Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. (1 Corinthians 15:51-52 ESV)
I’m writing this on my laptop as I lie on the couch. I’m tired and my hip hurts. Since a car accident 11 years ago I’ve had a wonky knee that causes problems with my hip joint. I have a few exercises I’m supposed to do every day for the rest of my life in order to keep my hip joint properly aligned. They work, mostly, but once in a while, I’ll do something to my knee—twist it, or land on it funny—and I’ll have hip pain again. So here I am, anticipating the day when I will be changed, when I am raised with an imperishable body without damageable knees and deteriorating joints. The Bible calls this final change that happens to all believers the revealing of the sons of God, the redemption of our bodies, our adoption as sons or our glorification. All creation, we’re told, is longing—groaning—for the day of the big body change. I know I am. I want my resurrection body!
Indestructible resurrection bodies—bodies that won’t hurt from illness or injury or overuse—are one of the benefits that come through Christ’s own resurrection to those who are in Him. Christ rose first—he’s the firstfruits—and when he comes again, those who belong to him will be raised just like he was. So it’s appropriate, isn’t it, that it’s this week, the Easter week, that my hip is reminding me that my body is weak and perishable and that I really do need for it to be changed into new one, a better one, an incorruptible one?
When I was a young girl and I heard about our spiritual bodies, a term Paul uses for our resurrection bodies, I pictured them as other-wordly, wispy, ghostly things floating around in a strange misty glowing realm, which seemed, frankly, like a whole lot less and worse than we have right now. Why would I joyfully anticipate having a body like that? But as it often did, my childish imagination got it all wrong. When Paul says our new bodies will be spiritual, he doesn’t mean that they are not material, but that they that will energized by the Holy Spirit. They will be these same physical bodies we have right now changed into indestructible physical bodies which always act as the Spirit leads, and that is truly much more and better than what we have in this life.
We know our resurrection bodies will be real, solid, physical ones because, first of all, they will be like Jesus’ body after he was raised. “We will,” we’re told, “be like him,” and he could be touched and handled. His resurrection body is a material one; so, too, with ours. Besides, resurrection bodies are made for living in a whole new material creation—the new heavens and new earth. What good would wispy ghostly things be in a rock solidly real world?
Yes, we will raised with new imperishable physical bodies to live in a new, imperishable physical world. You might say we bring the universe with us into “the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” Of course, it’s not so much us bringing the universe as it is God changing the universe at the same moment, in the same “twinkling of an eye” that we are changed. Now there’s something I can anticipate with joy.
And this same changing moment, this same eye twinkle, is an experience we share not only with the universe, but with every other believer throughout history. We shall all, the dead and the living, be changed at once and together. Every other step in the process of salvation we experience individually. I was reborn in my own moment of rebirth, a different moment than yours. We are all being sanctified, but at different rates and through different life experiences. We all journey into death separately, too. Come to think of it, generations of believers had lived and died before I was even born. I have no shared life experiences with them, let alone shared salvation experiences. But this one work of God—this culmination of the salvation process—we will, all of us, experience together. There’ll be a whole lot of changing going on.
What difference does the knowledge of the hope of glorification make for a believer? I can tell you right now from my couch that it helps us cope with sickness, suffering and pain. We know that one day, we will have real bodies free forever from those things, and that in the end, “the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” This present time with our perishing bodies is just an insignificant blip when compared to our future glorification.
What’s more, we can die knowing that there will be a time when the dead will be raised with bodies that will never die and the sting of death will be removed permanently. The hope of glorification helps us face our inevitable death.
Especially appropriate to the season, thinking about our glorification in Christ should also help us fulfill our Maundy Thursday mandate, Christ’s new commandment to all his followers. Common experiences, you see, unite people, and we have one great big glorious upcoming adventure to share with our fellow believers. How can this shared hope that we will participate together with them in glorification not cause us to love every one of our brethren a little more?