1 Peter 3:18

Was Jesus raised in the Spirit or in a physical body?

PROBLEM: Peter declares that Christ was “put to death in the flesh but made alive in the spirit” (NASB). This seems to imply that Jesus did not rise in the flesh, but only in His spirit, which conflicts with Jesus’ statement that His resurrection body was “flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39).

SOLUTION: To interpret this as proof of a spiritual, rather than a physical resurrection, is neither necessary nor consistent with the context of this passage and the rest of Scripture. Several reasons support this conclusion.

Second, the parallel between death and being made alive normally refer to the resurrection of the body in the NT. For example, Paul declared that “Christ died and rose and lived again” (Romans 14:9), and “He was crucified in weakness, yet he lives by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13:4).

Third, the context refers to the event as “the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (3:21). But this is everywhere understood as a bodily resurrection in the NT (cf. Acts 4:33; Romans 1:4; 1 Corinthians 15:21; 1 Peter 1:3; Revelation 20:5).