Tag: powerful

How Will We Be Like Him?

The author contemplates the transformative experience of Heaven and the New Earth, focusing on how believers will resemble Christ in character and have new, indestructible bodies free from sin. They explore the uniqueness of individual personalities, potential cognitive abilities, recognition, and the non-divisive nature of gender and race in the afterlife.

I think that it is exciting to think about what I will be like in Heaven and the New Earth. It is not just our environment that will change, but we will be changed. The classic teaser passage about this is 1 John 3:2,

2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.

1 John 3:2 (ESV)

My question for this article is, “How will we be like Him”? Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. He became human and all indications is that He remains human to this day. I am human and when I pass I will remain human. I will not become an Angel. Angels are a separate yet similar species. I will be a human with a heavenly body (2 Corinthians 5:1). That will be a body very different than I one I now have. It will not have the genes or the structures formed by sinful nature. That is a big plus. It will be a body formed to exist in the dimensional space of Heaven and not this universe. That may not be noticeable to me. What else?

When Jesus rose from the dead, He had a resurrected, human body and also was the incarnation of the Son of God. I am not sure that I will have the same properties when I have a resurrected body that is built for this universe. What can we say about our heavenly body and our resurrected earthly body or just “our self” after death in Christ?

Our character will be like Christ, not just “sort of” like Christ as we are now? I will have all of the fruit of the Spirit to the full:

22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.

Galatians 5:22-23 (ESV)

Beyond this there are many other personality qualities listed in the New Testament. These won’t make us into personality clones of each other. We will just be great people. I expect that we will retain certain personality traits that make us unique now–positive ones.

My body(ies) will be indestructible and eternal. No more sickness, aging, or death. I’m looking forward to that. Anything else? The rest is strictly hypothetical.

1 Corinthians 15:42-44 speaks about the resurrected body, not necessarily the heavenly body:

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)

I’m going to say “glory” in verse 43 means in part “beautiful”. Most of us will not leave pretty corpses. Some of have been unattractive even as babies. It will be equal, yet diverse, forms of beautiful. How will we know each other then? If you die looking awful. Will you be unrecognizable? I hypothesize that we will have a gift of recognition not based on seeing faces. This would be great for those who are currently “face blind”. Peter, James and John knew Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration. We are not told of introductions or name tags.

The quote above uses “powerful”. I expect both bodies to be “powerful”. But with what powers? No fatigue? Able to move fast? Able to lift heavy stuff? I am not really sure what “powerful” all entails. But we will in no way be feeble.

Will we retain gender or race? God desires people from every nation and Revelation 7 says:

9 After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands,

Revelation 7:9 (ESV)

I expect that the answer is yes, but it will in no way be divisive or diminishing.

What about cognitive abilities? Not sure. Muscle memory and athleticism? Exciting to think about, but I don’t know. Abilities that have no analog with our abilities now? I sure hope so. The resurrected Jesus seems to either blind people’s recognition abilities or to be a shape-shifter. That may be a God quality. Might we able to present as a child, adult, or good-looking senior? It’s an intriguing idea.

There is much to look forward to when you are connected to Christ and have God’s grace covering you.

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.