1 Corinthians 15:39-40 (ESV)
I have had fellow Christ followers get upset with me when I talked about heaven as a physical place, a new heaven and new earth (see Revelation 21) in which we would have a body. To them Heaven is a spiritual place not a physical place. They would even point to this chapter in First Corinthians as proof. “See,” they would say, “there are earthly bodies and heavenly bodies. Verse 44 even calls them ‘spiritual bodies.’ Heaven is a spiritual place.” But the emphasis on the spiritual is more Greek philosophy than biblical theology. Notice two things about verses 40-44. First, they refer to bodies not spirits. Second, when verse 44 speaks of spiritual bodies it does so in contrast to natural bodies, not physical bodies.
From these verses in the middle of First Corinthians 15 let me suggest three thoughts about our heavenly state. First, Paul’s argument starts with the fact that there are different kinds of bodies. He compares humans, animals, birds, and fish. They all have bodies, but they are not the same. Still, they are bodies. Our heavenly bodies might take a different form, but we were not designed to be bodiless spirits. God is a spirit, but humans have a physical component to them.
Second, the glory of our heavenly body will far surpass that of our earthly body. I referred to C.S. Lewis in an earlier blog when he indicated that if we would meet our heavenly selves we would be tempted to fall down and worship. I think he is right. We cannot fully comprehend what our heavenly bodies will look like. To use Paul’s metaphor from First Corinthians 15, our heavenly bodies will surpass our earthly bodies similar to the way a grain of wheat is surpassed by a stalk of wheat or a kernel of corn surpassed by a stalk of corn. There is a connection, but the latter is far superior to the former. So it is with our heavenly bodies.
Third, our heavenly body will be like that of Jesus. As eternal God, the Son is a spirit, but at a point in time the Son took on flesh and became human as well as deity. He is fully God and fully Man. That’s a mystery we have a hard time wrapping our head around, but we believe it to be true. Theologically we call that the hypostatic union. The Athanasian Creed says it like this, Jesus is “existing fully as God, and fully as man with a rational soul and a human body.”[1] Once Jesus took on the form of humanity he never stopped being human though he has always been God. For eternity forward Jesus has a body. The disciples saw it and touched it in the upper room after the resurrection. Mary clung to it near the tomb after the resurrection. His was a resurrected body, but a body. Like Jesus, we too shall have resurrected bodies.
This brings hope for those who are Christ followers. This life is not all there is. Too often we fear that we must do everything and experience everything in this life or we will miss out. But such is not the case. We have eternity to experience more than we can ever imagine in a world without loss, pain, or death. At a time of fear, when the world is locked down by a virus, Christ followers have this hope that these bodies are not the end. They are just the kernel that leads to something much better, much greater, much more glorious. We live not just in the now, but for eternity. Therein lies our hope.
[39] For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans,
another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. [40] There are
heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one
kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.
I have had fellow Christ followers get upset with me when I talked about heaven as a physical place, a new heaven and new earth (see Revelation 21) in which we would have a body. To them Heaven is a spiritual place not a physical place. They would even point to this chapter in First Corinthians as proof. “See,” they would say, “there are earthly bodies and heavenly bodies. Verse 44 even calls them ‘spiritual bodies.’ Heaven is a spiritual place.” But the emphasis on the spiritual is more Greek philosophy than biblical theology. Notice two things about verses 40-44. First, they refer to bodies not spirits. Second, when verse 44 speaks of spiritual bodies it does so in contrast to natural bodies, not physical bodies.
From these verses in the middle of First Corinthians 15 let me suggest three thoughts about our heavenly state. First, Paul’s argument starts with the fact that there are different kinds of bodies. He compares humans, animals, birds, and fish. They all have bodies, but they are not the same. Still, they are bodies. Our heavenly bodies might take a different form, but we were not designed to be bodiless spirits. God is a spirit, but humans have a physical component to them.
Second, the glory of our heavenly body will far surpass that of our earthly body. I referred to C.S. Lewis in an earlier blog when he indicated that if we would meet our heavenly selves we would be tempted to fall down and worship. I think he is right. We cannot fully comprehend what our heavenly bodies will look like. To use Paul’s metaphor from First Corinthians 15, our heavenly bodies will surpass our earthly bodies similar to the way a grain of wheat is surpassed by a stalk of wheat or a kernel of corn surpassed by a stalk of corn. There is a connection, but the latter is far superior to the former. So it is with our heavenly bodies.
Third, our heavenly body will be like that of Jesus. As eternal God, the Son is a spirit, but at a point in time the Son took on flesh and became human as well as deity. He is fully God and fully Man. That’s a mystery we have a hard time wrapping our head around, but we believe it to be true. Theologically we call that the hypostatic union. The Athanasian Creed says it like this, Jesus is “existing fully as God, and fully as man with a rational soul and a human body.”[1] Once Jesus took on the form of humanity he never stopped being human though he has always been God. For eternity forward Jesus has a body. The disciples saw it and touched it in the upper room after the resurrection. Mary clung to it near the tomb after the resurrection. His was a resurrected body, but a body. Like Jesus, we too shall have resurrected bodies.
This brings hope for those who are Christ followers. This life is not all there is. Too often we fear that we must do everything and experience everything in this life or we will miss out. But such is not the case. We have eternity to experience more than we can ever imagine in a world without loss, pain, or death. At a time of fear, when the world is locked down by a virus, Christ followers have this hope that these bodies are not the end. They are just the kernel that leads to something much better, much greater, much more glorious. We live not just in the now, but for eternity. Therein lies our hope.
Comments
Post a Comment