244. A Glorious Body
Philippians 3:21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
God makes a promise for our lowly body: it will be changed. This is the promise of the resurrection of the body. The change our bodies will undergo is really very remarkable. When the soul leaves the body the body corrupts, decays and disintegrates whether buried or cremated. Then the body, apparently the dust and ashes that are left of it, will be changed into a glorious body. The new body grows out of the old oneas a tree grows out of a seed. It has the same DNA but it looks very much different.
It seems that each glorious body will be recognizable but so much transformed that it will appear so different. We cannot imagine a body that never dies, never gets sick, never gets weak, never is injured, and never gets old. We also cannot imagine a body that is wonderfully beautiful and perfect, reflecting the light of glory.
The changed body will be like Jesus’ glorious body. We get some small glimpse into the “spiritual body” when we look at the resurrected Jesus. His body appeared and disappeared and yet it was physical so that He could eat food, and the eating seems to be for enjoyment and not for nourishment. The same almighty power that subdues everything is the power that changes each body. We can imagine and we can dream what the change will be like, but it will certainly exceed our imagination.
This is the promise: your body will change from vile to glorious, from ugly to beautiful, from temporal to eternal, from weak to strong, The perishable body will be raised imperishable; the mortal shall put on immortality, and we will be ichanged.
Not only will the body change, but also the environment will change accordingly to accommodate such a glorious body. There will be a new heaven and new earth and all creation yearns for the redemption of the humans so that then the environment will also be “resurrected,” or recreated. And so do we long for the “change.”