Tag: glorified body

Pondering the Properties of Our Resurrected Body

The blog discusses the complexities of eternal life, particularly the distinctions between various theological concepts such as Heaven, the New Earth, and the nature of resurrected bodies. Highlighting 1 Corinthians 15, the author contrasts current bodies with future resurrected ones, emphasizing themes of imperishability, glory, power, and the spiritual essence of these bodies in eternal existence.

One of the reasons that I have written this blog since 2016 is because the topic of eternal life is a little confusing. It is confusing enough that good theologians have merged some things that I believe should not be merged. For example, they merge Heaven with the New Earth or Sheol with the Lake of Fire/Gehenna/Hell. These mergers are easily shown to be mistaken. Another merger is the Heavenly body of a person, which 2 Corinthians 5 speaks of metaphorically, with the resurrected body which gets a lot of press.

How can we have an “eternal home” in Heaven (speaking of a body not a house) and a resurrected body on Earth. This isn’t a contradiction. As usual, it is describing a complex and new thing to us.

Today I would like to ponder the main text describing the resurrected body, 1 Corinthians 15:42-54. Let’s start with v.42-44:

42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

1 Corinthians 15:42-44 (ESV)

Here are some interesting comparisons between the bodies we currently have and our resurrected bodies. The first is pretty easy to understand: perishable now and imperishable then. My body has built into it the process of aging, vulnerabilities to outside agents, defects from the start, and the inescapability of death. Freezing it and waiting for future technology is foolish. I consider the idea of digitizing our soul to be even more ignorant. I am going with God’s promise of an indestructible body.

“Indestructible” does seem to come with a few caveats. The unrighteous arise with a resurrected body as well, but after their Judgment Day rebuke their bodies are turned to ash (Malachi 4:1-3). Their spirit is cast into Hell. Perhaps there is a form of indestructible body for Hell, but you don’t want it.

Indestructible also raises the question of how reckless you can be on the New Earth. You might be able to damage the resurrected body, but the Tree of Life (Rev. 22) seems to be the only repair kit that you need.

Does the resurrected body age? This depends on how we are understand Isaiah 65 https://afterdeathsite.com/2022/05/24/wrestling-with-isaiah-65/ . It may speak of a lifecycle of the resurrected body or perhaps it is just making the point that we don’t have to worry about pillaging or death in any form. We know the resurrected body is eternal for the righteous from other sources.

Then there is the contrast between our current “dishonor” and future “glory”. Dishonor would be the presence of our sinful nature and all the products thereof. Glory would be at least the absence of these. Is it more? Will we be like a walking night light in some environments? It used to work at a nuclear power plant and people asked me if I glow at night. Will we have a visible aura? Maybe. Will we be beautiful? Beauty is a relative standard, but I have no doubt that we will look at each other and see unique beauty. Here we may be attractive for a while, but it definitely degrades until the best we can hope for is that we look good “for our age”.

Then there is the conversion of weakness to power. There was a time I was helping a man to whom I donated a sofa-sleeper. That is some heavy furniture, and, of course, he lived on the third floor. I am decently strong, but we got to the top floor and my muscles just said, “we’re done”. Weakness. Someday I may not be able to stand up on my own. So how powerful is powerful for the resurrected body. I expect much stronger, faster, agile. Also, I expect keener if not additional senses. And maybe new abilities. Will there be limits? I expect so. Just much higher limits.

Then the real mysterious trait: spiritual. Paul goes on to speak of this trait:

45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.

1 Corinthians 15:45-49 (ESV)

This paragraph doesn’t get into specifics but rather just says that we will be like Jesus’ resurrected body in many ways. 1 John 3:2b echos this fact. But how? This may be the way that our Heavenly body and resurrected Earthly body are integrated. We would possess the ability to be present in the space-time of a new universe and be present in the space-time of Heaven. With so much freedom it is easy to imagine why we won’t get bored with eternal life.

Paul continues:

50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written.

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

1 Corinthians 15:50-54 (ESV)

I main point here is that everybody, including those still alive when Jesus returns, needs to go through this transition. It is not just God’s requirement; it is because of the laws of the physics of what He has created. Another point made here is that until this happens, we are still partially under the consequence of sin–which is death. Moving to Heaven at our death is a big step, but our bodies are a part of us, and they need to be elevated are reintegrated. Then we are complete.

It is a lot to ponder but encouraging to do so. Thanks be to Jesus.

What Will We Be Like in Heaven?

In the course of this blog, I have covered the topics of Sheol, Heaven, Judgment Day, dying, Christ’s descent into Sheol, the Resurrection, the New Earth and Hell.  Use the search box to find any of these topics and more, if you didn’t see the entries as they came out.  We have been on the topic of Hell for awhile, in honor of All Saints Day, which is November 1, let’s go back to the topic of Heaven.

1 John 3:2 raises a question worth thinking about:

Dear friends, now we are the children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known.  But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

What will we be like when we pass from this world, if our destination is Heaven?  As the text suggests, there is a lot we don’t know about that topic.  We will be whatever a glorified human being is like, because Jesus is still both God and human.  While we don’t know much about this, we can say some things.  The first set is more about what we will not be like.

We won’t have a sinful nature anymore.  Our sinful nature is a part of our flesh and we will leave that behind for the time being.  That changes many things.  All our tendencies toward selfishness, anger, lust, sloth, greed, addiction and whatever other sin will be gone.  We may remember what those are, but we won’t feel it.  For the first time ever, we will be able to control our tongue.  We will also have God’s love for others saturating our every moment.  Just think of the fantastic relationships we will have with the other people in Heaven!  Even if we had been conflicted with somebody, if they are saved, there will be a whole new, beautiful relationship with them in Heaven.

Assuming that there will be millions of humans, let alone angels, in Heaven, I wonder who we will know and how much we will relate.  At the Transfiguration, Peter, James and John see and know Moses and Elijah.  There doesn’t seem to be introductions.  I doubt if there were name tags.  They just seem to know who they are.  I think we will just know people.  We will know those who were a part of our lives on Earth and we will know others we had never met.

Our existence in Heaven will not be a ghostly, immaterial existence.  Paul speaks of a “heavenly body” in 1 Corinthians 15.  He is not referring to a planet nor is he referring to somebody who is sexy.  There is a body we will have that is properly a part of Heaven.  It is not our resurrected, earthly body for that is properly a part of this universe.  What will this body be like or look like?  I don’t know.  It may resemble you in some way, it may not.  It may be a set “age”, it may not.  Expect an improvement, however, for another thing we can say about Heaven is that there will be no “curse”.

The Curse is spoken of in Revelation and refers all the way back to the Garden of Eden.  It is responsible for such misery as sickness, aging, accidents, natural disasters, boredom and the frustration that goes inherently with this world.  The way I like to describe the curse is God taking a step back from the controls.  If God didn’t maintain some control, we would all just dissolve into non-existence.  The Bible says, Jesus “holds all things together”.  But with the rejection of God by Adam and Eve, it seems that God relinquished His control of creation in part.  The result is what I listed above.  In Heaven, God takes back control, and that is a good thing.

Now we can ask many more questions.  Do we eat, sleep, work, or poop?  I suspect the answer is yes, but I don’t know for sure.  Is there something like sex? What is the experience of time like?  Is there really no beer in Heaven, or is that just the words to a polka?  We will have to wait on all of that, but what we do know should make you think.  You should imagine past the end of life, because the “hope” we have is not wishful thinking.  It is a certainty based on the promise of God.