[292]St. Paul was given a miraculous view of the Lord in glory.  As he was journeying to Damascus suddenly there shone about him a light from heaven.  He did not see the body of Jesus but only the light from his glorious body.  He heard a voice saying unto him:  “I am Jesus”.  So brilliant was this light that for three days he was blind; and the Lord performed a miracle by removing his blindness.  “And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales:  and he received sight forthwith and arose, and was baptized.” (Acts 9:1-19) The apostle Paul afterward relating this incident said:  “And last of all he [Jesus] was seen of me also, as one born out of due time”. (1 Corinthians 15:8) Here we have a little glimpse of what the glorious body of the Lord is.  These facts show that the bodies in which Jesus appeared after his resurrection were not the body that was crucified nor his glorious spiritual body, but bodies created expressly for the purpose of appearing unto his disciples.  Our Lord’s human body, the one crucified, was removed from the tomb by the power of God.  Had it remained there it would have been an obstacle in the way of the faith of his disciples, who were not yet instructed in spiritual things.  They were not thus instructed until the giving of the holy spirit at Pentecost.  The Scriptures do not reveal what became of that body, except that it did not decay or corrupt. (Acts 2:27,31) We can only surmise that the Lord may have preserved it somewhere to exhibit to the people in the Millennial age.  The Scriptures tell us that God miraculously hid the body of Moses (Deuteronomy 34:6; Jude 9); and Jehovah could just as easily have preserved and hid away the body of Jesus.  Jesus being resurrected a divine being, the express image of the Father, we are sure that no man could look upon him and live. (Exodus 33:20) Christ Jesus the Lord in heaven is a glorious being, the fairest of ten thousand, and altogether lovely, and no human eye has ever seen him since glorified, except the vision miraculously given to St. Paul.

[293]The purpose of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus when understood is further proof that he was raised divine.  As we have seen, the ransom must be provided by a perfect human being going into death.  This ransom-price, namely, the value of a perfect human life, must be presented in heaven itself as a sin-offering on behalf of mankind.  Unless this was done, the ransom would be of no avail and there would be no purchase of the human race from death and its results.  The apostle Paul plainly states that Christ Jesus has entered into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us. (Hebrews 9:24) He is now a great high priest who passed into the heavens, becoming the high priest on behalf of those who come to God through him during the gospel age.  (Hebrews 4:14-16) On the typical atonement day, as we have seen, God caused Israel through the priesthood to make a picture of the sin-offering.  The high priest appearing in the Most Holy and sprinkling the blood upon the mercy seat was a type of Jesus appearing in heaven itself, presenting the merit of his sacrifice as a great sin-offering.  This would have been impossible had not Jesus been resurrected a divine being.