...from the desk of Rande Wayne Smith D.Min., Th.M., M.Div.

Heaven – 4

OUR RESURRECTED BODIES

1 Corinthians 15:35

Someone will ask, “How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?”
 

May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion to His glory and our edification.  Amen.

Let’s begin with some audience participation. Keith, I need your help. I want to talk to you about cars. And you need to use your imagination. Tomorrow you’re going to go to a dealership here in the area and pick up your brand new automobile. Now because this is your imagination you can pick whatever dealer, whatever car you want. What’s it going to be? …

That’s great. Now, they’ve already taken your old car as a trade-in, which means that you have no way to get to the dealership tomorrow … so you’ll need to get a taxi to take you on the 10 minute ride over there.

Now, when you’re riding in this cab, how preoccupied are you with the taxi itself? …

You don’t notice its’ paint job, or the size of its’ engine, or the quality of its’ stereo system? …

What’s the car that you’re preoccupied with? …

And why are you preoccupied with the ________? …

Good job! Scripture says that our life on this planet is like a 10-minute car ride. It’s “like morning mist, like the dew that vanishes early in the day.” Hosea 13:3 And yet we get so preoccupied with the “cab” (our body) that we’re running around in … and we’re so apparently disinterested, so unaware about the body that God is going to give us forever and ever in the life to come.

Think for a moment about all the time and energy and money we spend on these present bodies … health clubs, diets, stylish clothes. We spend money on these bodies as we take them to doctors and dentists and optometrists and even cosmetic surgeons. We spend money on haircuts and manicurists … all this on bodies that are here today and gone tomorrow.

But how much do you know about what Scripture says of the eternal bodies God’s going to give us? And as we begin to think about this, I’m not assuming that everyone here is going to end up with a heavenly body.
Scripture is clear that heavenly bodies are reserved for those who have come to faith in Jesus Christ.

“God has given us eternal life, and this life has its source in his Son. Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” 1 John 5:11-12 Keep that verse in mind throughout our study today.

If you want the heavenly body that Scripture describes … you have to have Christ. “Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” And the question of the morning is … are you certain that you have Jesus Christ?

Alright, here are 4 characteristics about our heavenly body that we’re going to look at this morning.

#1 … it will be a body marked by continuity. What I mean by that is there will be a definite link between the body you have now and the body you will have in Heaven. Now I’m not suggesting that our heavenly body will be nothing more than a resuscitation of the physical corpse that’s placed in the coffin … no, Scripture tells us that there will be some dramatic changes.

We’re going to be different … drastically different. And yet something of our current body is going to be present. God is going to resurrect us … not recreate us. He’s not going to start over from scratch.
Here’s how the Apostle Paul explains it. “Someone will ask, ‘How can the dead be raised to life? What kind of body will they have?’ You fool! When you plant a seed in the ground, it does not sprout to life unless it dies. And what you plant is a bare seed, perhaps a grain of wheat or some other grain, not the full-bodied plant that will later grow up. God provides that seed with the body he wishes; he gives each seed its own proper body.”
1 Corinthians 15:35-38

Here’s Paul’s analogy. He’s saying, “Imagine a seed, and for the sake of illustration, imagine a wheat seed. Pretend I’m holding a wheat seed … tiny, round, hard … and now I hold up a stock of wheat … long, slender, golden, bushy headed … and I ask, ‘you can see the resemblance between the 2, right?’”

Of course you don’t see the resemblance between a tiny little seed and a stock of wheat. If you didn’t know anything about agriculture, if you knew nothing about planting seeds and watching them grow into plants, you would say that there’s absolutely no connection at all between a stock of grain and a seed.

In fact, it’d be interesting to do a little experiment this morning … (a good children’s sermon) … for me to hold up some different seeds and have you take a pencil and paper and draw a picture of the plant that you think the seed is going to become.
I dare say, unless you’re an amateur gardener, you’d have no idea what to draw. We don’t see any resemblance between a tiny seed and what it’s going to become. Yet Paul says that the 2 are inseparably linked to each other. That the seed, after it dies in the ground, becomes the plant … and the plant that it becomes was initially the seed.

Paul’s telling us, by way of analogy, that our resurrection body will be in a sense a development, a transformation, of our present body. Our present body is like the seed. The 2 will be radically different, but make no mistake about it; there will be some sort of continuity between them.

Some of you are wondering, “How is God going to pull this off? What about the person who dies at sea? And the remains of their body are spread all over the ocean floor? What about the person who dies in a fire or bomb blast … what’s left for God to resurrect?”

Listen to Paul’s answer … “You fool!” (And if I may paraphrase), “Stop asking cynical questions about what God can or cannot do. He’s God! And if God says there will be continuity between our resurrected body and our present body … there will be continuity.”

I don’t know how God’s going to do it … but God is going to do it.
2ndly, your heavenly body will be marked by contrasts. 2 guys die and go to Heaven. St. Peter meets them at the gate, “Fellows, I’ve got some bad news for you. Just like everywhere in the world, construction is behind up here in Heaven. And your mansions aren’t ready for you yet, it’s going to take several months. In the meantime I’m willing to send you back to earth in whatever form you want to go.”

The 1st guy says, “May I be an eagle?” Peter says, “Fine, you’re an eagle.” The other guy says, “I want to be a really cool stud.” Peter says, “Fine, you’re a really cool stud.”

A couple months later the mansions are finished. Peter asks an angel to go and get the 2 guys. The angel asks, “Where do I look?” Peter says, “The 1st guy is soaring over the Grand Canyon. … And the 2nd guy, the stud, well, he’s in a snow tire in Chicago.”

(That’s not a true story. God will never send you back to earth in another form.) Scripture does teach that our heavenly bodies will be marked by a distinct contrast from our earthly bodies. They will be dramatically different.

“And the flesh of living beings is not all the same kind of flesh; human beings have one kind of flesh, animals another, birds another, and fish another.
“And there are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies; the beauty that belongs to heavenly bodies is different from the beauty that belongs to earthly bodies. The sun has its own beauty, the moon another beauty, and the stars a different beauty; and even among stars there are different kinds of beauty.

“This is how it will be when the dead are raised to life.” 1 Corinthians 15:39-42

Paul’s using another analogy. But this time he’s not illustrating continuity … it’s contrast. Consider all the different kinds of “bodies” God has made in the universe. There are not only human bodies, but bird bodies, and fish bodies; and look at the sky, there are moon bodies, and sun bodies, and star bodies.

So what’s Paul’s point? A human body is really different from a star body … right? Well, that gives us a little idea of the difference between our present body and the one we will receive when Christ resurrects us from the dead. It will be as vastly dissimilar as a human body is from a star body.

Now I don’t know about you … but that hurts my brain to try to comprehend. I’ve been inclined over the years to think that my heavenly body will be like my earthly body … but with all the dings taken out. Do you understand what I’m saying?
I’ll be pretty much me, but my vision will be 20/20. I can get rid of my contacts and reading glasses. No cavities in my teeth. No extra 10 pounds around my waist. (My friend, Rick Skiba, will get a full head of hair with his!)

In other words, my heavenly body will be something on the same order of what I already have. But while there will be some continuity between my resurrected body and the one I already have, Scripture tells me that the dissimilarity will be tremendous. It will be as big a difference as between a human body and a star body.

And Paul gives 4 examples of these contrasts.

“When the body is buried, it is mortal, when raised, it will be immortal. When buried, it is ugly and weak; when raised, it will be beautiful and strong. When buried, it is a physical body, when raised; it will be a spiritual body.” 1 Corinthians 15:42-44

1st contrast, when the body goes into the ground … it is mortal; when raised … it will be immortal. We will go from mortal to immortal.

I’m reminded about my mortalness every night when I get ready for bed. I see the cavities in my teeth. I take my contacts out. I eat a Rolaids for my stomach. I take some Tylenol PM to help me sleep. You know, I consider myself fairly healthy, but ….
I have a saying on the wall in my exercise room … “I must care for my body as though I was going to live forever … but I must care for my soul as though I were going to die today.” I exercise, I work out, because if I don’t I know my body will fall apart … and don’t you smile, because your body is falling apart too. Each one of us is mortal. And one day, Scripture says, we will trade-in our mortalness for immortalness. What does that mean?

That means … no more cancer (you can applaud if you want to) … no more heart disease … no more diabetes … no more arthritis … no more HIV … no more anything that destroys the body. Mortal to immortal. Those of us who are suffering in one of those ways, or have a loved one who is, we say, “bring it on.”

2nd contrast … when buried our body is ugly, when raised it will be beautiful. What does Paul mean? Ever have a loved one whose body was destroyed by cancer? That’s ugly. Ever go to a funeral of a friend, only to discover that the casket is closed because the automobile accident rendered them beyond recognition? That’s ugly. Ever see a little child suffer from some dreaded disease? Ugly.

Ever know an athlete who was injured and is now paralyzed? Ugly. Ever know some bright, intelligent, witty person who is now suffering from Alzheimer’s? Ugly. Scripture says all that will one day be changed.

Joni Eareckson Tada was paralyzed in a diving accident when she was just a teenager, and has been confined to a wheelchair now for several decades. She’s a wonderful motivational speaker and author. And she paints beautiful pictures with a paint brush that she holds between her teeth.

Joni writes, “The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand. When you contrast lifeless, useless legs against splendor, resurrected legs, there is quite a contrast.” When buried they are ugly … when raised they will be beautiful.

One day Joni was speaking to a group of mentally challenged people. When she said that one day God was going to give her a new body, they all just kind of smiled back at her. But when she told them that they were going to get new minds, they broke out in thunderous applause … from ugliness to beauty.

You see, the most beautiful person on earth is still living under sin’s curse. And as a result, reflects only a shadow of the beauty that once characterized humanity. If we saw Adam and Eve, as they were in the Garden, before sin ruined things, they’d take our breath away.

One day, I’m going to take your breath away! I know it’s hard to believe. But I’m going to become, in a twinkling of an eye, beautiful!
Let’s move quickly to the next one because I don’t want you to think too hard about that last image … from weakness to strength. Now that’s pretty self explanatory, although Scripture doesn’t say how strong we will be. Will we be faster than a speeding bullet? Stronger than a locomotive? Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound? Maybe.

4th contrast, our bodies will go into the ground physical and come out spiritual. Please understand, the word spiritual doesn’t mean lacking in substance. Paul’s not suggesting that someday we will be ghostlike.

Interestingly, in a recent poll taken by Time magazine, of the Americans who believe in an afterlife, over 2/3’s believe that we’ll have no bodies in Heaven … only our spirits will be resurrected. Well, that’s not what Scripture teaches. The Apostle Paul uses the word “body” here 10 times in the original Greek text. It’s the key word of the passage. Bodies are a part of our future.

When Paul says that we will be raised he’s not suggesting that we will be without bodies. We’re going to have a spiritual body. When you 1st came to faith … when you confessed your sins to God … and asked to be forgiven … and have Christ come and live in you … and transform you … Scripture says that God gave you His Spirit at that moment.
But someday this same Holy Spirit will so fill your resurrected body that you will become supernatural … no longer just natural.

So, our heavenly bodies will be marked by continuity … marked by contrasts … and 3rdly … they will be marked by Christlikeness.

“For the scripture says, ‘The 1st man, Adam, was created a living being’; but the last Adam is the life-giving Spirit. It is not the spiritual that comes 1st, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The 1st Adam, made of earth, came from the earth; the 2nd Adam came from heaven. Those who belong to the earth are like the one who was made of earth; those who are of heaven are like the one who came from heaven. Just as we wear the likeness of the man made of earth, so we will wear the likeness of the Man from heaven.” 1 Corinthians 15:45-49

Those verses may sound a little confusing at 1st, but the Apostle Paul is just contrasting 2 Adams. The 1st Adam was Adam himself, the 1st human being. Who is the 2nd Adam in these verses? … Jesus Christ.

So, the 1st Adam, Paul says, was a physical being, created from the ground of the earth … and we are all very much like him. The 2nd Adam, Jesus Christ, is a life-giving Spirit. He comes not from earth, but from Heaven. He is spiritual, or supernatural in nature.
And here’s the amazing point of this paragraph … one day “we will wear the likeness of the Man from heaven” … Jesus … just as we presently wear the likeness of Adam.

One day, we’re going to be like Jesus! Other Scriptures confirm this. “We, however, are citizens of heaven, and we eagerly wait for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, to come from heaven. He will change our weak mortal bodies and make them like his own glorious body.” Philippians 3:20-21 Or, “My dear friends, we are now God’s children, but it is not yet clear what we shall become. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he really is.” 1 John 3:2 When I consider my eventual transformation into Christlikeness I get excited about so much more than just the obvious physical changes.

I eagerly wait for the day when I will demonstrate Christ’s image morally, and spiritually. Because truth is, I get so tired of my routine lapses into sin. Don’t you? (Not of my lapses … maybe you get tired of mine, too.)

Aren’t you embarrassed at some of the things you’ve said and thought this week? And if you dare try to tell me that you’re not ashamed about anything, then I’d like to challenge you to give us a video tape of your last 7 days. Let us watch everything … every word that escaped your mouth (especially when you thought no one heard) … every thought that flitted through your mind.

Aren’t you willing to say with me, “oh, for the day when all that will be history and I’ll be like Christ spiritually”? Aren’t you hoping for a day like that?

Paul says in Romans that one of the reasons we have such a struggle with sin is because our bodies are trained to sin. Sin has become habitual to us. My hand has grabbed the bowl full of peanuts so many times that I’m a habitual glutton. These eyes of mine have locked on the bodies of good looking women with such regularity that lust has become routine for me. My mouth is so well practiced in saying the wrong thing, the angry thing, the prideful thing … that it just does it by instinct.

That’s why I’m so looking forward to trading in this sin trained body for one that’s just like Jesus. I can hardly wait to get to Heaven.

Here’s a 4th mark … it will be a body marked by conquest. This is what will happen to us the moment that Christ returns.

“What I mean, friends, is that what is made of flesh and blood cannot share in God’s Kingdom, and what is mortal cannot posses immortality.

“Listen to this secret truth: we shall not all die, but when the last trumpet sounds, we shall all be changed … (we have this verse up on our nursery wall) … in an instant, as quickly as the blinking of an eye.

“For when the trumpet sounds, the dead will be raised, never to die again, and we shall all be changed. For what is mortal must be changed into what is immortal; what will die must be changed into what cannot die. So when this takes place, and the mortal has been changed into the immortal, then the scripture will come true: ‘Death is destroyed; victory is complete!’
‘Where, Death, is your victory?
Where, Death, is your power to hurt?’
Death gets its power to hurt from sin, and sin gets its power from the Law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!” 1 Corinthians 15:50-57

What does Paul mean when he says that “death gets its power from sin, and sin gets its power from the Law”? Paul’s saying that the reason we all eventually die is because we’ve all broken God’s moral laws. And “sin pays its wage – death.” Romans 6:23

If you choose to go your own way … rather than God’s … the result is death. But when Christ died upon the cross He bore the penalty of sin for all those who put their hope and trust in Him. Christ took the “hurt” out of death. So instead of our physical death resulting in a plunge into eternal death … now our physical death becomes a door by which we pass into eternal life.
What a huge change because of what Christ did.

I love the story of the Dad who’s riding in the car with his son. The window is open and a bee flies into the car. The little boy becomes hysterical with fright. And Dad, who’s trying to drive, does the only thing he can do … he reaches out and grabs the bee in his hand. It stings him and he crushes it. And he holds up his hand for his little boy to see, and says, “Look son, I’ve got the stinger in my hand. Don’t be afraid.”

When Jesus died on the cross He took the hurt of death for you. The stinger is in His hand.

Now, have you ever taken hold of that hand that holds that stinger? This is what this whole series of messages is about. It won’t do you any good to learn all about heavenly bodies, if you’re not going to get one. Scripture says, “Whoever has the Son has this life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.” Today is the day to make certain there’s a heavenly body waiting for you … a body that is marked by continuity, contrasts, Christlikeness, and conquest over death itself.

If you do not know for sure that a heavenly body awaits you, don’t leave here this morning without talking to me. This is of eternal importance.
 

MARANA THA