A Better Hope: Christ's Body, Our Bodies

What has happened in the past shows us what will happen in the future. Like Jesus, we are to be raised physically from the dead. Through faith, as we have seen, we are united to him. His Spirit dwells within us: ‘And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you’ (Romans 8:11, my emphasis). The Spirit within us is the Spirit of resurrection. What that Spirit did in raising Jesus he will do for us. We are guaranteed bodily resurrection.

We can look beyond nature. The next step in understanding the nature of our bodily resurrection is to look at the nature of Christ’s resurrected body. Just as there was correspondence between us and Adam, the first man, Paul shows there will also be correspondence between us and the risen Jesus, the new Adam. Both are prototypes of those to follow. ‘Just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven’ (1 Corinthians 15:49). Jesus’ resurrection body tells us about ours. He will transform our lowly bodies, Paul says elsewhere, ‘so that they will be like his glorious body’ (Philippians 3:21).

What was the resurrection body of Jesus like? The Gospel accounts show us that there was continuity and discontinuity with his pre-resurrection body.

Christ’s risen body

Let’s consider the continuity: Jesus bore the scars of his crucifixion (John 20:25, 27). He was still recognizably the man his disciples had known (Luke 24:39). He ate with them (Luke 24:42–43) and broke bread with them (Luke 24:30–31).

But there were also differences. He was recognizable, but not immediately so (John 21:4). Two of his disciples shared a long journey with him, all the while unaware that it was actually him they were walking with and talking to (Luke 24:15–16, though Luke adds that they were ‘kept from recognising him’ indicating that there was more to their lack of recognition than just a change in how Jesus looked). It was far more than his appearance: his nature seemed different from what had gone before. The risen Jesus seemed to pass through locked doors (John 20:26), and suddenly to appear and disappear (John 21:1, Luke 24:31). He was less bound by the physical limitations of normal human life. His body had changed.

This is some indication of what we have to look forward to in our own bodily resurrection. There will be continuity and also discontinuity. I will be recognizably and authentically me. But I will be a transformed me. And I take it this trans­formation will be a more authentic me than I am now. I will be more fully myself then than I have ever been.

Our risen bodies

Paul compares our pre- and post-resurrection bodies:

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, 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 15:42–44)

The contrast relates to four areas:

• My body now is perishable. It will one day fall apart and decompose. In our prime we may feel strong and indestructible, but one day people will stand at our graveside. Our bodies will die and decay. They have a limited shelf-life. They are not designed to go on for ever. Modern toasters and kettles apparently have a form of obsolescence built into them. Our fallen bodies certainly do. They function for only a limited time. Death is inevitable. The visible signs of ageing are a picture of this. But this will not be so with our resurrection bodies. They will be imperishable. They will go on for ever.
• My body now is dishonourable. It has been a vehicle for sin. To my shame, I have used my feet to take me to places of ungodliness. I have used my eyes to look with lust, my hands to harm others, my tongue to lie or exaggerate or humiliate. I have offered parts of my body to sin, as ‘instruments of wickedness’ (Romans 6:13). My body has also suffered because of sin: bruised by others, misused and poorly stewarded by myself. Paul has already reminded his Corinthian readers that sexual sin is a sin against our own body (1 Corinthians 6:18): it changes us – something seemingly organic happens in the act of sexual sin that means we are not the same again. Our bodies are dishonourable. But our new bodies will be raised in glory. Rather than bearing the memories and marks of sin, they will shine. They will be like Jesus’ ‘glorious body’.
• My body now is weak. It is easily damaged or slowed down. I have scars on my torso from two major operations. I seem to get a cold around September that never really goes away until May, when I enjoy two weeks of robust health and then get a summer cold. I’m allergic to cat hair. All it takes to reduce me to a puffy-eyed, sniffling wreck is the presence of some kitten fur: that’s weakness! I suspect that most of us, even in relative youth, are on medication for something. I asked a congregation of about 300, mostly made up of undergraduate students, to put up a hand if they’d had any kind of medication in the previous seven days. There was a forest of raised hands. Isaiah reminds us that ‘even youths grow tired and weary’ (Isaiah 40:30). Even in our primes we’re not that impressive. It gets worse when we’re older. If, one Sunday morning, I ask a group of elderly church members to describe their physical ailments, I’ll need to cancel dinner plans. Our bodies are weak. We need to spend a third of our lives sleeping, after all. But our new bodies will be raised in power. They will not be subject to the same limitations and vulnerabilities. Our strength will be renewed and we will ‘soar on wings like eagles’ (Isaiah 40:31). We will be able to do then what is impossible for us now.
• My body now is natural. That is, it belongs to this realm of nature. It is from the dust of this fallen world, and is appropriate for this kind of life. But my future body, though still physical, will be supernatural. It will be the perfect vehicle for glorifying God in the new creation. My future is supernatural. The very best of human resources and technology now could not come close to achieving for my body what will happen when it is raised. It will belong then to a new order, fitted for service in a new, everlasting realm.

This is our hope. Our future is very much physical. Contrary to the view most people have of heaven, our ultimate destiny is physical. We will not be floating around disembodied in the middle of some cloudy vista. We will have bodies, risen, transformed glorious bodies.

We can see why Peter described this as a ‘living’ hope. It is not subject to the terms and conditions attached so often to earthly expectation. It is sure and certain. Nothing will thwart it. It is hope that looks beyond death.

When grey hair is good!

This is the major difference between Christian hope and any other kind. Our Western society cannot bear to think about death. The only hope it can find is a form that hides away all forms and reminders of death. But true hope is not found in hiding from death, but in being able to come to terms with its reality. For Christians, death is not the end, but a new beginning. It is the condition for resurrection.

For Christians, death is not the end, but a new beginning. It is the condition for resurrection.

One Christian lady in her mid-fifties told me recently that this is why she doesn’t bother to dye her hair. She said she doesn’t mind the process of ageing affecting her appearance. Her perspective has been shaped by resurrection hope. The best is not behind her; it is to come. The body I have and am – this body now – is not ultimate. Even at its peak it doesn’t come close to the body I will have. Grey hairs are therefore not a threat but a promise. The gradual slowing down of the body, the processes of physical ageing and decay that anticipate our final passing, these are not (to borrow a phrase) the beginning of the end, but just the end of the beginning. Better is to come – much better! Death is the transition to resur­rection. We can therefore look it in the eye: it has lost its sting.

Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?

(1 Corinthians 15:55)

Most of us hate or fear wasps and bees precisely because of their sting. But if I knew that, somehow, the sting of these creatures had been removed, would I really go into contortions every time one hovered nearby? A stingless wasp would be one we could swat away playfully. No threat at all.

Well, we now have only a stingless death ahead of us. This is not to trivialize the pain that might come with death, for us and for those we leave behind. But it is to recognize that it has been robbed of its greatest sting: sin. Death is not now the prelude to judgment and condemnation, but to a new, perfected life. Christians can approach it differently. We have hope – living, breathing, growing hope.

This is a tweaked extract from the ebook A Better Hope which is itself drawn from Sam's longer book Lifted: Enjoying the Resurrection Life. Both are available direct from us.