Characteristics of the Resurrected Body

Transcript

GRM 998
2/17/2008
Characteristics of the Resurrected Body
I Corinthians 15, Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


We're studying I Corinthians 15, so if you would turn there in your Bibles. We're going to review just a few verses here and I want to digress a little bit from the content of I Corinthians 15, and I want to focus our attention today on what the Bible says about our resurrection bodies. What will these bodies be like? Paul has established in I Corinthians 15 the fact of the resurrection of the body by demonstrating that Christ was raised from the dead. He's the firstfruits of those who will be raised from the dead, guaranteeing our future bodily resurrection. And he has talked about the contrast between this present body and the body we will have in the resurrection. And then we're going to look from I Corinthians 15 to what the Bible says about a resurrected body.

But look at I Corinthians 15:42. Paul drew here, if you remember, four contrasts between our present physical body and the body we will have in the resurrection. And remember there is a direct connection, and we'll see more of this in a moment, between this body and the body that is to be raised. But there will be major differences. So in the four contrasts he brought out, beginning in verse 42, it is sown a perishable body and it is raised an imperishable body. Now he's drawing a contrast between what our present body is and what our resurrected body will be. These characteristics of our present body are true of our body generally, but they become crystal clear, if you will, in the context of physical death. So when we say that the body is sown in corruption, a perishable body, a decaying body, that's evident through our lives. And we are a dying people. One of the great old time preachers said, I preach as a dying man to dying men and never sure to preach again. But at death that corruption of this physical body becomes more fully manifest. So in our resurrection body there will be no corruption, it will be imperishable, not subject to decay.

A second contrast, it is sown in dishonor and it is raised in glory. The ultimate end of our physical body is death. No matter how we try to dress it up, no matter how rich, how powerful the person was in this life, when it gets down to death, you can have a fancy funeral but that's all there is. And that body, when it was laid out on the slab to be prepared for whatever kind of service, just like any other body that dies. There it lies naked, being embalmed or whatever, taken care of, no honor left to it. But the body that will be raised will be characterized by awesome glory. And we're going to talk more about that a little later in our study. It is sown in weakness, it's raised in power. Nobody can argue that these bodies are characterized by weakness. Even the healthiest person, the most athletic person, they get put down by the flu. Disease strikes the body and the body deteriorates no matter how we try to retard the process. We get older, we get weaker, and it culminates in death. But the resurrected body, it will be raised in power. And power will be the characteristic of that resurrected body. We'll see something of that as we move along today as well.

The basic contrast—it is sown a natural body, a soulish body and it's raised a spiritual body. This body is in the physical realm, it has the life of the soul. But the resurrection body is going to be transformed by the power of the Spirit of God and it will have a magnificence that is hard for our finite minds to grasp.

Now we want to explore a little bit more about what the resurrection body is going to be like. There is only one person in all history who has received a resurrected, glorified body, and that is Jesus Christ. We noted there have been resuscitations. Individuals like Lazarus were raised from the dead back to physical life to die again. But Jesus Christ is the only one thus far who has received a resurrected, glorified body. That's why in I Corinthians 15:20 we are told, now Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who are asleep. He is the first to receive a glorified body, a resurrected body never to die again. So we find out about the resurrected body and something of our resurrected life by looking at Jesus Christ after His resurrection fro the dead. Because as we will see, the Bible says we are going to get a body just like the one He had after His resurrection from the dead. But we'll look at some of the characteristics of His resurrected body and then say some things that are directly applicable to us, and maybe some questions that come to our minds as we contemplate the future.

These things are drawn primarily, during the first part of what we're going to say at least, from the resurrection experiences following the grave, before the ascension in Acts 1. There are at least 12 specific occasions recorded where Jesus Christ appeared to people following His resurrection from the dead. Some of those don't have much elaboration, like I Corinthians 15 told us He appeared to above 500 people at one time. We're not told anymore about that occasion of that event. But other times there is enough information for us to learn something, what was His resurrected body like.

First point, it was the same body that was crucified and buried. This ought not to be a debate. However, not too long ago in one of our evangelical seminaries it became a major issue and a number of books were written over the debate, was Jesus Christ bodily raised with the same body that was buried, from the dead. I think there is only one biblical answer, and that is it's the same body. It's not God made that body disappear that was buried, and Jesus was raised with a spiritual body, a non-physical, non-material body. It was the same body that was crucified.

In I Corinthians 15:3-5 Paul says the facts of the gospel are Christ died, Christ was buried, Christ was raised, He was seen. The same one that was crucified and buried was raised and seen by witnesses. The empty tomb, come to Matthew 28:6, the angel told the women who came to the tomb, He is not here for He has risen just as He said. Come see the place where He was lying. Why see that? There is no body. Why? It was raised. That body that was crucified that was placed in this tomb has been raised. The graveclothes are there, but there is no body in them any longer. It has been raised.

Down in verse 13, the leaders in Israel gave a large sum of money to the soldiers who were guarding the tomb and said, you are to say, verse 13, His disciples came by night and stole Him away while we were asleep. Why? There is no body. Why? He was raised. That body they buried was gone because it had been raised from the dead.

Come over to John 20. The account here you are familiar with, the disciples were in an upper room with the doors closed because they were afraid of the Jews. This was after the crucifixion of Christ. And Christ appears in the room. But one of the disciples is not there, Thomas called Didymus. He was a twin, Didymus meaning a twin. When the disciples said, we have seen Christ, Thomas said in verse 25, unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, put my finger into the place of the nails, put my hand in His side, I will not believe. You see, I have to have infallible proof that it was the body of Christ that you saw, Christ in that body that was crucified. It will have to have the print of the nails, he wound from the speak in His side, or I won't believe. Eight days later Christ appeared again in the closed room and Thomas is present. And He says in verse 27, reach here with your finger, see my hands; reach here with your hand and put it into my side. Do not be unbelieving but believing. Thomas answered, my Lord and my God. The evidence is overwhelming. What is it? It's the same body that was crucified, that was buried, and it still has the marks of the nails in the hands, the wound of the spear in the side. It's overwhelming. All Thomas can do is worship, the doubt is gone. It was the same body that was crucified that was buried.

He was also regularly recognized after His resurrection. Come back to Matthew 28. And here He is meeting with His disciples in Galilee and verse 17 tells us, when they saw Him, they worshiped Him. But some were doubtful. And Jesus came up and spoke to them saying. Now you can understand some immediately knew who it was, some doubted. But as He drew close to them and then talked to them, the doubts are gone. They recognized Him, He indeed is the resurrected Christ. We can be surprised, even today. I was at a restaurant recently and I went to pay the bill and got into a conversation with the man taking the check. I happened to mention I was from Indian Hills and he said, Indian Hills, I went there a long time ago and there was a pastor and his name was Gil Rugh. Is he still around out there? Now here is a man who attended here for years in the '70s, was married in this church. I'm standing there looking at him and he wants to know if that guy, Gil Rugh, is still around. I said, yeah, he is, they can't get rid of him. I just happen to be him. Oh my goodness, I didn't recognize you. I don't know why, I haven't changed much in the last 30 years. So it's not surprising that we look at people. They're not expecting a resurrection, but it doesn't take much for them to immediately recognize Him. As He walks closer there is no doubt this is He, as He speaks there is no doubt this is He.

Look over in Luke 24. Now here He is walking along and He meets a couple of His disciples and starts talking to them. And they don't recognize Him, but you note why they don't recognize Him. Verse 16, their eyes were prevented from recognizing them. So God supernaturally intervened on this occasion so they don't recognize Him. But before this event is over, verse 31, their eyes were opened, they recognized Him and He disappeared from their sight. So again the people recognized Him except when it was in the plan of God for them not to recognize Him for a time. So there is no doubt, it was the body that was crucified and buried, that was raised from the dead. So it wasn't raised a spiritual body in the sense of something different than was buried.

And that leads us into the next point. It was a body that had material substance. It was a physical body resurrected, but is still a physical body. What do we mean by having material substance. On this point there is a little bit of discussion on both sides. Some get into the discussion, would it be the same molecules or particles that make up the resurrected body, or would they be different. I don't have an answer to that directly, although in my reading I did read that the molecules in your body change every seven years, total change. But that doesn't change the fact it would be the same body. I've been married to Marilyn for over forty years, that means I've undergone a change at least six times. But you talk to here, she doesn't say, I've had six different husbands, no improvement in any of them. Even though the molecules in my body may have changed, it's still my body, still looks the same. We see this, our skin flakes off and all that. So the point is, whether it was the same molecules or particles or not, the point would be the same. We're still talking about the same body that was buried, that was raised. It had material substance.

Several evidences point to this. On several occasions He ate food with His disciples to demonstrate He was not just a spirit. He didn't become an angelic kind of being. He still has a body of material substance. Look at Luke 24:30, those two disciples that He was walking with along the Emmaus Road, and He joins them for dinner. Verse 29 tells us that they invite Him, stay with us. It is toward evening and the day is nearly over. They go in, verse 30, and what do they do? They recline at table with t hem, they have a meal together. During the meal He did what He did at the Last Supper with His disciples. He took bread, blessed it, and began to break it and give it to them. And their eyes were opened. What's He doing? Here He is eating with them, in the midst of the meal as He did at the Last Supper, He begins to break the bread and bless it and distribute it. All of a sudden recognition. What we want to note here, here He is eating with them. He has a material body that can eat material, physical food.

Later that same evening He is together with ten of His disciples and He has another meal. Look down in verse 42. He's meeting with them, they gave Him a piece of broiled fish and He took it and ate it before them. Why is He doing this? The end of verse 37, they thought they were seeing a spirit. It can't be real. He said, give Me some fish and He takes it and eats it. He had a physical body.

Come over to John 21, a lot of these will take place at the end of Matthew, the end of Luke and the end of John. Here He has breakfast with seven of His apostles. John 21:12, here the disciples are out fishing, they come in and Jesus has cooked breakfast for them. And He said to them, verse 12, come and have breakfast. None of the disciples ventured to question Him, who are you, knowing it was the Lord. You see they recognized Him. Jesus came, took bread, gave it to them and fish likewise. This is the third time He was manifested to His disciples after His resurrection. So you see here He is with His disciples, partaking again with food.

Turn over to Acts 1:4, gathering them together He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem. And you'll note in the margin of your Bible, I have a note on mine with verse 4 with gathering them. It says or eating with, that word translated gathering them can also mean eating together with someone. And it could mean they were together on this occasion having a meal as He is instructing them. So that may be another occasion.

Whatever, Jesus eating with His disciples was important enough to the disciples and makes enough of an impression on them that later, Acts 10, when Peter is at the house of Cornelius presenting the gospel to Gentiles for the first time, he tells them of these events. Verse 34, we're going to break into it, he tells them about Christ's earthly life, the miracles He did that demonstrated He was the Son of God. The end of verse 39, they also put Him to death by hanging Him on a cross. God raised Him up on the third day and granted that He become visible. Not to all the people, but to witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God. Everybody didn't see Him in His resurrected body, but certain ones selected by God to be those who would testify to the reality of His resurrection. To us, middle of verse 44, who ate and drank with Him after He rose from the dead. And He ordered us to preach this message. So you see Peter says we are the key eye witnesses, we reclined with Him, we ate and drank with Him, we can testify He had a literal, material, physical body, if you will.

So His body had material substance as demonstrated by the fact He ate with His disciples. Another evidence is He had a body that could be touched, handled, felt. John 20:17, Mary confronts the resurrected Christ in the garden and verse 16, when she turns around she thought at first it was the gardener coming up behind here. And then Jesus speaks to her. Verse 16, she turned and said to Him in Hebrew, Rabboni, which means teacher. Jesus said to her, stop clinging to Me. She turned and grabbed onto His ankle and he says, stop grasping onto Me. He had a body here that could be literally held on to. Wasn't some kind of spirit, ghost, nothing there. It had substance to it. It's a material body, a physical body. She grasped onto it. The reason she was to stop grasping onto Him, I have not yet ascended to My Father. I think He is indicating here that He is not back to stay. Not the idea, you're here, good, things will get back normal, now you'll set up ............. No, I have to ascend to My father. But the point we want to pick up is it has material substance, it can be held on to.

Come back to Matthew 28. Here you have the other women when they see Christ. Verse 9, behold they met Him and greeted Him, they came up, took hold of His feet and worshiped Him. The same idea, they can grab on, He has literal feet that can be held on to. They fell down before Him and grab around His ankles again to worship Him. In that sense He is the same as when He walked this earth. He could be touched, His body has physical presence, material presence. In fact it has flesh and bones.

Come to Luke 24. We looked at this when Christ ate the fish in the presence of His disciples to demonstrate He wasn't just a spirit. Remember the issue here is they are afraid when they see Him, verse 37, because they thought they were seeing a spirit. He says, why are you troubled? Why do doubt arise in your heart? See my hands and my feet that it is I myself. Touch me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have. Say you grab on, you feel your hand, the flesh. You can feel the bones in there, the knuckles. If you grabbed on to the resurrected body of Jesus Christ today, it would feel just like that. They didn't grab on and say, it doesn't feel like a real body as though it had changed so much. Oh it feels rubbery, oh you can't feel anything. It looks like it's there, but it's not there. No, it has flesh. You know what's on that hand? Flesh. Feel your hand, it's flesh. You know what you feel under that flesh? Bone. You know what the resurrect4 body will have? Just like that. When you feel the resurrected body, you grab onto someone in glory when your body is resurrected, it's going to feel just like that. There wouldn't be any point in it if they were going to feel and it's a different kind of flesh that doesn't feel anything like our flesh. Then it wouldn't make the point. He says, grab onto my hand, it's flesh, it's bone. Our resurrected bodies will be physical bodies resurrected, but they won't cease to be physical, material bodies with flesh and bone. That's the resurrected body. Now remember Christ is the firstfruits of those who are resurrected from the dead. So we're going to be resurrected with bodies like His as we'll see in a moment.

Now two possibilities here why it says flesh and bone and not flesh and blood. That may indicate that the resurrected body will not be sustained by blood like this body is. In our present physical body the life of the flesh is in the blood. Maybe our resurrected bodies will not be sustained by the flowing of blood through the body. Another possibility is He is contrasting the fact, you don't say, feel my body, it has flesh and blood because you can't feel blood. When I grab on I feel the flesh and I feel the bone. So He's making the point that He has a physical body. We won't go into the pros and cons of that, the point is it's a physical body. You know for sure it will be just like this. The flesh may not have some of the imperfections that the present body has, but it will be flesh and bone like we have.

A third thing to note. The body has material substance, that was demonstrated by He ate food on several occasions. His body could be handled and felt. And thirdly, it was a body without its previous limitations. Look in Luke 24:36, the two disciples that He met on the Emmaus Road, He had a meal with them earlier in the evening and then disappeared. Verse 36, while they are telling these things He Himself stood in their midst. He just appears there. He's not restricted by physical barriers. He just appears. In verse 31, when He was just meeting with those two, He just vanished from their sight, He was gone, just like that. He didn't have to walk away, He didn't have to run away, He didn't tell them, close their eyes and then after a while they open their eyes and he is gone.

Look over in John 20:19, so when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, peace be with you. The same thing happens eight days later. Verse 26, Thomas was with them, and after eight days His disciples were again inside, Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst. Here He is. Our resurrected bodies won't have the same limitations we have now. This doesn't mean I have to get into, how does He pass through a physical, material wall in a physical, material body. And I've read some who say that is possible if you get everything lined up. It doesn't say He passed through the wall, doesn't say they look, and here comes Jesus through the wall. It just said, here He was. He appears and disappears. In an instant of time He goes from here to here. So evidently in the physical body He doesn't have to be transported like we do. We have to move along in the ordered steps. The resurrected body won't be limited by that, so we'll be able to go from place to place. That doesn't mean it becomes a spiritualized body, like an angelic being doesn't have flesh and bone. No, it just means we'll be without the same restrictions. He wasn't restricted by physical barriers, wasn't restricted in the sense He could appear and disappear at will.

You know these things aren't so amazing, they are amazing, I shouldn't put it that way. They aren't without precedence, let me say that. Some of you are part of our study on Sunday night where we are studying the history of Israel and you remember after Elijah had a confrontation with the prophets of Baal and he was going through prayer to bring an end to the drought in Israel. He saw the little cloud in the distance, his servant did. He said, tell Ahab to get in his chariot and make a quick run to the city. Otherwise the rain would come and everything would get mired down and the chariot wouldn't go out. Well that's _____________, Ahab had to get into the chariot and go. But you remember what Elijah did—he outran Ahab in his chariot to Jezreel. How do you do that? I mean, Elijah just outran the chariot? Not possible, not humanly. But God's power does it, right?

Look in Acts 8. And Elijah just had a physical body so even with just a physical body the power of God can operate to overcome what is normally true. In Acts 8 Philip confronts the Ethiopian eunuch and shares the gospel with him. And the Ethiopian eunuch believes the gospel. The account begins in verse 26. So the Ethiopian eunuch stops the chariot after believing the message of the gospel and Philip has explained Isaiah 53 to him, and Philip goes down and takes the eunuch to the water and baptizes him. Verse 39, when they came up out of the water the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away, the eunuch saw him no longer but went on his way rejoicing. But Philip found himself at Azotus. No problem here, God picked him up and in an instant of time from one place and Philip opens his eyes and here he is in the town of Azotus. Just that quick.
So the point that God would do this with our resurrected bodies and give those resurrected bodies that capacity is not a surprising thing. We've gotten little glimpses into that.

Jesus walked on water while He was here on earth in His physical body. We say, well, He was the Son of God as well as the Son of Man. All right, who else walked on water? Peter. That's a little different story. It's just not scientifically possible. Go home and try it out. Do it in your bathtub, fill it up. Have your family come as witnesses. Step in and see how you balance on water. You can't do it, but Peter did it. How did he do that? We have to take into account the power of God, right? People who deny the power of God have tried to figure out how in the Sea of Galilee they were probably at low water and there were stones underneath, so Peter was really walking on the stones and it looked like he was walking on water. Give me a break! There are some things that take more faith than believing just what the scripture says about the power of God. These are just physical examples even in these physical bodies, when the power of God acts He does supernatural things. So in our glorified bodies this becomes a pattern that Christ uses and so it will be without its present limitations.

Now let me make a connection here. Sometimes we think Christ was the Son of God so He was raised, so His body will be different than ours. That's not so. He had a normal physical body just like we have. And our resurrected bodies will be just like His resurrected body. That's why He's the firstfruits of those who sleep.

Look at Romans 8:11, talks about in the first part of this chapter the fact that we have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us as God's people. And anyone in our day who is without the Holy Spirit dwelling within them doesn't belong to Christ. That was verse 9. Verse 11, but if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your moral bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Remember we talked about in I Corinthians 15, the body is sown a natural body, a soulish body and it is raised a spiritual body. It is a body now empowered, enabled, transformed by the power of the Spirit. It's the same Spirit who brought about the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead.

He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. That's what's going to happen. So the same Spirit who brought about the same transformation in the physical body of Christ is going to do the same thing in my body, in your body. So our bodies resurrected will be just like His body. We won't be God, but having a physical body is not part of His deity. He took to His deity humanity, and His humanity is human in all ways, apart from sin, which is not an essential part of humanity.

Look at verse 18, for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. We'll come back to this, but our resurrected bodies will be characterized by glory. Remember we saw that. It is sown in dishonor and it is raised in glory. We have difficulty now with suffering in these bodies of weakness and corruption and so on, but you can't compare even the trials, persecutions, physical affliction of this life with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

Verse 23, not only this, we ourselves having the firstfruits of the Spirit. There is that firstfruits again. The Spirit dwells in us, He is the firstfriuits, He is the guarantee of a completed work, He is the earnest, the downpayment, God's guarantee to see the transaction through to completion. Even we ourselves groan within ourselves waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. One person has done an extensive work demonstrating that every time the word body is used, it's being used of our physical, material body. That's what we anticipate. We have the Holy Spirit within us who has begun the process, if you will. Salvation has occurred and we are made new in Christ. But there is more to come, the glorification of the body.

Go to Philippians 3:20, for our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. Now note this, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, with the power He has, even to subject all things to Himself. This body, the same body I am living in right now, is going to experience the power of God in such a way that it will bring it into conformity with the body of glory that Christ had following His resurrection. You see that. He will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, just like His resurrected, glorified body. So we will have it. I John 3:2, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. And how is He? He is glorified, He is in a body of glory and we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.

This encourages me. I am sometimes asked, do you think we will know one another in heaven in our glorified bodies. Absolutely, without doubt. Now we may have to look a second time, because the imperfections will be gone. But we will know each other. Come back to Matthew 8. We will retain our identity in our glorified body. We will recognize one another. Matthew 8:11, I say to you that many will come from east and west and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. A couple of things here. You know what they will be doing? Reclining at table. Do you know why you reclined at the table? You were eating. And who are we reclining at the table with? Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. When Jesus said this, these men had been dead almost 2000 years. Yet Jesus said in the coming kingdom you're going to eat together with these men. Abraham will still be Abraham, Isaac will still be Isaac, Jacob will still be Jacob. He selects these because these are the patriarchs of Israel, for the Israelites to think they would be able to sit down and eat together with the patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

Some magazines published in our city have used different people in the business world and they'll ask at the end, if you could ask for someone you could have lunch with in the past, who would it be? Some people will pick Abraham Lincoln. Well for a Jew, no doubt he would take Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, a patriarch. You know what? In the kingdom we'll sit down with Abraham. You see he still has his identity. He's in a resurrected, glorified body in the kingdom, but he's still Abraham. He will still have his identity as Abraham, so will Isaac, so will Jacob.

This is a comfort for us as believers. I Thessalonians 4, a passage we'll be looking at in some detail in a future study. But come to I Thessalonians 4. The problem in Thessalonica in the church there, some believers had died and this left new believers, this is all new to them. They are gone, what does that mean? They died. Well verse 13, Paul says, I do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, believers who have died. So that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. Doesn't mean there won't be sorrow at the time of separation and death, but it's not a hopeless sorrow. You don't have to grieve as those who have no hope. What is the hope that he brings here? Verse 16, for the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, the voice of the archangel, the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds. That's the hope. You're going to see them again, their bodies will be raised, you will know them, you will be reunited. So it's not a hopeless sorrow. That's like some of you have family, children or whatever that live in different places. They come to visit. Comes time to go back home, there are tears and there is sorrow. But it is not wailing, they haven't died. And now we're looking forward to seeing you again. There still can be tears because they're going to be gone for a while, but it's a sorrow that is mellowed by the fact we're going to see them here, very soon maybe. We may even say, we'll come visit you next week. Good. The sooner the reunion, the less sorrow I feel. But the fact is the hope for us believers is we're going to see them. Our loved one, we'll see them, they'll be there, I will know them. That's the hope we have.

Now come back to Matthew 22, there is something in this we want to be aware of. Some of you brought this up to me when we talked about the kingdom and the fact that there would be some people for all eternity who will go on in their physical bodies with physical families in a non-glorified state. Matthew 22 tells us, the Saducees, the leaders in Israel, spiritual leaders, the high priest, the Saducees didn't believe in the bodily resurrection of the dead. So they come and challenge Christ with this scenario. Here is a woman who has a husband. He dies, she remarries, he dies, she remarries seven times, seven husbands. Now, we get to the resurrection, whose wife is she going to be? You have seven husbands and one wife. You remember I told you Christ was open to questions when people want to understand the scripture better. The questions that are asked with the intention of attacking scripture get a different kind of response. And so Christ responds to these Saducees. Matthew 22:29, you are mistaken, not understanding the scriptures nor the power of God. I mean, these are the religious leaders in Israel. You don't know anything about the scriptures, you don't know anything about the power of God. Why? In the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven. Now note this, it doesn't say they become angels, but in this area of comparison of being married, the angels don't marry, neither will they. That doesn't mean they will become spirit beings like angels. No, but regarding marriage it will be like the angels. The angels don't marry and we won't marry.

Now that raises questions. I wish I could have waited and gone into the kingdom in my physical body and had children and family and lived like I am familiar. And we do identify with that. It's hard to think you'll go to heaven and your parents, your children, your husband or wife and I won't have a special attachment to them? That's hard to imagine, isn't it? I tried to think about this and I thought about it in the context of our family. You have a little child 4 years old, he's never going to get married, he's never going to leave home. But that's his thinking. Why? Because all he can think of is Mom and Dad and this is his security, these are whom he has his ties to. You know what he does? He grows up and meets the right girl or she meets the right guy and all of a sudden things change. Now there is somebody I really love, I want to be attached to them. That doesn't mean they stop loving their parents, but now they have a love for this new person. Now they are married and their lives revolve around one another. Now a baby comes. What happens? Now I can only love my wife half as much as I did because I have another person I have to give a portion of my love to. So now I love my spouse less than I did because I have a child to love. And then if I have a second child I can only love the first child a portion of what I love them because ............ Well, that's not the way we apportion out our love. Each child that comes, our love expands to include them, but it doesn't lessen for the others in the family, right? I look at it, that's the way it will be in glory. It's not that my love will be lessened for my loved ones that are there, but the depth of my love will have been increased as God has brought His power to bear on me, and I'll have a depth of love for all believers there. Now I know in a small way with those that are limited to my family. Jesus prepared us for this. We have corrupted the Word of God. The biblical focus is not a focus on the family, our physical family. The biblical focus is a focus on Christ and our spiritual family.

Come back to Matthew 10:37, he who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. He who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. All of sudden there has to be a new relationship established that supersedes all other relationships. That's why you never exalt Christ by bringing Him to second place. He will not have second place. So you can't love your father or mother more than Christ, you can't love your children more than Christ. So you see a new relationship has been established that supersedes all others.

Come over to Matthew 12. Here Christ exemplifies this. In verse 46 He is speaking to the crowds and His mother and brothers want to come in and see Him. Someone came to Him, verse 47, and said, your mother and brothers are standing outside seeking to speak to you. Jesus answered the one who was telling Him and said, who is My mother? Who are My brothers? Stretching out His hand toward His disciples He said, behold my mother and my brethren. For whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven, He is My mother, My brother, My sister and so on. Our spiritual relationships supersede the physical relationship. That will ultimately be brought to fruition in the full sense in our glorified body. What is the church? I Timothy 3:15, it is the household of God. It is established here in the beginning. The spiritual relationship that's established in Christ will supersede all other physical relationships. And I will rejoice with relatives, loved ones, friends who have become believers and are in glory, but you know what? There will be no loss for those who are not there. I don't want that to be misunderstood. That doesn't mean you don't have a passion and a burden for them, but the relationship we have in the family of God will supersede all others. That's why we want to be careful that we ............. I have to be biblical in my family relationships here, but I don't make my physical family the center of my life. Jesus Christ and my spiritual family are the center of my life. Out of that flows a proper relationship in my physical family. You turn that around, you are now functioning in an unbiblical way, and thus we have a hard time grappling with the eternal prospects that God has promised to us.

Okay, we'll wrap up with this. The body will be characterized by glory. We read Philippians 3:21, He will transform our humble bodies into conformity with the body of His glory. His body will have glory. During the forty days after Christ's resurrection and before His ascension, during that time He spent with His disciples, eating with them, talking with them. His glory was somewhat veiled. After His ascension it is manifested in its fullness. We sometimes think that was His deity. But you understand it is His physical body that has been glorified. For His disciples to be able to interact with Him while in their limited physical state, there had to be a certain veiling of the fullness of His glory. But after the ascension He is only seen with the full display of His glory. We don't have time to go to passages like Acts 7, Acts 9.

Come back to Daniel 12. We'll look at three verses that will connect it. We have to pick up with verse 2, the time of the resurrection of the body. Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life and the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. So there is a resurrection to life and a resurrection to judgment. The first resurrection and the resurrection to condemnation. Note verse 3, those who have insight will shine brightly. The righteous who have been resurrected, in their glorified bodies will have a glory, they will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven. Those who lead the many to righteousness like the stars forever. The heavenly bodies are glorified bodies and their full glory will shine. There will be a brilliance associated to them.

Come to Matthew 17. Here before Christ's death there is a preview of what He'll be like in the coming kingdom in His glorified body. On the mount of transfiguration, verse 2, and He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, His garments became as white as light. We went through the book of Revelation, what are the resurrected, glorified saints clothed in? White garments. We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. This is what He will be like in the kingdom and we will be there with Him, like Him, with bodies like His body.

Come to Revelation 1:16. The last statement in verse 16 as the apostle John falls before the resurrected, glorified Christ and now after the ascension as in the other appearances after the ascension. His glory is overwhelming to one in still a physical state. So John is overwhelmed and we're told the description here. The end of verse 16, His face was like the sun shining in its strength. What did Daniel 12 say about the righteous in their resurrected bodies? They shine brilliantly like the heavenly bodies. What was Christ like in His resurrected, glorified body? The brilliance with it. We say, then how will we see each other? Remember we will be in glorified bodies, the wonder of _____________ Any wonder Paul said, I consider the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. The process has begun.

II Corinthians 3:18, but we all, with unveiled face, are beholding as in a mirror. The mirror being the Word of God. Are beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. We are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. He is, as we study the Word and the Spirit takes that Word and we assimilate it into our lives, we are being more and more conformed to the character of Christ. But with the glorification of the body, that process will be brought to completion and the body itself will be changed. And we will be like Him.

The same body with a glory we can but imagine. The body that is the same, yet radically different; a body characterized by power, not weakness; glory, not dishonor; permanence, not corruption. A body totally transformed by the power of the Spirit. That's the culmination of our salvation. It's for those who have believed in Jesus Christ. It's not some pie in the sky, this is the Word of God that is forever settled in heaven. For every person who places their faith in Christ and in Christ alone, this is their glorious future. This is what God has provided for in the death and resurrection of His Son.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the greatness of your grace, for the magnificence of your love, for the gift of your Son, the One who loved us and died for us. Lord, as we continue in these mortal bodies characterized by weakness and corruption and dishonor, Lord, hard to contemplate the wonder of all that you have prepared for those who love you. The splendor, the magnificence that will characterize these physical, material bodies when your power brings about a change, a transformation that only you can work. And yet, the wonder of it all, we will still be known, recognized, have the joy of fellowship with one another, the joy of fellowship with you. May our lives be shaped by what you have promised for us in the splendor of your presence so that we not become entangled with the transitory perishable things of this life. We pray in Christ's name, amen.