In Death, We are Raised to be Imperishable and Eternal

In Death, We are Raised to be Imperishable and Eternal

Based on 1 Corinthians 15

Khen Lim




Thomas and Jesus (Image source: youtube.com)

Unlike all others, in death, Christians expect amazing things to happen beginning with resurrection and ending with having a ‘brand new’ body that will last eternally in heaven. 

A more theologically accurate way of putting it is to say that our present physical natural bodies will be transformed into ones that are either as good as if not better than new. This transformation must not imply that we are to literally receive new bodies; at least not in the sense that these are different bodies that have no relation to the bodies we have while alive. 

Physical recognisability

Scripture informs us that resurrection isn’t just coming alive from mortal death but it also encompasses the renewal of the same earthly bodies. The key to proper understanding here is the word ‘renewal’ or ‘transformation’ and to come to grips with what it is that the Bible says, let us firstly acknowledge that our human bodies are unique and specific to our identities. It is because of our recognisable body and the way its features are formed that we are who we are.

Our friends know us from the outset by how they distinguish us from a crowd of others. We may all have a head with a face, two eyes, a nose, a mouth and a pair of ears and yet God created each of us to be identifiably different. 

My twin little girls, though almost inseparable in looks to most others, are still recognisable to us, their parents, because we know exactly where to look to find their differences. We may all have bodies with shoulders, arms and legs as well as a posterior and again, God is able to get us to look taller, shorter, wider, narrower or simply shaped a little differently by comparison. 

And even when we have billions of people around, we have more than enough variations and nuances over thousands of years not to be mistaken for someone else no matter what.

What all this means is that we cannot discredit the importance of our physical bodies. Much as we would leave them behind and then get transformed in our resurrected form, they are very much an integral part of our identity and therefore we cannot deny that we are raised with the same bodies as the ones we had on earth. 

On the other hand, if we deny that our resurrected bodies are renewed, we then leave ourselves with the counter-reality that we will still fall sick, suffer from all the worldly maladies and diseases despite the transformation. If that’s the case, what’s so good about being renewed when in fact, we are not renewed??

John Piper in his book entitled, ‘Future Grace – The Purifying Power of Living by Faith’ (Multnomah, 2005) wrote, “The old body will become a new body. But it will still be your body. There will be continuity. God is able to do what we cannot imagine. The resurrection is not described in terms of a totally new creation but in terms of a change of the old creation” (p.372).

From dead to alive

Scripture reveals a fair number of verses that convict us on the belief that we will be raised with the same body. In the Gospel of Luke 24:3-6, we learn that Christ was raised in the same body He died with:

“…but they didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus. As they stood there puzzled, two men suddenly appeared to them, clothed in dazzling robes. The women were terrified and bowed with their faces to the ground. Then the men asked, ‘Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive? He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead!” (NLT)

For the verses, we know this for a fact because the tomb in which He was laid to rest was empty because the women “didn’t find the body of the Lord Jesus” for He had risen again. The proof of resurrection is evident in how the men questioned the women, asking “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?” And of course, being rhetorical, they supplied the answer, saying, “He is risen from the dead!” Therefore the tomb was empty because He was raised in the same body.

In the Gospel of John 20:25 and 27, Jesus revealed the same scars He sustained from His crucifixion, meaning that His resurrected body remains the same one:

“They told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he replied, ‘I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in His hands, put my fingers into them and place my hand into the wound in His side.’” (NLT)

“Then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your finger here and look at My hands. Put your hand into the wound in My side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!’” (NLT)

As the disciple Thomas challenges the others in verse 25 for evidence of Jesus’ resurrection in a very specific way, verse 27 reveals how Jesus responded to his insistence for proof. Evidently, the scars were all there for Thomas to react like a stunned mullet.

And then in his letter to the Philippians 3:20-21, the apostle Paul declares that just as Jesus was raised from death with the same body, so would all of us believers, meaning that He had set the precedent in which we are all to follow suit:

“But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for Him to return as our Saviour. He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like His own, using the same power with which He will bring everything under His control.” (NLT)

In the verses, he said Jesus will “take our weak mortal bodies” and transform them “into glorious bodies” in an identical manner to His own and all this would be done “using the same power” in which He is vested in by God the Father. Paul also reiterated the same truth in his letter to the Corinthians (1 Cor 15:49), saying:

“Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.” (NLT)

This verse sums up the same transformation Paul described early, from earthly (as in physical natural) dead to heavenly (as in spiritual) alive very nicely. Insofar as being arisen from the dead, 1 Corinthians 15:13 describes it this way:

“For if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either.” (NLT)

In other words, that which is dead is our mortal human body, that natural physical self. By being resurrected, that dead body is made alive. Paul could not have referred to the body as ‘resurrection of the dead’ if he meant it to be different to the one that is raised, which is how he defined it in 1 Corinthians 15:52, where he says:

“It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed.” (NLT)

The phrase he used here is “those who have died will be raised forever.” Here, he communicates the message that when we die in our bodies, these same bodies will be resurrected for eternity and the same goes for those who are alive when Jesus comes again. None of this would have made any sense at all if God had meant to start anew with fresh and different bodies instead. Resurrection would not be resurrection if that were the case. What we would then have instead would be replacement and not resurrection.

And if the dead were not going to be raised, Paul surely wouldn’t have said so. Instead, he would have said that God would start all over from the beginning with brand new and different bodies for all of us. Since he didn’t say anything alluding to that, it therefore cannot be true.

Earlier on when I quoted Philippians 3:20-21, remember that Paul’s message reveals that Jesus would “use the same power with which He will bring everything under His control.” 

In other words, the precedence He had set would be that we conform to His resurrection protocol in order to be similarly transformed with identical results, thus ending with “glorious bodies like His own.” So here is another piece of evidence that God will not be creating new bodies from scratch for all of us.

In John 5:28-29, Jesus affirmed with stunning clarity that out from the tombs of the dead will come the righteous who will resurrect and hear Him:

“Indeed, the time is coming when all the dead in their graves will hear the voice of God’s Son and they will rise again. Those who have done good will rise to experience eternal life and those who have continued in evil will rise to experience judgement.” (NLT)

From these verses, resurrection therefore is the reanimation of a body dead and laid to rest, where “those who have done good” will arise like Christ and be rewarded with eternal life unlike those who died committing evil who will inevitably go on to face judgement. This raising of the dead must imply that there is a connection between our present physical and natural human body and our resurrected one. In reanimating, it means that the dead human body will be raised just as it is “planted in the ground” when dead. 1 Corinthians 15:42 sums it up this way:

“It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die but they will be raised to live forever.” (NLT)

In the NLT version, “our earthly bodies” is a reference to the pronoun “they” within the same verse. It means there is continuity between our current bodies and our resurrected ones in the same exact manner as in verse 53:

“For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.” (NLT)

There are two parts to the verse and we can commutate them by parallelising ‘dying bodies’ with ‘mortal bodies’ and then ‘bodies that will never die’ with ‘immortal bodies.’ When we link them this way, we can easily see how we go from ‘dying’ to ‘never die’ and then from ‘mortal’ to ‘immortal.’ The transformation that God promises us will take us from being mortally dead to eternal immortality where we will have beaten death once and for all.

Same but different body

Where it gets potentially controversial is what Paul has to say in 1 Corinthians 15:35-37, where he writes:

“But someone may ask, ‘How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?’ What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first. And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting. Then God gives it the new body He wants it to have. A different plant grows from each kind of seed.” (NLT)

The problematic part of these verses appear to be in verse 36 where Paul says a seed laid in the ground would not grow unless death comes first. And then in the following verse, he seems to say that the  plant that eventually grows isn’t quite the seed that you plant in the first place. Perhaps either statement leads us to deceptively believe that Paul is referring to two different bodies; the one that resurrects might possibly therefore be different to the one we have on earth while we are alive.

Yet if we read the same verses more measuredly, we might sense something different. Paul juxtaposes the seed with the plant but he pointedly emphasises that it is from the seed that the plant will arise. In other words, they are the one and the same but yet, it is the plant that will be the result. 

The transformation is in the witnessing of the seed becoming the plant but before that can happen, the seed must first die. It is, in other words, the same yet different. In the resurrection of our bodies, Paul says that God will give us a “new body (that) He wants us to have,” one that is not just new but better than the state that ours is presently in.

By using the agricultural-based analogy between the seed and the plant, we can see Paul leaning towards the continuity between the two. The interrelationship is such that one becomes the other and yet both are from the same organism. 

The very same seed that is sown ultimately becomes the plant that grows from it. In the same way, the body we are equipped with today will one day become our resurrected body except that in the latter case, we will be in receipt of superior qualities and capacities. Just as a seed is useless but a plant is more productive, our resurrected bodies will be more capable and emboldened in full glory as 1 Corinthians 15:42-44 reveals:

“It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.” (NLT)

Paul talks about the ‘spiritual body’ in describing the resurrected body as being ‘spiritual.’ The original Koine Greek word here is pneumatikos (πνευματικός), which is diametrically different to psuchikos (ψυχικός), which means ‘natural’ body. The comparison here is in the transformation from natural human body (psuchikos) to one that is spiritual (pneumatikos), meaning an immortal or incorruptible body.

It is of course through the first Adam from whom we received our natural bodies that were created perfectly for our earthly environment. But in Adam’s Fall, we inherited his perishability and in doing so, we were charged with disobedience by God and took on the accursed mortality as punishment. 

From that point on, we were given limitations to our finite bodies. We would age and die. Our bodies would deteriorate. We will face all the vulnerabilities of crippling illnesses and lethal diseases. Inevitably, we are put on death row with the years counting down. From dust we came and back to dust, we shall return:

“By the sweat of your brow, will you have food to eat until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust and to dust, you will return.” (Gen 3:19, NLT)

Sadly had Adam and Eve not sinned, we would not be subjected to a return to dust. Instead we would live forever on Earth and God would have no need for a new heaven. Because we won’t die, there would also be no requirement for resurrection. We won’t need to be saved in order to live forever because simply put, we were, in the first place, created for eternity. 

We would not require the Word of God – the Bible, in other words – to guide us because we would have remained submissive and obedient to Him. In fact, God’s modus operandus would have been radically different because He wouldn’t need to put into place, a plan of salvation and a covenant with man.

However because of sin, death came and this death is both physical and spiritual, meaning that there are two levels of mortality that we face. Physical death is mortal destruction. Our natural body dies and becomes no more. Spiritual death occurs because unless we embrace salvation offered by Christ, we would forever be separated from God the Father. In our decaying death, we return to dust and we would have stayed as dust if not for Christ.

But in our resurrection, we will be raised in indestructibility where our bodies defy the threat of death as Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15:54, saying:

“Then when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’” (NLT)

Yet in our dishonourable fall from grace, our original perfection was tarnished even though we were created in the image of God (Gen 1:27):

“So God created human beings in His own image. In the image of God, He created them; male and female He created them.” (NLT)

However in resurrection, we will inherit greater strength as we dispense with our mortal weaknesses inherited from the first Adam. We will no longer be broken but when raised, we will shine in glory. No longer mere natural human bodies but arisen, we will be spiritually embodied. These are the very evidence of what transpires when our bodies are transformed. 

We become powerful, indestructible, magnificent and spiritual. We will bask in glory with Christ and we will be forever alive. In our imperishable state, we no longer worry about getting sick or catching any deadly diseases. We will not die anymore and neither will we age. No injuries will come to us. In our spiritual new selves, our bodies will be fully oriented to and be filled with the Holy Spirit and in that very sense, we will embody the glory of God.

That glory is the same bright and shining radiance that defines the presence of God and it will not only surround our resurrected bodies but it will be proof that vindicates what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew 13:43:

“Then the righteous will shine like the sun in their Father’s Kingdom. Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand!” (NLT)

In no different a manner, Daniel in 12:3 prophesied in his vision, saying:

“Those who are wise will shine as bright as the sky and those who lead many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever.” (NLT)

The wonderful part of this promise is how the brightness of the illuminating glory is going to be eternal for all of us. Such is the significance of the resurrection of our bodies.

Renewed perfectly for heaven

Following our resurrection, we will now adorn a ‘spiritual body’ renewed perfectly for life eternal in heaven. Yet even as I say this, we are not spirits in the sense that we will become body-less. What we will have are resurrected bodies that require neither physical sustenance nor any earthly-type means of life support.

What we will inherit in resurrection is a spiritual and natural body like Christ. Yet we won’t need to eat to stay alive. Neither will we have to go to the gym to ensure our muscles are toned because our bodies will stay fit forever and not be threatened by any mortal diseases. We won’t starve and we won’t thirst for water.

In the Gospel of John, we already have a good glimpse of what our resurrected bodies will look like when we recall Jesus’ appearance to His disciples. Take note again that He still sported the inflicted wounds that were physically enough for Thomas to touch. 

Yet for all His physical nature, He could travel effortlessly and appear and disappear whenever He liked and yet could also get through walls and doors unhindered. If He liked, He could even eat and drink, sit and talk with His disciples. Taking another look at Philippians 3:21, we can now see the transformation a little clearer again:

“He will take our weak mortal bodies and change them into glorious bodies like His own, using the same power with which He will bring everything under His control.” (NLT)

‘Our weak mortal bodies’ define our lowly earthly form but by transforming them into ‘glorious bodies,’ we imitate Christ. What we then have is a physical natural body that is imbued in spiritual glory empowered with imperishability, power and glory just like Christ. 

If you like, we will also be able to walk through doors and walls, go anywhere and everywhere. We will be able to appear and disappear whenever and wherever we want. Everything will be effortless with our new transformed bodies and we will be completely free to praise and serve and glorify God for eternity. No sin can visit us anymore.

Footnotes:

Piper, John (Jan 2005). Future Grace – The Purifying Power of Living by Faith. (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Publishers)