1 Corinthians 15:42–55
42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. 43 It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. 44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. 47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. 48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
50 I tell you this, brothers: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 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. 53 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. 54 When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory. 55 O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?”
Someone once described the overall flow or theme of the Bible as the “great golden chain of salvation.” In eternity, when we are finally and forever rid of the stain of sin and temptation, we will receive the final link in this chain. The theological term for life in eternity with Christ is glorification, and it is here where we will be truly conformed into the image of Christ.
We sometimes hear the Christian life being described as “now, but not yet.” In other words, the promises of eternity for the Christian are so certain and so sure that it is almost as if we have already received the promises while we still live in this fallen world. We have the promises, but they have yet to be fulfilled in their entirety.
Eternity with God is something which lies in the future, but look at how the apostle Paul describes it in Romans 8:30. “Those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified.”
It’s all past tense. This verse is basically a timeline. If you are a Bible-believing Christian who has repented of your sins and you are living in a redeemed relationship with God through the saving work of Jesus Christ, for now on this timeline, you are living somewhere between justified and glorified.
Glorification is yet to come, but Paul puts it in the past tense, even though he was in the same place on that timeline when he wrote these words as we are today. This means we are able to look forward to and anticipate that glory as a guaranteed certainty. Paul used the past tense referring to a future event in order to stress its certainty.
He says much the same thing in Philippians 1:6. “I am sure of this, that He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” An important word in this verse is “completion.” What this means is that when God begins a work of salvation, He completes and perfects that work. Our ultimate glorification in eternity is a certainty.
Reformed theologians speak of the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints. This doesn’t mean that it is up to us to persevere and be faithful to God or else, but rather it points us to the reality that God will preserve His elect. He perseveres for us. It is by grace and grace alone that Christians persevere - not our own efforts. If it were, we would all be in serious trouble. God though, finishes what He begins. We’ve just looked at Romans 8:30, and Paul goes on to underline this assurance in verse 39 when he writes, that nothing “will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
What all of this means is that we have security because salvation is of the Lord and we are His workmanship. He gives His Holy Spirit to every Christian as a promise that He will fulfill what He begins, and He has sealed every Christian by His Holy Spirit. God has marked us with an indelible mark and He gives us His personal assurance and guarantee that He will complete that work of salvation.
The promise of receiving that final link in the golden chain of salvation is as certain as if we have already received it. So before we try to understand something about what glorification is, we have to know this: our future glorification is signed, sealed and delivered. It is signed by God, it is sealed by His Holy Spirit, and it is delivered by the saving work of Jesus Christ.
So just what is glorification?
The doctrine of glorification describes the Christian’s ultimate and complete conformity to the image of Jesus Christ. When we are finally in glory, God will, at last, remove sin from our lives. Going back to the timeline of Romans 8:30 for a moment, when we are justified, we are set free from the penalty of our sin. As we live in grace in this life and are being sanctified, we are set free from the power of sin, and when we are glorified, we will be set free from the presence of sin forever.
When Jesus returns for His bride, the Church, and takes us to be with Him in eternity, His perfect holiness will be realised in us. In eternity, instead of being mortals burdened with our sin nature, we will be changed into holy immortal beings. There we will finally be given direct and unhindered access to God’s presence. The curse of the Garden of Eden will be fully reversed, and like Adam and Eve before the Fall, we will enjoy holy communion with God the way it was meant to be, and it will be for all of eternity.
You don’t need me to remind you that we still fall short of the glory of God in this life, but when we are fully transformed as we receive our glorified bodies in eternity, the process of sanctification will be completed, as we step into glorification.
Titus 2:11-13 describes this sequence events. “The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Jesus is our blessed hope of a glorious future. Until He returns, we remain weighed down by our sin. We still bear the image of God, but is marred and distorted by sin. But we have the firm and blessed hope, although that is still to come. As 1 Corinthians 13:12 says, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”
Paul writes in Philippians 3:20-21, “Our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like His glorious body, by the power that enables Him even to subject all things to Himself.” There again is the concept of what we call the “now, but not yet.” Physically we are still in this life, living in this fallen world with all the consequences of human sin, yet our citizenship is already in heaven. When life is hard, remember this: If you are a Christian, this is not your home!
We are reminded of this truth at memorial services, and we need to be reminded of it constantly. We really are pilgrims on a journey. Just like the Israelites who wandered around in the desert for 40 years, we are wandering through this world, waiting in eager anticipation for the Promised Land.
But unlike the Promised Land of the Old Testament, the land we are promised is not a physical place on planet Earth. It is the New Jerusalem, a place prepared for the elect of God from before the foundations of the earth.
We know the words of Jesus in John 14:3 so well: “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.”
The first 4 verses of Revelation 21 gives us this wonderful promise, as the apostle John was given a vision of what awaits us in eternity: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.’”
In glorification, God makes us like His Son. To be glorified is another way of saying the Christian will be conformed to the character of Jesus, which, after all, is His ultimate purpose for His people. God told the Israelites repeatedly in the Old Testament, “be holy, as I am holy.” That is not possible for us as broken people living in this broken world, but in eternity, no longer will we fall short of the glory of God.
There are many things about eternity that we simply do not understand. 1 Corinthians 13:12 again: “Now I know in part, then I shall know fully.”
What will we look like? How old will we be? These are actually irrelevant questions, because God has not given us the answers to them, but the Bible isn’t completely silent on this subject.
We don’t have the exact details as to what our glorified bodies will look like, but we do know they will be like that of Jesus’ resurrected body. Our human bodies are described in 1 Corinthians 15:42–53 as perishable, dishonourable, and weak, all due to sin. Our glorified bodies will be imperishable, honourable, and powerful. Our new bodies will no longer be natural bodies, subject to disease, decay and death.
As we live in these new imperishable bodies, we will no longer suffer from sickness, aches and pains and death. They will be honourable in the sense that they will not be shamed or shameful because of sin. When Adam and Eve sinned, the first thing they felt was shame because of their nakedness. It wasn’t so much the physical nakedness that shamed them, but the fact that their sin was exposed.
If all of my sins, including every sinful thought I’d ever had were listed on the screen for you to read this morning, you wouldn’t see me for dust. I would be so ashamed that I would be out of here, never to return. Just like Adam and Eve, I would hide away because of my shame. This is what it means for us to live in these dishonourable bodies for now, but the glorified, resurrection bodies we will receive in eternity will be honourable. They will be pure and undefiled by sin.
Our present, earthly bodies are weak. The ageing process is the first thing that springs to mind when we think of weakened bodies, but growing old and grey is nowhere near as destructive as how sin and temptation destroys our bodies in this fallen world. In eternity though, our glorified bodies will be empowered by the Spirit, and we’ll no longer be subject to weakness and the ravages of sin.
God’s great plan of salvation reaches from eternity past to eternity future, and He will accomplish it perfectly. There is always the now but not yet in regard to our salvation. We are saved and we will be saved. We are justified and one day we will be glorified, and the Bible promises us a reality that has come and the promise that it is to come.
Called, justified and glorified. Our glorification is so certain that in God’s eyes it is as good as done.
Our glorification is bound up with the coming of Christ in His glory. And then we shall be like Him. The Bible teaches us that one day we will be with Jesus Christ and we will be completely like Him. An important point we need to stress here is that unlike the heresies taught by people like TD Jakes, Creflo Dollar and Steven Furtick, we will not become little gods in our own right. We are not divine beings, and we never will be, but we will be exactly like Christ in that we will display in perfection His attributes of love, joy, peace, patience, mercy, wisdom, faithfulness, grace and goodness.
Also, just before we close, eternity is not about a huge family reunion. For many people, this is the one thing about Heaven they are looking forward to the most. Eternity in our glorified, resurrection bodies is first and foremost about being with Jesus Christ forever. The apostle Paul had it right when he wrote in Philippians 1:21-23, “To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. If I am to live in the flesh, that means fruitful labour for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.”
That being said, will we recognise our loved ones in Heaven? Yes. There are many passages of Scripture which support this view, but our relationships with those we love in this life will be quite different. Just how different, we don’t know, as God has chosen not to reveal these details to us either.
What we do know is this: We will be like Christ and we will be with Christ. We will finally see God and His glory will be fully unveiled, and we will be with Him for eternity.
RC Sproul wrote of the final resurrection in his commentary, “A question that every believer has contemplated is the question of what we will look like in Heaven. Will we be able to recognise our loved ones? Will our resurrected bodies have the characteristics of age or of youth? Many of these matters remain mysterious to us. The Bible only hints at these answers. We know that whatever our resurrected state will be like, it will far exceed our highest present expectations. 1 Corinthians 2:9 says, ‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love Him.’ The Bible clearly teaches a final resurrection of the bodies of the saints.
The resurrection of Jesus is declared to be the firstfruits of those who will also participate in this resurrection. There is continuity between the earthly body that dies and the resurrected body we will be given. Our present bodies are corruptible and will indeed decay or, in some instances be torn asunder or fragmented in death. However, just as Jesus returned from the grave with His body, albeit changed, so shall our present bodies be resurrected though changed. A body may change its state without thereby destroying its identity. Every resurrected body will be complete both in quantity and quality. Nothing will be lacking though much will be gained. We will be recognisable in our resurrected bodies. We do not yet know how this will be accomplished by God’s power, only that it will be so. Our new bodies will be especially suited for eternal life in the kingdom of God. Our present bodies are not so adapted. Whatever changes are necessary will be made by the power of God. We know that our resurrected bodies will still be human and finite. We will not be deified. (In other words, we will not be gods). Our new bodies will be incorruptible - without decay, illness, pain, or death. There will be added power to our present bodies as they will be raised in honour, power, and glory. Our bodies will be fashioned to be like the glorified body of Jesus. The new body of the saint will be a spiritual and a heavenly body. It will be adapted to a higher order of living, perhaps glowing and radiant in countenance not unlike Christ in His transfiguration.”
That is what we are promised. And so much more!
Homegroup Study Notes
Read 1 Corinthians 15:42-44
Discuss the contrasts Paul describes between our present bodies and the resurrection bodies we will receive in eternity.
Read Revelation 21:1-4
We have heard these promises many times, and are always reminded of them at funerals.
If the promises of eternity are so wonderful, why do you think that so many Christians are fearful of death?
Why do we desperately try to cling to this life when we are promised eternity with God?
Read Romans 8:29-30
Although eternity is something in the future (as it was for Paul when he wrote these words), why did he use the past tense in verse 30 when referring to glorification?
What is your understanding of the “now, but not yet” principle of glorification?
We have all tried to imagine just what Heaven will be like.
Bearing this in mind, discuss what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:9 and 13:12.