Caught Up Together

One of the most amazing and encouraging things about being a Christian is that someday, although your body may die, you will live again and dwell with your Savior for eternity. While that is a wonderful reality, it often doesn’t grip us as hard as it should. Maybe that is because it seems like such a remote, distant event. Maybe part of it is that we don’t really understand how it will take place or what it will feel like.

The thought of a shapeless spirit rising out of a cold corpse into blindingly bright light may encourage us by reminding us that death is not the end, but the resurrection of believers is much more real, tangible, and soul-thrilling than that. The Bible’s teaching on this subject is clear that it is not a nebulous, mystical, ultra-spiritual reality. The resurrection of Christians is a coming, historical event—one that can be physically experienced through the five senses.

Now, while the Bible teaches a physical resurrection, it does not say that believers will necessarily experience this resurrection immediately after they die. It is clear that, as soon as we are “away from the body” we are “with the Lord” (II Corinthians 5:8). So, there is a period in which our fleshly bodies decay as our soul/spirit, the real person, lives with God Himself apart from our bodies.

Yet the Bible also predicts a time when Christ will return to earth to literally and physically bring believers back to life. As early as Job 19:26, we see that Job recognized that “after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God” (emphasis mine). Righteous Job understood that, although his body would eventually decay, he would still look on the Lord through physical eyes and with a real body.

Much of what we know about the physical (or bodily) resurrection of believers comes from descriptions of Jesus’ post-Resurrection body. You see, while Christians will be raised to life with a physical body, that body will be different from the weak, corroding body they had during their lifetime. Paul says, in I Corinthians 15:49, that “we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven [Jesus]” (brackets mine).

That Jesus had a physical body after His resurrection is clear from statements He made to His disciples when He appeared to them. For example, He assured them, “[A] spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). Yet, while Jesus had a physical body, it was obviously a different body than the one He had lived in before His resurrection, for He walked through walls (John 20:19) and was unrecognizable to many who had known Him during His lifetime (Luke 24:13-35).

In considerable detail, Paul describes our new bodies for us in I Corinthians 15:35-49. He uses words such as “imperishable,” “glory,” “power,” and “spiritual.” As Philippians 3:21 states, Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body.” Since believers will be like Jesus, and since Jesus had a physical body after His resurrection, the resurrection of believers will therefore also be physical but transformative.

Believing friend, take this to heart. You will see God with actual eyes. You will meet the Lord in the air (I Thessalonians 4:17). You will be conscious. You will feel it. It will be real. 

And better yet, Jesus is coming soon. Are you ready to look Him in the eye?

Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, Used by permission.  All rights reserved.

Photo by Jenny Venturo