Advent Glimpses of our Future
The body we now have is a lowly body, weak, prone to disease and limited in so many respects; our bodies die. There is a new body in store for us. Paul called it a spiritual body, literally a spirit body (1 Corinthians 15:44). The Christian faith is built, not on a disembodied spirit that lives forever, but on the physical resurrection of the human body. The resurrected body of Jesus is its prototype, the first fruits (1 Corinthians 15:23). It is not merely a spirit, it is, as Paul said, a spirit-body, the blending of both the spirit and physical. Jesus could eat food and yet disappear from a room or reappear. This stretches our minds about the body. It is a glorified body like our glorified Lord. This is the Christian’s hope.
“There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 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 15:41-44).
“But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:20–21 ESV).
