This past Sunday, we discussed what it means to be citizens of heaven. Paul says, “our citizenship is in heaven, and from it, we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, 21, 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). If our citizenship is in heaven, we can anticipate having a transformed body in eternity. What does it mean that our lowly body will be transformed to be like his glorious body?
There are, in general, three stages of our salvation; justification, sanctification, and glorification. One way to understand these stages is in relation to sin.
- In our justification, we are saved from the penalty of sin.
- In our sanctification, we are saved from the power of sin.
- In our glorification, we are saved from the presence of sin.
More importantly, this is what this means in our relationship with God. In justification, we begin our relationship with God and are no longer cut off from him because of our sins. Jesus has stood in our place and taken on our deserved punishment. Though we sin, we grow in grace and in the likeness of Christ, the sin that held us captive loses its grip, and God's spirit enables us to draw closer to the Lord. In glorification, we are reunited with Christ when he returns and raises the bodies of all believers (to unite them with their souls) and changes the bodies of those who are alive to be like his glorious body.
What continuity will there be from our old body to our new resurrected body? Will we still look like we did previously on earth? This glorious body will have no sign of aging. This might be why Jesus was not easily recognizable in his resurrected state. When Paul speaks of our resurrected body, he hints that there will be some continuity in the concept of sowing. "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?...What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain” (1 Corinthians 15:35-37). There are differences between what is sown and what is raised, but there is also continuity. The seed that grows into a plant still has some of the original matter in it. Wayne Grudem states, “On this analogy, we can say that whatever remains in the grave from our own physical bodies will be taken by God and transformed and used to make a new resurrection body.”
Our glorious body will be imperishable and radiant, with no disease or possible injury. As your knees and back ache along with more serious aging problems, think of the perfect body you will have that will never fail or perish. It will be a body that is fit to always worship the Lord with freedom in the fullness of his presence while joyfully living in a community of other worshippers.
