LIFE ON EARTH IN THIS BODY can be difficult at times. Disease, weakness, infertility, injury, pain, and psychological disorders can all plague the body. Children are born with birth defects. Cancer diagnoses increase among our friends as we age. This body, like the rest of creation, is marred by brokenness. Every part of it breaks down over time if it is not already significantly broken to begin with. Then, one day, our heart stops beating, we breathe our last, and physical death comes upon us.
However, death does not have the last word. It is not the last act. It is rather the end of Act I before the intermission and the beginning of the more climactic Act II. The end of this life is merely a transition. And what awaits the believer is in many respects incomprehensibly joyous. There are not words to fully capture the experience the redeemed will have when they receive their resurrected bodies.
Part of what helps us through our experience in these earthly bodies is the confidence that there is so much prepared for us in the restored creation in the new heavens and new earth. In 2 Corinthians 5:1-5, Paul encourages the believers in Corinth with some truths regarding the resurrected bodies they will receive in the life to come. May these two truths strengthen us through our sojourning as strangers on this journey.
From A Tent To A Building
Have you ever slept in a tent? It’s kind of fun for a night or two, but then you start thinking about your pillowtop bed in your insulated home and you realize that one is better than the other. Paul says we’ve been given a temporary bodily home on this earth that is like a “tent” (2 Corinthians 5:1). Tents are functional, but limited. This body that we have during our earthly exile is like that. And it makes sense, for exiles throughout time have often lived in temporary dwellings like tents. However, in glory, Christians will receive an eternal, heavenly “house” of a body that God has specially designed.
These new resurrected bodies are described as imperishable, glorious, and powerful (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). I could be way off on this, but I believe the superhero movies our kids love to watch only scratch the surface of the kind of experience we will have in our resurrected bodies. Philippians 3:21 says Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). Will we be able to fly? I sure hope so!
Longing For More
While we await our new bodies on the other side, we exile here realizing that our true home and life are not yet manifest. Thus, Paul writes, “we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling” (2 Corinthians 5:2). Groaning, longing – these are part of the normal experience of the Christian exile. We desire more than this life and this body can offer. In fact, that desire is part of the work of God who has given us his Holy Spirit as a guarantee of the things to come (2 Corinthians 5:5). The word guarantee in the Greek is a financial term that means “deposit, down payment, or earnest money.” By giving us the Spirit, the Lord is proving that though we are not yet with him glory, we have not been left as orphans in this exile. Even today we have access to God’s life-transforming power.
PRAYER
Father, you are so amazing! It is incredible to think that one day you will give us bodies like our resurrected Lord’s. That’s so cool! Knowing that this earthly body is only temporary, may I not grow too discouraged when it fails. Help me set my eyes on the promise that you have prepared a new body for me “eternal in the heavens.” Amen.
PONDER
- How does the “deposit/guarantee” of the Holy Spirit help us to keep our focus on the life to come?
- What truth from 2 Corinthians 5:1-5 or 1 Corinthians 15:40-44 about the resurrected body do you find most amazing?
- If these bodies are going to wear out, should we care for them? The Bible answers in the affirmative. However, what might stewardship of our bodies look like in a culture that is simultaneously gluttonous and overly body-conscious?