On the False Dichotomy of Physical vs. Spiritual

Often in examining the words of Jesus in John 6, “teachers” who really ought to know better say something like, He's talking spiritually, not physically. He doesn't mean we have to eat his actual flesh. Sometimes they'll say it this way, It's metaphorical, not literal.

We all agree Jesus is talking about spiritual things. Yet those things being spiritual does not require that they are not physical (aka material). It can be (and in this case is) both: He's talking about a physical thing (His flesh) that is also spiritual.

To say that spiritual == not physical is a false dichotomy.

As Jesus says, That which is born of the flesh is flesh, AND [not “but”] that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. And that this can be both: as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

We know that His own flesh was born both of the flesh AND of the Spirit.

That His flesh was indeed born of the flesh* is evident, since His conception is the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah, Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son… The Virgin conceived exactly as the angel said to her, thou shalt conceive in thy womb.

She did not simply receive some foreign object implanted, but rather the conception was a true conception from her own body, in fulfillment of the promise to the serpent, And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel, and to King David, Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne. If His flesh was not truly conceived from the flesh of the Virgin, who is from the lineage of David, then it is not of the fruit of David's body, and He cannot be the fulfillment of that promise.

So then, Jesus (including His flesh and blood) was born of the flesh, and is, therefore, flesh, since, That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

Now, that that same flesh of our Lord was also born of the Spirit is clear, as the angel confirmed to Joseph: that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. To Mary's question about how she would conceive, the same angel said, The Holy Ghost shall come upon you, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow you. For this reason, that holy thing which shall be born of you shall be called the Son of God. She received the power from God by the Holy Spirit to conceive without man's seed and make the Word of God into flesh in her womb. She herself became by the Holy Spirit that holy ground upon which the manna from heaven distilled as dew into physical form — flesh and blood with a rational soul. And that very holy thing born — that is, His body — is now called the Son of God. This demonstrates that the flesh is in fact what is born of the Spirit, and not something else. He is not referring to His divinity, for example. (His divinity was born not of the Spirit but of the Father.) Rather it is precisely that flesh which we already saw was born of the flesh that was also born of the Spirit.

So then the same physical thing can be both flesh and spirit simultaneously.

Therefore, it is not a dichotomy, but a union. A “both/and” instead of an “either/or”.

The very thing in view here — the flesh and blood of Jesus; His body — is both physical (that is, of the nature of mankind, solid matter, etc.) and also spiritual, born of the Spirit, discerned in and by the spirit and bringing life as the life-giving Spirit, viz.

There is a soulful body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is soulful; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly.

[NB: You'll notice that I put “soulful” in there where the KJV (for example∥ has “natural”. That's because the Greek word there is “psychikon”, not “physikon”. “Psyche” is “soul” (thus the quote of Genesis, The first Adam was made a living soul), whereas “natural” could come from either that word or “physe”, where we get our word “physical” from. Reading it as “natural” instead of “soulful” is not inaccurate in itself, but might be inaccurately read as “physical”, which would confuse the whole conversation unnecessarily.]

So then both the first and the second Adam are physical, and the second Adam remains physical after the Resurrection, while also showing forth all of the spiritual qualities. For He said to His disciples, A spirit has not flesh and bones as ye see me have. So then He was not a spirit in the sense that they meant: a ghost, disembodied and separate from the physical. Yet He comes and goes without regard to the merely physical laws of walls and locked doors and movement through space, as does a spirit, showing then that His body, materially resurrected, is also a spiritual body.

Adam was created in the image of God, but as an earthly image, from virgin earth. But the image of the heavenly (Jesus, the second/last Adam) is not rendered in some other medium, as an apparition or mere thought, but was formed in that very same medium — the flesh of Adam, taken from the virgin. And still He is the man from Heaven, bringing us in His very flesh that same Spirit of life by which He was conceived, such that we also may have life, and that more abundantly. For this cause, He is called the Mediator between God and Man. He is the union of the two in Himself, and that properly in His flesh, viz. For he is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us; having abolished in his flesh the enmity… And, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh… so that those whom He is in are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

To return to the main point: if in the flesh of Jesus that which is physical is also spiritual, as we have shown from Scripture, then the dichotomy introduced of “physical vs. spiritual” where it has to be one or the other is not right, but a denial of the Incarnation itself — a form of Apollinarianism, saying that the spiritual cannot be material, but must be only an appearance of physicality. It removes the union of the Heaven and Earth, God and Man, that is found in Jesus Christ and constitutes the uniqueness of His Mediation between the two.

Even that manna which their fathers ate in the wilderness — which no one would deny was “real” or “physical” or “literal” — is called spiritual food (1 Cor. 10:3). So it is impossible to deny that the true manna from heaven — the flesh of Christ — is both spiritual and physical, such that when Jesus points out what I'm talking about is spiritual He is specifically NOT saying, What I'm talking about isn't material/literal.

Rather, He is saying,

Raise your mind from the mind of the flesh and discern my body in the spirit, that it is both material and spiritual, and that your eating it will be, after my departure, via another medium which I will give you, namely bread, which is not truly another, but my flesh indeed. Nevertheless to see that bread for what it is in truth — my flesh — requires spiritual discernment: the mind of the flesh will not be useful.

For this reason, St. Paul confirms that the one who eats and drinks unworthily does not discern the body and blood in the bread and in the cup, but in so not discerning yet eats of those things in truth, and thus brings damnation on himself, being unworthy and thus not able to return that which will be required of him in that Day “with interest”.

Because of this, 1 Cor. 15 makes it clear that whatever is taught regarding this flesh of Christ has implications for His own Resurrection, and therefore also our Resurrection. If one believes and teaches that the Resurrection of Christ is a physical, bodily Resurrection, and not a metaphor or mere symbolic reference, and that our own rising will be like His (as most Protestants correctly agree is true), then he has no basis to believe or teach that the flesh of Christ which He gives for the life of the world is any kind of metaphor or mere symbolic reference either.

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* yet without sin -- not "born of the flesh" in that respect