Jenson: Body of Christ

OK, so the question is: Was the tomb empty? Robert W. Jenson finally answers this at the end of the 12th chapter. He writes,

The organism that was Jesus’ availability – that was his body – until he was killed would have as a corpse continued to be an availability of this person, of the kind that tombs and bodies of the dead always are. It would have been precisely a relic, such as the saints of all religions have. Something other than sacrament and church would have located the Lord for us, would have provided a direction for devotion; and that devotion would have been to a saint, and so would have been something other than faith and obedience to a living Lord.”

This is a complicated position, even though it may not seem so at first glance. Jenson follows 16th century “Swabians,” such as Johannes Brenz, and redefines body in a more rigorous Pauline sense. He eventually presses to the point that sacrament and church are truly Christ’s body for us. It appears that Jenson intends for this to be an ontological equality. This is definitely something to think of, and if it is true would require an extremely high ecclesiology and sacramental theology.