the reality of Christ's physical body
after His resurrection and its significance for believers' faith and
hope in His return.

Topics: "Resurrection Of Christ", "Physical Presence"
Scripture References: Luke 24:39, John 20:27, Acts 1:9, Revelation 1:7

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DESCRIPTION
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Ignatius of Antioch emphasizes the physicality of Jesus, both during His
earthly life and after His resurrection, highlighting the importance of
His bodily presence as a proof of His identity as the Christ. He points
out how Jesus invited His disciples to touch Him and see that He was not
just a spirit, but had flesh and bones. Ignatius underscores the
significance of Jesus eating and drinking with His disciples after His
resurrection for forty days, proving His bodily resurrection and His
future return in glory and power.

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CONTENT
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And I know that He was possessed of a body not only in His being born
and crucified, but I also know that He was so after His resurrection,
and believe that He is so now. When, for instance, He came to those who
were with Peter, He said to them, "Lay hold, handle Me, and see that I
am not an incorporeal spirit." "For a spirit hath not flesh and bones,
as ye see Me have." And He says to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger into
the print of the nails, and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My
side; " and immediately they believed that He was Christ.

Wherefore Thomas also says to Him, "My Lord, and my God." And on this
account also did they despise death, for it were too little to say,
indignities and stripes.

Nor was this all; but also after He had shown Himself to them, that He
had risen indeed, and not in appearance only, He both ate and drank with
them during forty entire days. And thus was He, with the flesh, received
up in their sight unto Him that sent Him, being with that same flesh to
come again, accompanied by glory and power. For, say the [holy] oracles,
"This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come,
in like manner as ye have seen Him go unto heaven." But if they say that
He will come at the end of the world without a body, how shall those
"see Him that pierced Him," and when they recognise Him, "mourn for
themselves? " For incorporeal beings have neither form nor figure, nor
the aspect of an animal possessed of shape, because their nature is in
itself simple.

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Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/ignatius-of-antioch/christ-was-possessed-of-a-body-after-his-resurrection/
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