Eternity is in Our Heart: Session 3 – Resurrection and the Glory of God

Notes:

 Resurrection and the Glory of God    See Session Slides Here

‘But someone will say, “How are the dead raised up? And with what body do they come?” Foolish one, what you sow is not made alive unless it dies’ (1 Cor.15:35-36). How can a decomposed body be restored to life? What about bodies that have been burned to ashes, eaten by animal or marine life, etc.? Disorganization is not an objection to resurrection. It is a necessary condition of reorganization. As with a seed, so with a human body. ‘Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead?’ (Acts 26:8).

 

  • Jesus is our prototype. If He did not rise from the dead there is no basis for Christianity, 1 Cor.15:17. The resurrection has a definite order, ‘Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep … For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming’ (1 Cor.15:20,22,23)
  • The body Jesus had on earth was raised again. He has DNA which can trace his ancestry back to David and Abraham. Otherwise He could not qualify as the Messiah and King of the Millennial Age.
  • Yet, His resurrected body on earth was not yet glorified. That’s why the disciples saw Him and were not afraid and didn’t know Him at times. Compare Mt.17:2; Acts 22:6-11; Rev.1:12-18.
  • Jesus in His glorified body will return to earth, ‘And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will consume with the breath of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming’ (2 Thes.2:8).
  • He is our prototype, (1 Cor.15:51-52; Phil.3:20,21; 1 Jn.3:2). We too will shine with God’s glory. ‘Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears to hear, let him hear!’ (Matt.13:43); Ex.34:29-30. ‘And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly Man’ (1 Cor.15:49). This will not be self-absorbed but reflected to others who will behold His glory, Rev.4:10.

 

God will raise us with eternal, physical bodies which will inhabit the New Earth. We need to be careful of overemphasizing the dichotomy between body and spirit. Our body is as much a part of us, our identity, as our spirit. Death temporarily separates the two. This separation is neither natural nor desirable. We will never be all that God intends us to be until our body is raised and rejoined by our soul.

 

Two truths need to be borne in mind:

  • The idea of retention. In the life to come we will be who we are now – only with glorified bodies. ‘Behold My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have’ (Lk.24:39). Jesus walked on earth Lk.24:13-35. He appeared to others Jn.20:15; 21:4. He ate food. He continued the relationships He had before His death.
  • The idea of change. If you sow a seed you don’t grow a seed, but the body of that seed, ‘And what you sow, you do not sow that body that shall be, but mere grain—perhaps wheat or some other But God gives it a body as He pleases, and to each seed its own body’ (1 Cor.15:37-38). ‘The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. 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’ (1Cor.15:42-44).

 

Our resurrected bodies will be different to our present bodies. There will be significant changes.

  • Resurrection overcomes and negates all the effects of the curse.
  • Like Jesus’ resurrected body we will have the 5 senses but probably highly increased.
  • Supernatural travel. ‘Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight’ (Acts 1:9).
  • Immortal, incorruptible. Glorious. ‘For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality’ (1 Cor.15:53).
  • There MUST be a resurrection. This mortal MUST put on immortality, etc. What Christ experienced we MUST experience. For we are one with Him. He is the firstfruits of those who will be raised. It was impossible for death to hold Him (Acts 2:24) and it will be just as impossible for it to hold us.
  • At the resurrection, in the most public of ways, Jesus’ triumph over sin will be seen.