One danger we face when we think about the future—Jesus’s return and our resurrection—is that we can get caught up in the details. We can fret about the specifics of when it will happen or how it will happen or what kind of bodies we’ll have. Paul cautions us against that type of thinking because we cannot fully know what will happen until it actually happens. But he does offer some answers, and that’s what we’ll unpack today.
Read 1 Corinthians 15:35–44. List the words Paul uses to describe our resurrected bodies.
35 But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?” 36 What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first. 37 And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting. 38 Then God gives it the new body he wants it to have. A different plant grows from each kind of seed. 39 Similarly there are different kinds of flesh—one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
40 There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies. 41 The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory.
42 It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. 43 Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. 44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.
1 Corinthians 15 (NLT)
Paul describes our resurrected bodies as spiritual, or pneumatikos. While pneumatikos often refers to something being the opposite of physical— spirit, intangible, immaterial—we shouldn’t jump to the idea that our resurrected bodies will not be physical. Rather, Paul uses this word to talk about the difference between our fallen, earthly bodies and our renewed, sinless bodies that we’ll carry into eternity. Those very physical bodies will be free from sin and death entirely.
When we think about the resurrection of our bodies when Jesus returns, we sometimes picture some sort of translucent, ghost-like body that floats around with a harp in hand. But that’s not at all what Paul’s describing in this passage. He uses words like “imperishable,” “power,” and “spiritual.”
We will have real, tangible, physical bodies. Just look at the accounts of Jesus’s resurrection for proof. He ate and walked. His disciples touched his hands and side. His resurrection body points to the kind of body we’ll have in eternity.
Reflect on the negative impact sin has on the body you have now. You get sick. You can lose control of your emotions. You can be mentally traumatized. Now, think about what you would feel in a body that never experienced those things.
The physical resurrection of our bodies will come. We have so much hope. And the best part about that hope is that it’s anchored in the promise of God and the resurrection of Jesus.
What gets you most excited about having that kind of body in the future?
Text your response to the above prompting questions to your group and/or share it as a comment below
I think for me maybe getting my kidney back or my heart to be of normal size. Kidding that doesn’t really effect me. I think more for me is the mental aspect I would say if that makes sense. Comparison is the thief of joy and I have a hard time with body positivity when I’ve never been the most thin or the most toned compared to people I know and see. So when I die and my body is in heaven knowing that it is the perfect image of how God wanted/ wants it to be.
I think what gets me most excited about having a new resurrected body in the future is that it will mean that I was a good and faithful servant. In addition, I will be excited because I will no longer have to worry about disease or injury as well. I hope that our resurrected bodies will have wings cause I think it’ll be cool if we could fly around.
Merry Thanksgivings y’all. What I look most forward to with having a new resurrected and glorified body is that I will be able to experience the best that God had intended for me before the fall of man. As God had envisioned all of us before the world began, I was curious what that would be so to finally get to experience that through resurrection is something that excites me. Of course, what I can only imagine pales in comparison to what will be, but it’s nice to think along the lines of what bumble said and actualize my dream of AYCE with having my stomach finally be as big as my eyes.