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Looking Toward Heaven--Part 4
What We Will be Like in Heaven
"Dear San Juan, I checked with several authorities and the
best reply came from Andrew McKenna who is not a theologian but
vice chairman of the Board of Directors of Notre Dame University.
And he said tell the boy that heaven is anything you want it to
be. Assure him that he will see everyone he wants to see in
heaven including his pets," end quote.
Heaven is anything you want it to be and you can see anyone
there that you want to see including your pets. I'll tell you
for sure that man is not a theologian. Heaven is not anything
you want it to be. Heaven is exactly what God made it to be.
And we've been looking at the heaven that is the true
heaven, the heaven prepared by God for His people. And we've
been asking a series of questions. And we've asked the question,
what is heaven? And tried to answer that from Scripture. We've
asked, where is heaven? And tried to answer that. And then
we've been looking at the subject of what is heaven like? And we
have been tremendously excited to see the reality of what that
place is like and what it holds for us.
Now I want to go on tonight and look at another question.
And there are a few more yet to come in the future, but for
tonight I want us to look at the question, what will we be like
in heaven? What will we be like?
To give you a general answer, and then we'll dig a little
more deeply into it, the Bible teaches that we will experience
the eternal perfection of body and soul. We will experience the
eternal perfection of body and soul. That is to say the
perfection of the whole person. Heaven is a perfect place for
people made perfect. And since we as human beings are inner man
and outer man, soul and body, or if you will, spirit and body, we
will be perfect spirit and body forever and forever.
I want to talk about that a little bit tonight so that
you'll get a perspective. The whole idea of God's redemption is
to make us perfect. The whole idea is to fit us to dwell forever
in the presence of God. That is the whole purpose of salvation.
Now salvation, I want you to understand me, is a process. You
came to Christ in faith and were born again, but that only began
the process because you have not yet been completed. That's why
the Apostle Paul says in Romans 13, "Now is our salvation nearer
than when we believed." We are in the process of being saved.
We are heading for the ultimate expression of salvation when we
are made perfect. That salvation work has already begun in the
salvation of our souls, in the transformation of the inner man
that we know as the new birth. But that is not the end, that is
only the beginning.
When you put your faith in Jesus Christ you were made a new
creation, 2 Corinthians 5:17 says. Colossians 2:10 says that you
were made complete in Christ. And Peter says you know have all
things that pertain to life and godliness, 2 Peter 1:3 and 4. So
you're a new creation, complete in Christ with everything that
pertains to life and godliness. The life of God dwells in your
soul. You are a new person on the inside. There is newness in
you
.
To understand this, just briefly and I don't want to spend a
lot of time because you can listen to the series on Romans 6 and
7, but just to touch it lightly, turn in your Bible to Romans 6
and let's see if we can't begin to build an understanding of what
heaven is really going to be for all of us in terms of the
perfection of our person.
`
Now we have been made new creations in Christ. We have been
given, as it were, a new life in Christ. We have been given a
new heart the Bible says. We have been given a new Spirit,
that's part of what it means to be born again, converted,
regenerated, redeemed, made new in Christ. We have, it says in
chapter 6 if you'll look over at verse 19, pardon me, verse 18,
we have become slaves of righteousness. We have a new life.
Instead of being slaves of sin, we're now slaves or servants of
righteousness. Instead of experiencing, verse 23, the wages of
sin which is death, we have received the free gift of God which
is eternal life. In fact, verse 22 says we have been freed from
sin and enslaved to God. The result is sanctification and the
ultimate outcome is eternal life.
Now those are all ways of saying there's been a dramatic
change in us. We're no longer slaves of sin, we're slaves of
God. We're no longer servants of wickedness, we're servants of
righteousness. We're no longer possessors of a principle that
leads to death, we're possessors of a principle that leads to
life. We are a new creation. He makes that very clear. In fact
the old creation has died...the old creation has died. Verse 11,
"Consider yourselves to have died to sin." Something died and
something new lives. That is new life, that is the regenerate
part of you that God has recreated.
Now can I reach back to your understanding when we went
through this part of the Bible and just remind you that the
problem you have is you have a newly created inner man
incarcerated in the flesh, okay? Incarcerated in the flesh. In
chapter 7, please notice how Paul points this out, starting in
verse 15. He says, "For that which I am doing I do not
understand." And the reason he doesn't understand it is because
in his heart in this new inner man he loves the right things, he
longs for the right things. But he says there's something I
don't understand, I'm not practicing what I would like to do. I
am doing the very thing I hate. But if I do the very thing I do
not wish to do, I agree with the law confessing that it's good.
The very fact that I don't want to do it says I acknowledge the
law of God.
Then he says in verse 17, "So now no longer am I the one
doing it but sin which indwells me." Now here's a very important
principle. Paul says I am a new creation, I have a new life
principle in me, I'm in the process of being sanctified, I'm a
slave to God and a servant of righteousness, I have a new
principle of life within me, but it isn't free...notice this...to
fully express itself because of the presence of what? Of
sin...of sin. I am inhibited. I am debilitated. I am
restricted in my ability to live according to the law of God in
which I delight because of sin.
Now let's follow his thought in verse 18. "For I know that
nothing good dwells in me...now here it is...that is in
my...what?...flesh," that's another word for humanness. In my
humanness, or in my fallen human nature, he means not just his
physical body but the whole of his fallenness. He has a fallen
mind. He has fallen emotions. He has a fallen will. So here is
this new life principle, eternal life, the life of God in the
soul of man, it's there but it's incarcerated in fallenness. Can
you grasp that? It's incarcerated in fallenness...in a fallen
body, a fallen mind, fallen emotions, a fallen will. Flesh means
more than just skin and bones and tissue, it means my humanness.
So, here's the point I want you to understand. Listen,
beloved, your soul has been redeemed and deep within your human
soul or spirit, God has planted new life, the life of God is in
you in the form of His indwelling Spirit. But it cannot fully
express...mark this...even what is in your soul because it is
hampered by sin.
He says again in verse 19, "The good that I wish, I do not
do. But I practice the very evil I do not wish. But if I am
doing the very thing I do not wish, I'm no longer the one doing
it but sin which dwells in me." I recognize there is still that
principle that is in my humanness.
So, he says, verse 21, "I find the principle of evil present
with me and on the other hand," verse 22, "I joyfully concur with
the law of God in the inner man but I see a different law in the
members of my body waging war against the law of my mind and
making me a prisoner of the law of sin which is in my members."
Over and over he says it's in my flesh, it's in my body, it's in
my members. He calls it in verse 24 the body of this death.
Verse 25, "With my flesh I serve the law of sin." Flesh, body,
bodily parts, body members, all refers to his unredeemed
humanness. Okay? Now just get that in your mind.
God has planted a new creation within you, the indwelling
Holy Spirit is perfect. That transformation has taken place.
And the Holy Spirit's longings become your longings and you love
righteousness and you love goodness and you love truth and you
love justice and you love God and you love the Bible. But all of
that is inhibited because your soul and your body are still
wrestling with their fallen condition in which sin dwells.
Now I agree that the authority in your life of sin is
broken, the dominion of sin is broken. But the presence of sin
has not been eliminated, right? In fact, 1 John says, "If any
man say he has not sin, he's...what?...he's a liar." So in the
deepest part, and I don't understand the mystery of this, but in
the deepest part of your eternal soul, God has planted the
incorruptible seed of eternal life. And you have a new power to
do what is right. You have a new heart and a new Spirit. And
all of that, get this, is a down payment, a first installment on
the fullness of what you're going to get in the future. But that
new creation, that new heart, that new principle, that new
Spirit, that new life is incarcerated in the flesh. It is
embattled in the flesh. As it endeavors to bring the soul and
the body into conformity to the righteous standards of God, it
has a real war on its hands because it is fighting against our
fallenness. The seed of eternal perfection is there. The seed
of incorruptible eternal life is there. It is planted, mark
this, it's not yet in full bloom. So we long for the day when
that perfection comes. We long to be what we shall be.
Look at chapter 8 verse 23. And Paul carrying the same
thought into chapter 8 says, "And we ourselves," second phrase
there, "we ourselves having the firstfruits of the Spirit," in
other words, having had the down payment, having had the first
installment, having had the new heart, new life, new principle,
new Spirit in us, having had a taste of that, "we ourselves groan
within ourselves." And what are we groaning about? "Waiting
eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body."
In other words, we've had a taste of what a redeemed soul is
like, we'd like to get the whole thing redeemed, you understand
that? And so we live in hope, we live in hope, we groan waiting
to be what we will be.
Sin has crippled our soul. It has marred our spirit. It
has scarred the faculties of thought and will and feeling. And
so we long for the day when that eternal seed within us will
bloom into fullness and we will be redeemed from head to toe,
from outside to inside. The time will come, and what a
tremendous thought, when God Himself with His penetrating eyes to
discern every single thing in existence will scrutinize you and
scrutinize me with those fiery penetrating eyes and will go to
the very smallest piece of our being and find absolutely no trace
of sin. Won't that be incredible? But that's what's coming.
God will per...will perceive us in every single dimension of our
existence as absolutely and perfectly and eternally holy and
righteous and without flaw.
So, heaven then is the place of the perfection, the eternal
perfection of soul and body. We lose all of our fallenness. We
come into all of God's planned perfection. We enter heaven
perfect. In fact, dear friends, no one ever enters heaven who
isn't absolutely perfect. No one ever goes there to stay to
dwell who is not absolutely perfect.
In Romans...pardon me...in Revelation 6:11, "There was given
to each of them a white robe," these are the martyrs, "they were
told they should rest for a little while longer till the number
of their fellow servants and their brethren who were killed, even
as they had been, should be completed also." The white robe is
the symbol of their absolute and utter perfection. The white
robe is the symbol of their holiness and their purity. They are
robed in accord with their new nature having its full expression.
In Revelation 7 and verse 14 it says the ones coming out of
the Great Tribulation have washed their robes and made them white
in the blood of the Lamb. And again the emphasis there on the
whiteness, on the cleansing, the perfection of the saints who
enter into the heaven of heavens where God dwells with those who
are perfect...who are perfect.
Now listen to me, we still need a perfected soul. We have
within our souls, within our inner man the seed of perfection,
but the soul or the whole inner person is not yet perfect.
Listen, it's not just my body that sins, it's my mind and my
thoughts and my will and my emotions. My soul is not perfected.
But the moment a believer dies, that believer's soul enters
immediately into the presence of God and is instantly perfected
and made holy. The body goes to the grave, the soul goes
immediately to heaven...that's how it is. Absent from the body,
present with the Lord. Far better to depart and be with Christ,
Philippians 1:23 says. Paul says, "I'm not here, I'm with
Christ."
So, when a believer dies, that soul not yet perfected is
instantly perfected in the presence of God. The body goes to the
grave. So the first thing you need to know is we go to heaven
without a body. Okay? Christians go to heaven without a body.
In fact, as far as the church of Jesus Christ is concerned, the
bodies are all still on the earth. All of the saints who have
died and are now in heaven are only in heaven in their spirit or
in their soul without their body. That is made clear to us, if
not other places certainly it is made clear to us in Hebrews
chapter 12. Verse 22 says, "You have come to Mount Zion to the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to myriads of
angels...listen...to the general assembly and the church of the
firstborn who are enrolled in heaven." You come to heaven, you
come to the place where the church is, "And to God the judge of
all...now listen to this...and to the spirits of righteous men
made perfect."
What you have in heaven right now are perfected spirits.
You say, "Where are the bodies?" In the grave, in various
degrees of decay.
But now let's ask the question: all right, we go to heaven
as a soul, first of all. If I were to die today, my soul would
go to heaven, my body would go to Forest Lawn, probably. My soul
or my spirit, same thing, would be with the Lord. Now what would
my perfected soul be like? Well, the only thing I can tell you
is that God can scrutinize my entire perfected soul to the inth
degree and He would find no imperfection and no sin at all. I
would be absolutely perfect. I don't know any other way to
explain that. Perhaps 1 Corinthians 2 gives us a bit of an
insight. Verse 11, it says, "For who among men knows the
thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him,
even so the thoughts of God no one knows except the Spirit of
God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world but the
Spirit who is from God that we might know the things freely given
to us by God, which things we also speak not in words taught by
human wisdom but in those taught by the Spirit combining
spiritual thoughts with spiritual words."
Now what Paul is saying here is...Look, you can't know what
you are right now apart from the Spirit of God. So how can you
really understand who you are now apart from the instruction of
the Spirit? And if we could extrapolate beyond that to the
future that awaits us, it would be impossible for us to know
anything about that, having not experienced it unless the Spirit
taught us. And the fact is the Spirit has nothing to say except
backing up into verse 9, "Things which eye has not seen and ear
has not heard and which have not entered the heart of man all
that God has prepared for those who love Him."
It's hard enough to understand what our inner spirit is all
about here, let along to understand what God has prepared for us
when it hasn't even entered the thoughts of man, it hasn't
entered the eyes of man or the ears of man to grasp it at all.
So all I can say about it is that the perfection which we wait
and wait for and experience when our souls go to be with the Lord
is just that, perfect freedom from all evil forever. Imagine
that. Imagine that. Never a sinful thought...never a selfish
thought...never an evil word...never a useless word...never an
unkind deed, absolute eternal perfection. Never defiled...never
unclean...never imperfect...never doing anything but that which
is absolutely righteous, holy and perfect before God. Can you
imagine yourself behaving in such an incredible fashion? I find
it almost unbelievable...no imperfection, absolutely none.
The book of Revelation comes to an end, it makes this
abundantly clear in chapter 21, verse 27 says, "Nothing unclean
and no one who practices abomination and lying shall ever come
into it." Nobody who has any stain on them at all will ever come
into the heavenly city, to the abode of God, the heaven of
heavens. Chapter 22 also passes on the same kind of information.
It says in verse 14, "Blessed are those who wash their robes that
they may have the right to the tree of life and may enter by the
gates into the city, outside are the dogs and the sorcerers and
the immoral persons, the murderers, the idolaters and every one
who loves and practices lying." Nobody is going to be in there
who isn't perfect. "There shall in no case enter that city
anything that defiles."
Think about it...no sin, no suffering, no sorrow, no pain.
You want to know something? You'll never doubt God in any way.
There will be no doubts there. There will be no fear of God's
displeasure because God will never be displeased because you'll
never do anything to displease Him. No temptation will ever come
upon you. Satan will not be there. The world will not be there.
The flesh will not be there. There will be no persecution there.
There will be no abuse there. There will be no division there.
There will be no discord, no disharmony, no disunity, no hate.
There will be no quarrels there, no fights, no arguments, no
disagreements. Everyone will be perfect and everyone in heaven
will agree with what I've been teaching through all these years.
There will be...there will be no disappointments. There
will be no anger. There will be no effort. There will be no
more prayer because there will be nothing to pray for. There
will be no more fasting because there will be nothing with which
to fast or for which to fast. There will be no repentance
because there will be nothing to repent of. There will be no
confession of sin because there will be no sin to confess. There
will be no weeping because there will be nothing to make you sad.
There will be no watchfulness because there will be no danger and
no temptation and no trial of any kind. There will be no more
teaching. There will be no more preaching. There will be no more
learning. There will be no more evangelism. There will be no
more witnessing. There will be perfect pleasure in Thy presence,
there is joy, Psalm 16 talks about that.
There will be perfect knowledge. We will know as we are
known. We'll know as we are known. We are known comprehensively
and we'll know comprehensively. There will be perfect comfort.
You will be absolutely at the apex of comfort every moment
throughout all of eternity. You will never have for one split
second an uncomfortable moment. Isn't that incredible? Some
wife is saying, "You don't know my husband..." Well, he won't be
uncomfortable.
Luke 16:25, "Child, remember that during your life...Abraham
is speaking...you received your good things and likewise Lazarus
bad things, and now he is being comforted here and you are in
agony." Hell is agony, heaven is eternal comfort.
Perfect love, "And now abides love, the greatest of these,"
in 1 Corinthians 13:13, you will love perfectly, you will be
loved perfectly, you will love everyone perfectly, everyone will
love you perfectly. You will love God perfectly, He will love
you perfectly. You will love like Jesus loved. John 13:1 says,
"He loved His disciples unto perfection," that's exactly the way
you will love. You will be loved by God. Your soul will be
embraced by God. The love that was weary and hungry and tempted
and scorned and hated and scourged and spit on, that love that
was buffeted and crucified and pierced, that love that wept and
bled and sweat and died, that love for you will embrace you
forever and be embraced by you and you and I will be engulfed in
eternal love.
Now what that all sums up to is is perfect joy. And we
could simply say heaven is the place of unmixed and unending
joy...unmixed and unending joy. Whatever joy there is in this
life is mixed with sorrow, isn't it? You get a little bit of joy
and you can't fully enjoy it because there's too many other
problems. Joy is mixed in this life. At best it is mixed with
sadness and sorrow and discouragement and disappointment and
worry and fretting and anticipating...if there isn't a problem
now, I can't get too happy because as soon as the day turns
around it will be a problem day. You never can enjoy the day
because of what tomorrow might bring. All our joys are mitigated
by sin. All our joys are mitigated or inhibited by grief. All
our joys are mitigated and inhibited by sorrow. And this life is
mourning, mourning, mourning and more mourning and weeping as we
look at what really happens. But when you get to heaven...joy,
joy, joy, absolutely unmixed joy.
Look at Matthew 25. I'm just telling you what your spirit's
going to be like up there. And it all sums up in this unmixed,
unending joy. Matthew 25, do you remember the parable of our
Lord? It's like a man about to go a journey. He called his own
slaves, verse 14, Matthew 25, entrusted his possessions to them.
To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, each
according to his own ability, and he went on his journey.
Immediately the one who had received the five talents went
and traded with them, gained five more talents. The same manner
the one who had received the two talents gained two more. He who
received the one talent went away and dug in the ground and hid
his master's money. This is talking about spiritual privilege.
Some men used their spiritual privilege and gained blessing.
Some men took their spiritual privilege and wasted it.
The master of the slaves comes, settling accounts with them.
Verse 20, the one who had received the five talents came up,
brought five more talents saying, "Master, you entrusted five
talents to me, I've gained five more talents." His master said
to him, "Well done, good and faithful slave, you were faithful
with a few things, I will put you in charge of many things, enter
into the...what?...joy of your master." That's what heaven's all
about. I'll put you in charge of many things, enter the joy of
your master. You're going to have joy unmixed in heaven. You're
going to enter into the joy of the Lord. You're also going to be
in charge of some things...we'll talk about that in our next
study.
The one who received two, his spiritual privilege was not
quite as magnanimous as the spiritual privilege of the first, but
he took it and made something of it. And he says, verse 23,
"Well done good and faithful slave, you were faithful with a few
things, I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the
joy of your master."
And you remember to the one who did nothing with his
spiritual privilege. The Lord took away what he had and instead
of being in a place of joy, verse 30 says, "Cast out the
worthless slave into the outer darkness. In that place...not
joy..but weeping and grinding or gnashing of teeth."
Now heaven then is a place of joy...a place of joy. The
dominant characteristic of heaven is joy. Joy that is born out
of all the wonderful things that I've mentioned to you...joy.
And any joy you have now is just a...just a little taste of the
joy that is awaiting you. Heaven is absolutely defined in its
purest simplest terms as a place of unmixed and unending joy.
Now why do we say unending? Well it has to be unending
because the conditions that make it possible to have unmixed joy
never change. Did you get that? Since the conditions of heaven
will never change, whatever it is that produces joy to begin with
will produce joy forever and ever and ever because the conditions
never change. The heavenly perfection is never altered...never
ever altered.
Hell is the opposite, by the way. Hell is a place of
unmixed pain and unending torment. In heaven you have an eternal
life of satisfaction for all the longings of the redeemed soul.
So it is a place where the spirit and the soul will be perfected
forever.
But let me take it a step further. We were never designed
to be disembodied spirits and just float around in some spirit
form. We can function outside of a body. I can call somebody on
the telephone and talk to them and I don't know what their body's
doing and I can still communicate with their person. I can write
a letter or get a letter from someone and I'm communicating with
their spirit, their inner person, without having any contact at
all with their body. We could communicate. God could take away
our bodies, as He does, put us in heaven as spirits and we could
still be a spiritual entity as God is a spiritual entity.
But that's not what we were made to be. When God made man
He made him soul and body. He made him an inner man and an outer
man. And when He perfects him, He's going to perfect him as an
inner man and an outer man also. We are designed by God to be a
body and a soul. And our ultimate perfection demands that we be
a body and a soul. And the creation of a new heaven and an
actual new earth also demands that we have bodies that can walk
on a real earth. The new earth then calls for its inhabitants to
have real bodies.
Now death...mark it...death means the separation. The
bodies go to the grave, the spirit goes to be with the Lord.
Well, how long does that last? Well only until the resurrection.
Jesus said in John chapter 5 that everybody's going to rise from
the dead...everybody. In John 5, "Do not marvel...verse 28...at
this, the hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will
hear His voice and come forth, those who did good deeds to a
resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a
resurrection of judgment." Now this, will you? In the present
time, the people in the church who have died are in heaven in
spirit. In the present time the unbelievers who have died are in
hell in spirit. But there is coming a great resurrection. And
at the time of the resurrection, the bodies of the redeemed will
be joined to their spirits and they will be in the eternal
perfection of body and soul. At the time of the great
resurrection, the bodies of the ungodly will be raised from the
graves as well and they will be joined to their disembodied
spirits so that they can, body and soul, will endure the torments
of hell forever. God created men and women to be body and soul,
or body and spirit...same thing.
So, that's what God is moving toward. Even after our souls
are perfected, that's not the end. That's not the end. There
will be a resurrection of body and to join that spirit, that's
God's plan.
You can read about the resurrection of the ungodly in
Revelation chapter 20 starting in verse 11. The sea gives up the
dead, death and the grave give up the dead and they're all judged
according to their deeds. And then, of course, they're thrown
into the lake of fire. There will be a resurrection unto
damnation, a resurrection unto judgment.
But what about our resurrection? What about the redemption
of our bodies? And remember in Romans 8 a moment ago I said we
are waiting for the redemption of our bodies? We're waiting for
what 2 Corinthians 5:2 calls our "house which is from heaven...a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, very familiar text.
First Thessalonians chapter 4 verse 13, "We do not want you to be
uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep," and that has
reference to the bodies of saints, their spirits are gone to be
with the Lord, their bodies are in the grave. "Don't grieve for
if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will
bring with Him those who have fallen asleep." When Jesus comes
back, He's going to bring with Him the spirits of the saints that
are dead. When the Rapture comes and Jesus comes out of heaven,
the spirits of the saints are coming with Him.
"For this we say to you," verse 15, "by the Word of the Lord
that we who are alive," we're still here in body and spirit, not
yet glorified, "those of us who remain till the coming of the
Lord will not precede those who have fallen asleep." In other
words, they're going to get their bodies before we go up. Why?
Because they've been waiting a long time. Some of them
centuries, floating around as disembodied spirits in a not yet
fully perfected humanness because they don't have their bodies
yet. So when Jesus comes to Rapture the church, the first group
that are going to be taken care of are those who have been
disembodied, they will get their new bodies and then we will go
up after them. It says it in verse 16, "The Lord Himself will
descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of the archangel
with the trump of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first and
then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with
them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and thus we shall
always be with the Lord." That's another feature of heaven,
you're always with the Lord forever and ever and ever and ever.
But the dead are going to go first because they've been waiting a
long time for their bodies. Their bodies are going to come out
of the graves, join with their disembodied spirits, be instantly
perfected for all that heaven has for them. Then we're going to
follow them up and get translated on the way. And we'll be
perfected when we leave this world in the Rapture if we're here
when Jesus comes.
Now that's the promise of God that we have to look forward
to...a new glorified body to go with a glorified spirit. This
earthly tent, Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5:1, will be torn down
and we'll get a building from God.
Now that poses the question I want to focus on as we bring
this to a conclusion tonight. What will these bodies be like?
What are they going to be like? The soul in its perfected state,
mark this, has to have a body in a perfected state to fully
express itself. The human soul is limited in its expression
without a body because we are that perfect combination. But what
will the body be like?
Let's go to 1 Corinthians 15. There is so much that could
be said about this, I'm going to try to bite my tongue and go
through it rapidly. Verse 35, "Someone will say," and I can hear
it, you've already thought it, "how are the dead raised? And
with what kind of body do they come?" See, somebody says, "Ah,
are you kidding me, bodily resurrection? People are going to be
in the grave for centuries and centuries. There's not going to
be anything there but a pile of dust. And what about people who
got burned up and what about people who were exploded? Is the
Lord going to go collect all the pieces? And what about people
who drowned in the ocean and they've been disintegrating in the
ocean for centuries and centuries and centuries? How are the
dead raised up?"
One writer, Charles Ball, says, "The limitation of our
present knowledge makes it almost impossible to comprehend the
resurrection of a body. We raise questions about flesh that is
buried in a grave and reduced to the elements or burned to ashes
or dissolved in the sea. Can it be possible that these scattered
elements will be reassembled with the same molecular structure as
at the hour of death? Some have ridiculed this by picturing a
body in the grave, dissolving in the action of the rain and the
heat of the sun and in time fertilizing the grass above. And
where a cow is grazing, the cow produces milk which is consumed
at the breakfast table and nourishes another generation. Then
they die and they go in the grave and they decay and they make
the grass grow. And another cow eats the grass and that cow
produces milk and that milk is consumed at the breakfast table
and that milk nourishes another generation. And who in the world
will ever be able to know what molecules go with what person?"
Well, that's the kind of reasoning you're dealing with. And
God, they say, has got an impossible problem to figure out whose
molecules are whose.
Well, I don't even want to get into that kind of
foolishness. If God could make us, He can remake us. We don't
have to think like that. Constant change is going on in the
cells of our bodies in this life, we're not even the same as we
were three years ago. Cells of our body are being thrown off
each day, new cells are taking their place. I hate to say this,
but it's true, most of the dust in your house is human skin
shedding...about 75 percent of it, from what I read. Does that
shock you? Yes, you're being replaced. It's beyond our...it's
beyond our comprehension, folks. But somehow a new body will be
made to accommodate an eternally perfect soul. It's a house not
made with hands, it's an eternal house. The Greeks used to say
the body is a prison to inhibit the soul. No it's not. The body
is a vehicle to express the soul, that's the idea. It's a
vehicle to express the soul.
Now what is it like? Well let's go back to verse 36 and
find out. What is it like? "You fool, he says," that's being
kind, you shouldn't even argue like that, "that which you sow
does not come to life unless it dies." The Greek is "senseless
one," a severe rebuke, by the way, which assumes that the
objector prided himself on his intelligence. "You don't even
know what you're talking about. Let me give you analogy of a
seed. He says, That which you sow doesn't come to life unless it
dies. And that which you sow you do not sow the body which is to
be but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else, but
God gives it a body just as He wished. And to each of the seeds,
a body of its own."
He says, just look at this analogy. You have a little seed
in your hand, you put it in the ground, does that...does that
seed in any way resemble what it's going to produce? Of course
not. I mean, there is tremendous difference. The life principle
is in the seed but there's no way to know if you didn't know
because you had past experience that that kind of seed would turn
out to be that kind of plant. The seed dies. That's the first
thing a seed does. Now you explain this to me perfectly and then
I'll also be dependent on your explanation of resurrection. How
in the world can something die in order to give life? How can it
do that? How can a seed go into the ground, decompose and give
life? I don't know...I don't understand that.
And how in the world can a monstrous tree come out of that
little thing? There is a vast difference but Paul is saying your
body is going to die, it's going to go into the grave and it's
going to come out of there and it's just like a seed that dies in
an analogy sense and produces some plant that you could never
have seen in the seed. Never. Jesus even said that in looking
at His own resurrection. John 12:24, "Unless a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and die, it abides alone. But if it dies it
brings forth fruit." And He was saying, "I'm going to die and do
the same thing. I'm going to produce fruit. I'm going to come
forth in a glorious resurrection body that's going to produce
fruit." The mystery of the resurrection body, dear friends, is
no different than the mystery of the seed...no different.
And if you're going to say, "Well, I don't believe in
resurrection cause I don't understand the process," then you
better not believe in harvest either because you don't understand
that process. But it happens, and so will resurrection. That's
Paul's argument.
The bodies will have some connection to the one that was
buried, but they'll be different. I don't know fully how.
They'll be the same organism in some way, I'll be me and you'll
be you only we'll all be perfect, we'll be the same and yet we'll
be different. Incredible. From the decomposition of the body in
the grave, we don't have an obstacle to the resurrection. Just
like a seed that dies and brings forth life, so the resurrection
will come from the death of the body.
Look at verse 39, and then he takes another illustration.
From the seed he just turns a corner and starts to talk about the
body. "All flesh is not the same flesh. There's one flesh of
men, another flesh of beast, another flesh of birds, another of
fish." Now how do you explain that? I mean, all over this earth
there are all different kinds of flesh...all different kinds.
The differences in the flesh of animals are determined by amino
acids. You know amino acids? There are...I read there are 600
octo-dezillion(?) combinations of amino acids. That's a lot.
And that's what produces flesh...that's what produces a certain
kind of flesh. You produce flesh...you produce your own flesh, I
produce my own...it doesn't matter what I eat, I produce flesh.
If I eat chicken all the time, I don't get feathers. Why? Why?
Because the amino acids in my body will only reproduce in
combination with my own flesh. So no matter what I eat, I eat
nothing but hamburger, I won't "moo." I won't grow a tail, I
won't get hide like a cow. Why? Because the amino acid
structure that God has put into flesh keeps flesh distinct. God
was not restricted to one kind of flesh in creation, so why
should He be restricted to one kind of flesh in resurrection? We
may not even understand what kind of new humanity that is anymore
than if all we knew were birds and their kind of flesh we could
understand a horse.
Then he says in verse 40, "There are heavenly bodies and
earthly bodies. The glory of the heavenly is one. The glory of
the earthly is another." That is there are terrestrial and
celestial. There are earthly organisms and there are bodies that
occupy space, sun, moon, stars. It's incredible. God has made
everything from the tiny little crawling bug to a spinning sun.
And everything in between. And from the human perspective, we
look at these and why in the world would we say, "Well I don't
understand how He could ever make a resurrection body?" Well
look, He can make any kind of body He wants.
There is one glory of the sun, verse 41, another glory of
the moon. There's another glory of the stars and stars differ
from other stars in glory. So also is the resurrection of the
dead. It's just like that. There are all kinds of bodies God
has made...animal bodies, plant bodies, celestial bodies, suns
and stars and moons and comets and on and on and on.
I don't know if you ever thought about it, I was reading in
Reader's Digest some years ago an article by Donald Peady(?) and
he said this, "Like flowers, the stars have their own colors at
your first upward glance all gleam white as frost crystals. But
single out this one and that one for observation and you will
find a subtle spectrum in the stars. The quality of their lights
is determined by their temperatures. In the December sky you
will see Aldebiron(?) as pale rose, regal bluish white,
Beatlegist(?) orange to topaz yellow," end quote.
In other words, even the stars are different. Different
temperatures, different colors. All the heavenly bodies vary,
all the seeds. Do you realize there are no two trees on the face
of the earth alike? No two seeds alike. No two animals alike.
No two people exactly alike. No two celestial bodies alike. And
somebody says, "Well, how in the world could God ever create a
resurrection body?" Big deal...He's got enough creative power on
display that we shouldn't question that.
Verse 42, "So also is the resurrection of the dead." The
illustrations of nature, the illustrations of astronomy
illustrate to us that God can make any kind of body He wants. As
one body differs from another, so the resurrection body can
differ from the body we know now. There is the possibility that
God is going to create a unique body, a body like we don't
understand. Somehow it will connect up with us. It will have
our herm...human personhood in it, our human personality in it.
But it will be preserved forever with all its distinctions, with
all its uniqueness in absolute and eternal perfection. And so
the graveyards of men become the seed plots of resurrection. And
the cemeteries of the people of God become through the heavenly
dew the resurrection fields of the promised perfection.
Then in verse 42, "It is sown a perishable body, it is
raised an imperishable body." And here come the contrasts. "It
is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption." That's the
difference.
Then he says, "It is sown in dishonor because of sin, it is
raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.
It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body." Now
what does he mean by that...a spiritual body? He doesn't mean
it's a spirit, it is a body. But it is a body...it is a body
that can contain and express itself in spiritual ways. To put it
simply, it is a body which expresses the spirit, the needs of a
perfect spirit.
Now look at that. What's your body going to be like? It's
going to be imperishable, that is it never decays. You will
never lose any part of that body. There will be no...you won't
be turning over your skin every seven years. There will be no
elimination process in your body. It is an imperishable body.
It will be permanently and eternally perfect, never changing,
never. You will never look at your hand and say, "What is that?
I've never seen that before." You will never feel somewhere,
"And where is that lump coming from." There will be no cancer
Xrays in heaven. No one will develop anything there. Absolute
imperishable perfection.
Not only that it will be glorious...glorious. It will be a
reflector of the glory of God. It will be raised in power. It
will have power beyond anything you can imagine, power to fly,
power to accomplish anything and everything that it desires. It
will be a spiritual body in the sense that it gives expression to
a renewed spirit, a perfect spirit. It's incredible to think
about it. Its adapted for the existence of the redeemed in an
order of heaven that we know nothing about at this point. It's
just unbelievable.
And then in verse 45 he takes us one step further and says,
"So also it is written the first man Adam became a living soul;
and the last Adam--that's Christ--became a life-giving spirit."
He contrasts the heads of two families. He appeals to Scripture
here for his argument. And he says the last Adam is a life-
giving spirit. Jesus Christ is the last Adam. And He will give
a life...He will give life where Adam gave death. Adam, the
natural man, sinned and brought death on the human race. The
last Adam brings life. "The spiritual is not first, but the
natural then the spiritual. The first man is from the earth,
that's Adam, earthy, the second man is from heaven. And as is
the earthy, so also are those who are earthy and is the heavenly,
so also are those who are heavenly." Stop at that point, folks.
You just got a tremendous insight.
As we are on this earth like Adam, we will be in heaven
like...whom?...like Christ. And verse 49 says it. "Just as we
have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image
of...what?...the heavenly."
It's incredible. We're going to be like Jesus Christ.
We're going to be exactly like Jesus Christ. Well, what was He
like? Well He was incorruptible and eternal. He is glorified
and we shall be. He is powerful. In fact He has all power and
so shall we. He is spiritual, that is He gives expression to a
perfected spirit through His glorified humanity, and so shall we.
We shall possess, according to Philippians 3:21, a great
statement, "The body of His glory." I just can't imagine that.
But see we have been saved to be conformed to the image of God's
Son. We are predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son,
Romans 8 says. We're going to be like Him, 1 John 3:2, because
we shall...what?...see Him as He is. We're going to be like Him.
What was He like? It's incredible to think about it. He
flew to heaven. Stood on the mount in Acts chapter 1 and a cloud
took Him right to heaven. He could fly. He moved about. He
appeared suddenly after His resurrection in that glorified
humanity. He walked through walls. With the disciples it tells
us that He sat down, Luke 24 says, and ate. On one occasion He
broke bread. Another occasion He ate fish. He asked for
something to eat, they gave it and He ate it. And Revelation 22
says that there will be fruit-bearing trees in heaven for the
wholeness and the health of all the peoples. Like Christ ate
after His resurrection we'll eat. And He didn't need to eat, He
ate for the sheer joy and pleasure of it. So we'll spend
eternity eating of the fruit of the heavenly trees not because we
need it but because we enjoy it.
I don't know how that's going to work. I don't know
how...how you can eat eternal fruit and not have it change you in
any way. I don't understand all of that. But it's sure going to
be exciting. We're going to be like Christ. He could move about
anywhere He wanted to go. He had the power to appear and
disappear. He had the power to infuse men with His strength. He
had the power even in His resurrection, of course, to do
miraculous things which He did through His Apostles. He walked.
He talked. They could touch Him. They could feel Him. He
spoke. He ate. We'll do all of that only in a glorified
humanity that's inexplicable to us now.
Well, there's so much more to say. But when you think about
Jesus after the resurrection, that's the best picture of what
we'll be like. A body fit for the full life of God to indwell
and express itself forever...a body that can eat but doesn't need
to...a body that can fly through space and go through walls...a
body with no time limitation, no age...a body exalted to all that
God has in mind in the creation potential...a body that is
ultimately satisfied, knows no pain, no tears, no sorrow, no
sickness, no death...a body of splendor...a body described as
dazzling white, transparent dew...a body that shines like the
moon and the stars, according to Daniel 12, the promise to the
Old Testament saints in their resurrection...a body that's as
bright as the brightness of the noon day sun...a body that shines
like the sun and its strength. What an incredible thing to think
about...what an incredible thing.
I want you to listen in closing...I'm going to close in
about two minutes. What does all this say to you? Let me tell
you what it says to me. It says that our longing for heaven
should be intense...it should be intense. Let me put it really
practically for you. If you find your joy and your comfort in
this life, if you find your delights in this life so that heaven
does not appeal to you, that is irrational...that is irrational.
Let me tell you why. First of all you're idolizing a passing
sin-filled decaying world. Secondly, you're contradicting the
goal of God. The goal of God is to make you like Christ and
that's where you're going to have to go to get made that way. So
if you are longing to hold on to this world and you're hankering
to stay here and you don't want to go and this is where you seek
your comfort and this is where you stack your treasure, you are
irrational as well as sinful...and so am I if I think like that.
Because we're idolizing a decaying godless Christ-rejecting
passing world. We are contradicting the goal of God.
Furthermore we are seeking what we will never find and then,
therefore, we are aggravating our misery. Because we will never
be satisfied. How much better to long for heaven.
Let me put it another way. If you're afraid to die, that's
disloyalty to God. If you're afraid to die, you're depreciating
heaven. If you're afraid to die, that's a coldness of love
toward Him. If you're afraid to die, you have little weariness
over your sin. If you're afraid to die, you are insensitive to
the worthlessness of earth's vanities.
Now let me say this. It's reasonable to be afraid of pain.
It's reasonable to be afraid to suffer. I think God has built
into us those mechanisms. It is unreasonable, irrational and
even sinful to fear the result of death. None of us is anxious
about death itself. I'm not volunteering to suffer death. But
at the same time I am longing for what death brings. And if I do
not wish to die, that's disloyalty to God. That's depreciation
of His heaven. That's coldness of love for Him...I'd rather be
here than with Him. That shows little weariness over sin.
That's insensitivity to the worthlessness of earth's vanities.
We should groan for heaven like freedom is groan for by a
prisoner...like health is groaned for by a sick man...like food
is longed for by one who is hungry...water for one who is
thirsty. We should long for heaven like the farmer does for
harvest, like the worker does for payday, like the runner does
for winning. And if we don't, something is wrong. If we're not
saying with John, "Even so, Come Lord Jesus," something's wrong
when we think about what God has for us.
If you're not a Christian, don't pity Christians. Don't
pity us. I know some people think that we have kind of a boring
life and all of our fun has been spoiled because we've turned our
back on the stuff of the world. But I want you to know, folks,
don't pity us, pity yourself. We have enjoyed the best of life
in the joy of the Lord and we're going to spend eternity with the
glories of His promise while those who stand back and pity the
party that Christians are missing are going to spend eternity
without God in the torment of hell.
All that is glorious, all that is noble, all that is blessed
and all that is thrilling awaits us in heaven. I hope you're
going to be there. And I hope if you're headed for heaven, you
have a longing in your heart for that reunion with Christ. Let's
pray together.
Father, thank You for our time tonight. What a great time
in Your Word and how excited we are about what You have planned
for us. And though eye has not seen and ear has not heard and it
hasn't entered into the heart of man the things You've prepared
for us, we could never comprehend it. Just this tiny glimpse is
enough to fill our hearts with joy. I pray for every soul here
to be prepared for the inevitable day of death, that in that day
they may enter the heaven of heavens and not experience the wrath
of God, that they may know joy forever and ever and not the
weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
And, Father, for those of us who are headed for heaven, fill
us with anticipation. Help us to hold lightly to the world and
to long to be with You. Help us to be weary over sin, to see the
worthlessness of this world...to invest all we have in longing
for heaven. Help us, as Paul said to the Colossians, to set our
affections on things above and not on things on the earth. Help
us to long for that day when we will exchange these vile bodies,
as Paul said to the Philippians, for the glorious body that is
like the body of Jesus Christ, that perfection of body and soul
which awaits us who are citizens of heaven. Help us to long for
that transformation.
We thank You for this wonderful hope that is planted in our
hearts because You have told us enough about heaven to give us
such a longing. We thank You for Your grace, for what You give
us in this life and what You've prepared for us in the life to
come. Amen.
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