Ignatius and Jesus' Post-Ascension Body

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In the past I had the idea that Jesus' body after His ascension was some kind of ethereal, non-coporeal body, like a ghost or spirit or something "sitting" at the right hand of God. This view did not originate in Bible study but in the presupposition that Heaven is/will be a place in which no physical object can abide. Actually, I suppose a misunderstanding of 1 Cor 15:44, 50 contributed to this view. These verses read:

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a natural body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body...I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inhabit the imperishable (ESV).

In short, "spiritual body" (πνευματικόν) does not mean a non-corporeal, Casper the friendly ghost type body, but a body that is characterized by spirit.  That is, in the resurrection our bodies will not be "bodiless," nebulous apparitions but will be "supercharged" by the Holy Spirit. Remember that Jesus, after His resurrection, could still eat, drink, and be touched but could also do cool things like walk through walks and disappear, perhaps even altering His appearance in some way.

Nevertheless, there are other passages that came to my attention that led me away from the "bodiless" resurrection body view. One verse was 2 Timothy 2:5--"there is one God, and one mediator between man and God, the man Christ Jesus." Note that it says the man Christ Jesus, not disembodied spirit.

Another verse that conflicts with this view is Acts 1:11 in which the angels tell that apostles that Jesus will "come in the say way as you saw him go into heaven." Now this "same way" may be adverbial (he will return "in the clouds") or adjectival (a body went up and a body will come down), but it makes sense that if a body went up into Heaven that a body will likewise descend, unless there is a fleshly coat rack on which Jesus hanged His body while He sits at the right hand of God. ;-)

Even more convincing is Luke 24:39. When Jesus appeared to the apostles and two from the road to Emmaus they were frightened but He told them:

"See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (ESV).

Hmm. So if Jesus post-resurrection body had flesh and bones, what indication is there that something changed after His ascension? Nothing of which I am aware.

I have taught this in Bible class and, to my surprise, some do not receive this well, possibly sharing my former presupposition. However, this is no new interpretation because Christians as early as Ignatius of Antioch saw it this way. In his letter to the Smyrnaeans, in which he rebuked the Docetics for saying that Jesus only "seemed" to appear in the flesh, said:

For I know that after His resurrection, too, He still had flesh, and I believe that He has flesh now (in Mike Aquilina, The Fathers of the Church, p. 62).

Interestingly, Ignatius' letters are dated by some to have been written before AD 117. This, here is a very early attestation to the view that Jesus had a body of flesh after His ascension. Interesting.