The Resurrection
A Body Like Christ's Glorious Body
Dr. John Hoole
This lesson is the last of three lessons on the Believer’s resurrection. The first two were titled:
• Because He Live So Shall We
• With What Kind of Body Will We Be Raised?
In our last lesson, we took note of two characteristics of our resurrected bodies.
1. Firstly, our bodies will be our own bodies.
2. Secondly, our bodies will be changed to like Christ’s glorified body.
Last week we addressed the first part and only briefly mentioned the second part. Today we addressed the second. Our resurrected body will be like that of Christ’s resurrected body.
But before we investigate what the body of our resurrected Lord was like, let’s establish the fact that the Scriptures really do promise we will have a body like His after He was resurrected.
1 Cor 15:45-49 NIV
45 So it is written: "The first man Adam became a living being"; the last Adam [Christ], a life-giving spirit.
46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.
Paul continues for the next couple of verses to describe this comparison between the first man, Adam, and the last Adam, Jesus Christ.
Finally, in verse 49, he concludes:
49 And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man [Adam], so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven [Christ].
Our bodies will be changed to be very much like the body Christ had after his resurrection. We call that his “glorified body.”
We actually find that term mentioned in Philippians 3:20-21 (NIV).
20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
The clearest indication of what our future resurrected body will be like, is to be seen in what kind of body Jesus had after his resurrection and glorification.
The apostle John echoes this thought in 1 John 3:2.
2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
So, in looking at just a few verses, we clearly see that our resurrected body will be like that of our resurrected Lord.
SO, WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE RESURRECTED BODY OF JESUS?
WHAT WAS IT LIKE?
1. Firstly, the resurrected body of Christ was a REAL body.
Jesus didn’t come as a mist or a wind or a ghostly specter. What came out of the now empty tomb was a physical body. A body that maintained a substantial connection with the body he originally had.
Iin Luke 24, we find the disciples all very frightened when Jesus first appeared to them. Let's read the event.
Jesus told the disciples, in Luke 24:38-39 NKJV
38 And He said to them, "Why are you troubled? And why do doubts arise in your hearts?
39 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."
Then in John 20 there is a further record of the resurrection body of Jesus.
John 20:19-20 NKJV
19 Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, "Peace be with you."
20 When He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.
When Jesus rose from the dead, He appeared to His disciples physically. His resurrected body was tangible. They could actually touch it. To prove his body was real, he sat down with his disciple is Galilee to eat breakfast.
Luke 24:42-43 NIV
42 They gave him a piece of broiled fish,
43 and he took it and ate it in their presence.
Just remember that He did not have to eat for sustenance, like He did before, because now He had an incorruptible, immortal body. Yes, our resurrected body will be like the body of Jesus following His resurrection. We will eat and drink with our Lord Jesus Christ and all the other saints who are there.
A good example of this is the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19. Yes, Christ’s glorified body was real, and so will ours be real as well.
While it was a real body, it was not simply a clone of his earthly body.
Mark 16:12 (NIV) tells us…
12 Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country.
Although Jesus’ body was like His body’s appearance prior to His death, there was, at times, an indefinable and ethereal quality about his appearance. While He was the same, he was different. Mary did not know Jesus when He first appeared to her outside the empty tomb. Neither did the two walking on the road to Emmaus. This could partly be explained by the fact that they had not really expected him to be alive.
And yet, to all of them, recognition did come eventually. Ultimately, more than five hundred individuals recognized Jesus, and knew that Jesus had been raised (1 Corinthians 15:6).
Also note that in one of the verses we read earlier, He said He had a body of “flesh and bones.” He did not say He had a body of “Flesh and blood.”
Hebrews 2:14 tells us that in His humanity, Jesus partook of “flesh and blood.” And according to Leviticus 17:11, “The life of the flesh is in the blood.” But Jesus shed his blood on Calvary! This is because, according to the same Leviticus 17:11, “it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul.”
In his death, Christ poured out His blood to redeem us from our sins. And in His resurrected body there was not a drop of that blood. His body was “flesh and bones.”
According to 1 Corinthians 15:50, Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. But flesh and bones can.
So, the first thing we learn about Christ’s glorified body, is that it was a real body….one that was physical and touchable.
2. The Resurrected body of Christ is a SPIRITUAL Body
Some might ask: Isn't that a contradiction? You might wonder, “How can it be both a real physical body, yet a spiritual body?” Doesn’t “spiritual” mean something like a ghost, not physical?
There is an example of the physical/ spiritual body in John 20:26, NKJV
26 And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace to you!"
His body was real and physical, and although he invited Thomas to touch his body, Jesus was able to pass through a closed door without opening it to be in the presence of Thomas. 1 Corinthians 15 also speak of this “spiritual body” we will be given at the resurrection.
1 Corinthians 15:42, 44 NKJV
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption.
44 It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body.
Paul does not say that the body will be a spirit, but says we will have a spiritual body. He is making no reference to becoming immaterial, intangible or without flesh and bones.
Thus far, when considering what our new bodies are going to be like, and knowing that they will be like Christ’s “glorious body”, we have learned that:
1. The body will be a real body.
2. The body will be a spiritual body
3. The resurrected body of Christ is an INCORRUPTIBLE and IMMORTAL body.
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 NKJV
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed --
52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.
Gone forever will be any physical defects, bruises or ailments.
Romans 8:11 NKJV
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
And then in 1 Corinthians 5:4, we read:
4 For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
Any weaknesses or frailty we may have now, will be replaced by strength and power. 1 Cor. 15:43 says our body “will be sown in weakness; it is raised in power.”
We will not have to continue bearing the scars from the pains of life. Neither will we have the disfigurement of disease or the wounds of violence. For the first time in our life we will no longer be subject to physical death, disease or decay, nor will we ever again suffer pain. We will possess “perfect” bodies that will be incorruptible and immortal.
In heaven’s accounting, only one wound is worthy to be remembered. And that is the wound of Jesus Our wounds will be no more.
I like what Joni Eareckson Tada, a Christian paraplegic, write, in her book Heaven: Your Real Home.
“Somewhere in my broken, paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become. The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous resurrected legs. I’m convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?), the image I’ll see will be unmistakably “Joni,” although a much better, brighter Joni. So much so, that it’s not worth comparing……I will bear the likeness of Jesus, the man from Heaven.”
To that, I say a big “AMEN!”