The Culture of Hope Founded on Faith
Someone recently asked me about what the Bible says regarding our glorified bodies in heaven. From 1 Corinthians 15:52-56, we know that “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye [when] the trumpet shall sound, the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. For this corruptible [body] must put on incorruption and this mortal [body] must put on immortality. So when this corruptible [body] shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal [body] shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law.”
Will these incorruptible and immortal bodies be the same bodies that we inhabited before we are taken, whether in death or in the gathering signaled by the final trumpet in verse 52? The biblical record on this subject is actually quite complex and would take an extensive treatise to discuss fully. However, I think the simple answer is both yes, and no. The Bible states that the dead will be raised; therefore, we must believe that those bodies of the dead are the subject of this pronouncement. However, those bodies are changed, glorified, no longer subject to corruption or mortality, in order to be able to inhabit the place where God, who is Spirit and must be worshiped in spirit and in truth (John 4:24), abides.
After Jesus rose from the dead, Mary met him in the garden outside the sepulchre and did not recognize Him at first. When she did know that He was Jesus, she apparently reached out to Him. Jesus’ response was, “Touch me not for I am not yet ascended to my Father. But go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God” (John 20:17). And yet afterward, He invited Thomas to touch His hands to verify that He was indeed the Master.
When He later appeared to the disciples, he stepped out of the spiritual realm into the physical realm, into a locked room, without going through the walls or doors. His disciples only looked, did not touch, to see that He was indeed the Savior (John 20:19-23). Scripture does not tell us so, but it appears that at some point in the next few days, Jesus ascended with his newly risen, incorruptible, and immortal body to the presence of God. Why that was necessary and what changed in His body as a result, I don’t know. But when He returned, His body was touchable. Thomas was satisfied at sight of Him that He was Jesus. He remained with His disciples for forty days before He publicly ascended in Acts 1.
In heaven, we know that “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain for the former things are passed away” (Rev. 21:4). The bodies we will inhabit in heaven will be entirely without the effects of sin and capable of living in the presence of our Holy, Almighty, and Eternal God. I believe, therefore, that if the bodies we inhabit here on this finite earth will indeed be literally resurrected, they will be radically transformed from the physically corporeal entities we know, into the spirit-based nature necessary to function in the infinite dimensions of the spiritual realm.
