It is significant that Mearns has to agree with this point, and so he assumes that Paul taught a (merely) spiritual resurrection of believers at the very beginning. It is impossible, however, to see how Paul could have accepted that Jesus rose from physical death with a spiritual body without also having to hold that the resurrection of believers was bodily and not purely spiritual. What is significant is that for Paul the resurrection of Jesus was the “first fruits” of the resurrection from the
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