I have exchanged emails with a man who is preoccupied with the distinction between a physical and spiritual appearance of Christ. I sent an email this morning trying to make it clear this distinction is not what he thinks:
The problem you are allowing to divert you is the issue of “tangibility” or “physicality.” You shouldn’t give that the attention you are allowing it to receive.
When the Lord appeared to Daniel only Daniel saw Him. All the others did not. (Dan. 10:7.) Daniel even calls it a “vision” and so, according to your separation of events it clearly it wasn’t physical.
But when Daniel collapsed onto his face the Lord picked him up and set him on his knees. ((Dan. 10:10.) So according to your separation of events, it clearly was physical.
When Adam was baptized, it was through the medium of the Spirit, and so according to your separation it was clearly spiritual. (Moses 6:4)
But he was “laid under the water” and then was “brought forth out of the water” and so according to your separation it was clearly physical.
When Christ appeared suddenly in the upper room where the door was shut and His appearance was clearly spiritual (John 20:19) according to your separation.
Yet He showed to them His wounds, and therefore according to your separation it was clearly physical. (John 10:20).
You are like Vizzini in Princess Bride, and do not see how it is possible for BOTH cups of wine to be involved in the same phenomena. You want someone else to choose the wine in front of them so you can determine that, according to your understanding, it is the wrong cup.
It is for the reason that our Lord can appear physically to one, and yet be hidden and unrevealed to another, all at the same time, that Paul wrote: “whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell.” This was not an attempt to differentiate between physical and spiritual, but instead an acknowledgement by a man who encountered God that God is real, tangible, glorious and pure, and we may need to enter an altered state to behold Him. But He is nevertheless real and His appearance is physical to the one to whom He appears, and a mystery and entirely otherworldly to those who remain without.