Originally started by the Gnostics and pushed by groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses and the disbanded Jesus Seminar, this theory against the physical resurrection of Jesus is that He was raised only as a spirit from the dead. Verses said to be in support of this view are that of 1 Peter 3:18 and 1 Corinthians 15:45, which state:

18. For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit,

45. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

Additionally, Luke 24:36-43 and
John 20:19-27 is used to support the theory as Jesus was able to appear and disappear at will.

Is that really the Christian belief?

However, this interpretation leaves problems when you start to compare the rest of the Christian Bible. Notable passages include Luke 24:36-43; John 2:19-21 John 20:17-27; John 21:12-14; Acts 10:41; Matthew 28:9-10; Philippians 3:20-21; Romans 6:5; and 1 John 1:1. Reading these passages will leave you with the following list about Jesus's body and appearances.

Jesus predicted that He would have the same body and showed His post-resurrected body to Thomas The Apostle to prove His claim
Still retained the scars of His former crucifixion trauma (scars on His wrist, feet, and side)
Was composed of flesh, blood, and bone
He could get hungry, He ate and drank with his followers
Could be touched by His disciples and physically held in place during an embrace
Interacted with physical matter, started a fire, cooked fish, and prepared bread with his disciples
Walked for an extended period with 2 of His followers

The Gospels also go to great lengths to show that His former body was gone from the grave (John 20:5-7,Luke 24:12); in them, we find that His body missing from the burial clothes in the tomb.

SEE ALSO

The Burial Clothes Of Jesus

This leaves the problem of scriptural inconsistency if Paul and Peter are teaching a merely spiritual resurrection. The term resurrection means "the state of one risen from the dead". The thing that was once dead is what is resurrected which, in this case, is the body of Christ. Some select Jewish Extra-Canonical Apocalypses supports the phrase "resurrection" as a bodily resurrection.

Reading the entire passage of 1 Corinthians 15 shows us the fuller context of Paul's teaching. In this, he describes bodies made for their purpose, such as how animals have bodies suited for their environment. Paul goes on to contrast earthly things to heavenly, mortal vs. immortal, natural vs. spiritual, and more. It is clear that he is speaking of the differences that the new "glorious" body will have compared to our old ones made for life only on Earth.

In his book, Mike Licona says this about Paul's wording in 1 Corinthians:

Mike Licona

In regards to Jesus being �made alive in the spirit�, this does not mean that Jesus was given a different, spirit body, as the Witnesses argue, but it could mean one of two things:

The "spirit" is actually the "Spirit" with a capital "s", referring to the Holy Spirit. In this case, it means that Jesus was made alive by the power of the Holy Spirit. This is taught in Romans 8:11, which says: "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
It could mean that when Jesus was raised, his body was glorified. It was still the same body that he died in, but of a higher degree of glory. This is supported in 1 Corinthians 15:40, which says: "There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another."

Mike Licona also adds in his book The Resurrection of Jesus:

Licona2020-jj

It is clear that Paul is not contrasting material and immaterial objects, since for him humans can be natural or spiritual. In other words, when employing the terms "natural" and "spiritual" Paul is not referring to the substance of the old and new bodies but rather their mode of existence. Later on in 1 Corinthians 15:44, when Paul employs these same terms, he is saying that our current body is buried with all of its "natural" or "this-worldly" appetites and weaknesses but is raised and transformed into a new body with spiritual appetites and qualities. He may also be including the power that animates the body.452 Modern machines are empowered by steam, diesel or nuclear power. Our present mortal body is animated by a heart, lungs and so on. Our resurrection body will be animated by God'�'s Spirit.

Additionally, the term flesh and blood is not referring to only the body or material self, but as N.T. Write states:

Wright2003-bg

Ever since the second century (and increasingly in scholarship during the twentieth) doubters have used this clause to question whether Paul really believed in the resurrection of the body. In fact, the second half of verse already explains, in Hebraic parallelism with the first half, more or less what he means, as Paul's regular use of 'flesh' would itself indicate: 'flesh and blood' is a way of referring to ordinary, corruptible, decaying human existence. It does not simply mean, as it has so often been taken to mean, 'physical humanity' in the normal modem sense, but 'the present physical humanity (as opposed to the future one), which is subject to decay and death'

The First Christian Creed Support A Physical Ressurection

Read The First Christian Creed

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 is a passage in the New Testament of the Bible, written by the Apostle Paul as part of his first letter to the Corinthians. These verses are significant because they present a concise summary of the gospel message and early Christian beliefs about Jesus' death and resurrection (Bauckham2017-ml, Habermas2003-ol).

The dating of the creed is determined through factors such as the dating of the 1 Corinthians itself, which scholars date to around 53-54 AD (Collins1999-ua, Thiselton2000-dp, Keener2005-el , Hays2011-ra) Paul's personal chronology, and early Christian oral tradition. Paul's conversion occurred a few years after Jesus' crucifixion, around 32-36 AD. After his conversion, Paul visited Jerusalem (Galatians 1:17-18) and met Peter and James (Galatians 1:18-19), possibly receiving the creed around 35-40 AD (Bird2007-bh).

The creedal statement in 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 likely predates Paul's letter, as it was part of the early Christian oral tradition. The creed likely emerged within the first few years after Jesus' death and resurrection (circa 30 AD). Scholars thus deduce that the 1 Corinthians 15:3-4 creed dates back to the early 30s AD, making it one of the earliest known Christian statements of faith, reflecting the core beliefs of Jesus' first followers and its significance in understanding the earliest Christians' beliefs and practices.(Dunn2003-uo, Hurtado2003-vf).

1 Corinthians 15:3-4 - ESV

3. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, 4. that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,

What Did Paul Mean That He Was Raised?

To understand whether Paul meant that Jesus physically rose from the dead, we can examine the words he used in the original Greek text (Benner2019-kc, noauthor_undated-wi, Douglas1993-wt):

"Christ died" (Greek: Χριστός ἀπέθανε, Christos apethanen): The verb "apethanen" means "to die" and carries a strong physical connotation. This suggests that Paul was speaking of a physical death.
"He was buried" (Greek: ἐταφῆ, etaphē): The verb "etaphē" means "to be buried" and refers to the physical act of placing a body in a tomb or grave. This implies that Paul understood Jesus' body to have been physically placed in a tomb (Habermas2004-dg).
"He was raised" (Greek: ἐγέρθη, egerthe): The verb "egerthe" means "to raise" or "to be raised." It is in the perfect tense, which indicates a completed action with ongoing effects. This suggests that Paul understood Jesus' resurrection as an event that had already taken place and continued to have significance (Craig1989-gr).

While the specific word choice in the passage does not explicitly state that Jesus' resurrection was physical, the overall context and Paul's references to Jesus' death and burial imply that he understood the resurrection as a physical event (Ludemann1994-ak). Additionally, in other parts of 1 Corinthians 15, Paul talks about the resurrection of the dead and the transformation of the physical body, further supporting the idea that he believed in a bodily resurrection for Jesus (Wright2003-bg). Paul argues that if there is no physical resurrection of Jesus, then there is no hope for the resurrection of believers, and their faith is in vain. This indicates that Paul believed in a physical resurrection, as it was the basis for his argument for the resurrection of believers.

Keeping in the theme of Biblical consistency, the Bible shows that Jesus was still a man during His transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-2;2 Peter 1:16-18) and continues as a man even after His ascension to Heaven. Passages such as1 Timothy 2:5; 1 Cor 15:47; 1 Cor 15:21; Rev 1:13 show that Jesus appears in Heaven and at the end times still in His human body. The idea that the Bible teaches a spiritual resurrection goes against modern scholarship on the topic (Stanton2002-tv, Dunn2003-uo, Kee1995-hd, Brown1997-fz, Grieb1997-no, Copan1998-vh), Morledge2007-wa, Barnett2001-ca, Wright1996-yj, Boyd2010-qn, Witherington1997-ok, Hays1994-mw, Wilkins1996-qw, Bird2014-bm, Bockmuehl2006-fr, Habermas_undated-hj).

The Spirit Resurrection Theory, also known as the "spiritual resurrection of Jesus," is an outdated theory that states that Jesus was raised from the dead only as a spirit. The Bible, however, does not support this view and instead argues for a physical resurrection of Jesus. Passages from the Gospels, 1 Corinthians 15, and Jewish Extra-Canonical Apocalypses all point to a bodily resurrection of Jesus, with the body being animated by God's Spirit. Moreover, Jesus' appearances in Heaven and during the end times are still in His human body. This theory is inconsistent with modern scholarship on the topic.