There is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised first; then when Christ comes back, all his people will be raised.
1 CORINTHIANS 15:23 NLT
SUPPOSE YOU WERE WALKING PAST MY FARM ONE DAY and saw me in the field crying. (I don’t have a farm nor am I prone to sitting in fields, but play along with me.) There I sit, disconsolate at the head of a furrowed row. Concerned, you approach me and ask what is wrong. I look up from beneath my John Deere tractor hat and extend a palm full of seeds in your direction. “My heart breaks for the seeds,” I weep. “My heart breaks for the seeds.”
“What?”
Between sobs I explain, “The seeds will be placed in the ground and covered with dirt. They will decay, and we will never see them again.”
As I weep, you are stunned. You look around for a turnip truck off which you are confident I tumbled. Finally, you explain to me a basic principle of farming: out of the decay of the seed comes the birth of a plant.
You put a finger in my face and kindly remind me: “Do not bemoan the burial of the seed. Don’t you know that you will soon witness a mighty miracle of God? Given time and tender care, this tiny kernel will break from its prison of soil and blossom into a plant far beyond its dreams.”
Well, maybe you aren’t that dramatic, but those are your thoughts. Any farmer who grieves over the burial of a seed needs a reminder: a time of planting is not a time of grief. Any person who anguishes over the burial of a body may need the same. We may need the reminder Paul gave the Corinthians. “There is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised first; then when Christ comes back, all his people will be raised” (1 Cor. 15:23 NLT).
In the last chapter we looked at what happens to the Christian between the death of the body and the return of our Savior. In this phase, Scripture assures us that our souls are living, but our body is buried. This is an intermediate period in which we are “away from this body and . . . at home with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8).
Upon death, our souls will journey immediately to the presence of God while we await the resurrection of our bodies. And when will this resurrection occur? You guessed it. When Christ comes. “When Christ comes again, those who belong to him will be raised to life, and then the end will come” (1 Cor. 15:23–24).
This kind of verse stirs a classroom of questions: What does Paul mean, “those who belong to him will be raised to life”? What will be raised? My body? If so, why this body? I don’t like my body. Why don’t we start over on a new model?
Come with me back to the farm, and let’s look for some answers.
If you were impressed with my seed allegory, I’d better be honest. I stole the idea from the apostle Paul. The fifteenth chapter of his letter to the Corinthians is the definitive essay on our resurrection. We won’t study the entire chapter, but we will isolate a few verses and make a few points.
He writes: “But someone may ask, ‘How are the dead raised? What kind of body will they have?’ Foolish person! When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow. And when you sow it, it does not have the same ‘body’ it will have later. What you sow is only a bare seed, maybe wheat or something else. But God gives it a body that he has planned for it” (1 Cor. 15:35–38).
In other words: You can’t have a new body without the death of the old body.1 Or, as Paul says, “When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can live and grow” (v. 36).
A friend told me that Paul’s parallel between seeds sown and bodies buried reminded her of a remark made by her youngest son. He was a first grader, and his class was studying plants about the same time the family attended a funeral of a loved one. One day, as they were driving past a cemetery, the two events came together in one statement. “Hey, Mom,” he volunteered, pointing toward the graveyard. “That’s where they plant people.”
The apostle Paul would have liked that. In fact, Paul would like us to change the way we think about the burial process. The graveside service is not a burial, but a planting. The grave is not a hole in the ground, but a fertile furrow. The cemetery is not the resting place, but rather the transformation place.
Most assume that death has no purpose. It is to people what the black hole is to space—a mysterious, inexplicable, distasteful, all-consuming power. Avoid it at all costs. And so we do! We do all we can to live and not die. God, however, says we must die in order to live. When you sow a seed, it must die in the ground before it can grow (v. 36). What we see as the ultimate tragedy, he sees as the ultimate triumph.
And when a Christian dies, it’s not a time to despair, but a time to trust. Just as the seed is buried and the material wrapping decomposes, so our fleshly body will be buried and will decompose. But just as the buried seed sprouts new life, so our body will blossom into a new body. As Jesus said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain of wheat; but if it dies, it brings a good harvest” (John 12:24 PHILLIPS).
If you’ll permit a sudden shift of metaphors, let me jump from plants and a farm to dinner and dessert. Don’t we love to be enticed by dessert? Don’t we love to hear the cook say, “As soon as you are finished, I have a surprise for you”? God says something similar regarding our body. “Let’s finish with the one you have, and then I have a surprise.”
What is this surprise? What is this new body I will receive? Again, our seed analogy helps. Paul wrote, “When you sow it [the seed], it does not have the same ‘body’ it will have later” (1 Cor. 15:37). Meaning, we can’t envision the new body by looking at the old body.
I think you’ll appreciate the way Eugene Peterson paraphrases this text:
There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different. (1 Cor. 15:36–38 MSG)
Paul’s point is clear. You can’t envision the glory of the plant by staring at the seed, nor can you garner a glimpse of your future body by studying the present one. All we know is that this body will be changed.
“Come on, Paul, just give us a clue. Just a hint. Can’t you tell us a little more about our new bodies?”
Apparently he knew we would ask, for the apostle stays on the subject for a few more paragraphs and provides one final point. You may not be able to envision it, but one thing’s for sure: you are going to love your new body.
Paul outlines three ways God will transform our bodies. Our bodies will be changed from:
1. Corruption to incorruption—“The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption” (v. 42 NKJV).
2. Dishonor to glory—“It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory” (v. 43 NKJV).
3. Weakness to power—“It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power” (v. 43 NKJV).
Corruption. Dishonor. Weakness. Three unflattering words used to describe our bodies. But who would argue with them?
Julius Schniewind didn’t. He was a highly regarded European Bible scholar. In the final weeks of his life, he battled a painful kidney disease. His biographer tells how, one night, after the professor had led a Bible study, he was putting on his coat to go home. As he did, the severe pain in his side caused him to groan aloud the Greek phrase “Soma tapeinõseõs, soma tapeinõseõs.” The student of Scripture was quoting the words of Paul, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body [soma tapeinõseõs]” (Phil. 3:20–21 NKJV).2
You and I don’t go about mumbling Greek phrases, but we do know what it is like to live in a lowly body. In fact, some of you know all too well. Out of curiosity I made a list of the news I’ve heard in the last twenty-four hours concerning failing health. Here is what has come my way:
• A professor was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.
• A middle-aged man is concerned about his test results. We learn tomorrow if he has cancer.
• A friend’s father is scheduled for eye surgery.
• Another friend had a stroke.
• A minister died after four decades of preaching.
Can you relate? You probably can. In fact, I wonder if God wants to use the next few lines to speak directly to you. Your body is so tired, so worn. Joints ache and muscles fatigue. You understand why Paul described the body as a tent. “We groan in this tent,” he wrote (2 Cor. 5:2). Your tent used to be sturdy and strong, but the seasons have passed and the storms have raged, and this old canvas has some bare spots. Chilled by the cold, bowed by the wind, your tent is not as strong as it used to be.
Or, then again, maybe your “tent,” your body, never has been strong. Your sight never has been crisp; your hearing never has been clear. Your walk never has been sturdy; your heart never has been steady. You’ve watched others take for granted the health you’ve never had. Wheelchairs, doctor visits, hospital rooms, needles, stethoscopes—if you never saw another one for the rest of your life, you’d be happy. You’d give anything, yes, anything, for one full day in a strong, healthy body.
If that describes you, let God speak to your heart for just a moment. The purpose of this book is to use the return of Christ to encourage the heart. Few people need encouragement more than the physically afflicted. And few verses encourage more than Philippians 3:20–21. We read verse 20 a few paragraphs ago; you’ll relish verse 21: “He will take these dying bodies of ours and change them into glorious bodies like his own” (TLB).
Let’s sample a couple of other versions of this verse:
“He will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of his glorious body” (TJB).
“He will transfigure the body belonging to our humble state, and give it a form like that of his own resplendent body” (NEB).
Regardless of the wording, the promise is the same. Your body will be changed. You will not receive a different body; you will receive a renewed body. Just as God can make an oak out of a kernel or a tulip out of a bulb, he makes a “new” body out of the old one. A body without corruption. A body without weakness. A body without dishonor. A body identical to the body of Jesus.
My friend Joni Eareckson Tada makes this same point. Rendered a quadriplegic by a teenage diving accident, the last two decades have been spent in discomfort. She, more than most, knows the meaning of living in a lowly body. At the same time, she more than most, knows the hope of a resurrected body. Listen to her words:
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.3
Would you like a sneak preview of your new body? We have one by looking at the resurrected body of our Lord. After his resurrection, Jesus spent forty days in the presence of people. The resurrected Christ was not in a disembodied, purely spiritual state. On the contrary, he had a body—a touchable, visible body.
Just ask Thomas. Thomas said he wouldn’t believe in the resurrection unless “I . . . put my finger where the nails were and put my hand into his side” (John 20:25). The response of Christ? He appeared to Thomas and said, “Put your finger here, and look at my hands. Put your hand here in my side. Stop being an unbeliever and believe” (v. 27).
Jesus didn’t come as a mist or a wind or a ghostly specter. He came in a body. A body that maintained a substantial connection with the body he originally had. A body that had flesh and bones. For did he not tell his followers, “A spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39 RSV)?
Jesus’ resurrected body, then, was a real body, real enough to walk on the road to Emmaus, real enough to appear in the form of a gardener, real enough to eat breakfast with the disciples at Galilee. Jesus had a real body.4
At the same time, this body was not a clone of his earthly body. Mark tells us that Jesus “appeared in another form” (Mark 16:12 RSV). While he was the same, he was different. So different that Mary Magdalene, his disciples on the sea, and his disciples on the path to Emmaus did not recognize him. Though he invited Thomas to touch his body, he passed through a closed door to be in Thomas’s presence.5
So what do we know about the resurrected body of Jesus? It was unlike any the world had ever seen.
What do we know about our resurrected bodies? They will be unlike any we have ever imagined.
Will we look so different that we aren’t instantly recognized? Perhaps. (We may need nametags.) Will we be walking through walls? Chances are we’ll be doing much more.
Will we still bear the scars from the pain of life? The marks of war. The disfigurements of disease. The wounds of violence. Will these remain on our bodies? That is a very good question. Jesus, at least for forty days, kept his. Will we keep ours? On this issue, we have only opinions, but my opinion is that we won’t. Peter tells us that “by his wounds you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24 NIV). 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.
God is going to renew your body and make it like his. What difference should this make in the way you live?
Your body, in some form, will last forever. Respect it.
You will live forever in this body. It will be different, mind you. What is now crooked will be straightened. What is now faulty will be fixed. Your body will be different, but you won’t have a different body. You will have this one. Does that change the view you have of it? I hope so.
God has a high regard for your body. You should as well. Respect it. I did not say worship it. But I did say respect it. It is, after all, the temple of God (see 1 Cor. 6:19). Be careful how you feed it, use it, and maintain it. You wouldn’t want anyone trashing your home; God doesn’t want anyone trashing his. After all, it is his, isn’t it? A little jogging and dieting to the glory of God wouldn’t hurt most of us. Your body, in some form, will last forever. Respect it.
I have one final thought.
Your pain will NOT last forever. Believe it.
Are your joints arthritic? They won’t be in heaven.
Is your heart weak? It will be strong in heaven.
Has cancer corrupted your system? There is no cancer in heaven.
Are your thoughts disjointed? Your memory failing? Your new body will have a new mind.
Does this body seem closer to death than ever before? It should. It is. And unless Christ comes first, your body will be buried. Like a seed is placed in the ground, so your body will be placed in a tomb. And for a season, your soul will be in heaven while your body is in the grave. But the seed buried in the earth will blossom in heaven. Your soul and body will reunite, and you will be like Jesus.