Posted by Some thoughts [GLamotta] on March 27, 1999 at 20:11:52 {boLUiPtahcPrB2.NtdWAMW4MSSTtTA17s}:
Why a "new" body for Christ.
As some may now becoming aware of, if the Messiah is to return to the Earth for the Second Coming in the flesh, it seems clear it would be an imperfect man, in fact, as the "prodigal son."
But while several reasons have been given for the advantages of Jesus acquiring the identity and background of an imperfect human by possessing one of his faithful anointed ones, one logistical point might be considered for the necessity of his using someone else's body to appear in the flesh, and that is, his own materialized body may not be legitimately available!
That is, Christ gave up his 1st Century perfect body as a perpetual sacrifice for our redemption. So if he were to take it back up to appear in the flesh again during the millennium, that might have represented some logistical or legal complications. Thus we might do well to consider that factor in the background.
If Christ did thus need to reappear in the flesh on an ongoing basis and did not have use of his own perfect body, it seems a temporary solution was found by allowing him to choose one of his own anointed ones, one who had proved faithful, at least in the end, and one whom had "died" at least figuratively and thus gave up his own life and body which then could be taken up by Jesus if he so chose. How the spiritual and corporal world work out together is not known, but even the 144,000 are said to be "one body" with many members.
Regardless, we can assume, after the fact, that it was worked out that some other body, this time an imperfect one, was arranged for the appearance of the Messiah in the flesh. And though it seems that this would add a dimension to the bradth of understanding of human emotions and spirit for the Messiah which would aid in his dealing with them more empathetically, the original issue may have come up based upon the need for the Messiah to appear in the flesh during the second coming, but the unavailability of his own body.
Of note, the person chosen to carry the spirit of the Messiah is subtly spoke of in scripture and those who would "meet him in the clouds" understood him to be an imperfect man who would live out the life of the "prodigal son", who would be lost for a while but then would be found. This would cause those seeing him to "beat themselves in lamentation" when they saw him.
Other scripturs associate him with "sodom" and "egypt" as well as the "ethiopian eunuch" who was reading Isaiah 53, clearly a reference to the Messiah's second coming as an imperfect and "deformed" person before becoming the Messiah. This helped these far-sighted ones, called "eagles" in Matthew and Luke to recognize him physically and to help identify certain features of his personality, lifestyle and experiences.
But the bottom line seems to be that Jesus needed to borrow a body, at least for the millennium, and so....
??????
Portnoy