What a glorious day that will be! Our bodies absolutely perfect. Think about that. Perfect! In 1 Corinthians 15:1–58, Paul says four things about our new bodies. He said they will be recognizable; they will be resurrected; they will be the same and yet different; they will be designed for immortality. These four things will happen. First, here, we suffer corruption in the form of pain, disease, handicaps, old age, and ultimately death and decay. But there, our bodies will be delivered. There will be no more arthritis, no more broken bones, no more gunshot wounds, no more improvised explosive devices, no more knee replacements, no more cancer. Paul says our bodies will be like Christ. Because they will be raised in glory.

Secondly, he says, our bodies which are sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption. Here we decay. Here we sometimes have to drag ourselves out of bed. We feel weakness, but there never. No one will have to push us around in a wheelchair. We will spread our wings and soar as eagles in all that we do. And here, says Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:43, our bodies are sown in dishonour, there raised in glory. Here it is a wasted shell when it gets buried. There is nothing like looking at a dead body. Empty clay. Evidence of the wages of sin. But one day, Paul says, our bodies will be awesome and radiant and beautiful and marvellous. The righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of heaven. But finally, Paul says, our bodies are sown a natural body, but they will be raised a spiritual body. That word spiritual there, in the Greek, means, dominated by the Holy Spirit. Our entire body will be entirely consistent with the mind of the Holy Spirit. Our flesh will never work against our spirit again. Our Saviour will look at us and say, I see everything in you that I desire. Everything I want. We will look at him and we will say, “You are perfect Jesus. I would not change a thing if I could. And he looks at us and says in that day, You are perfect my child in me. I would not change a thing about you if I could. You are now perfectly lovable. Perfect in your soul. Perfect in your body.

And how can he say that to us? Well, it is because it is himself he sees in us. It is himself he loves in us. It is his own grace, his own perfections, his own beauty that he admires in us. We shall be like him. He loves his own perfections in us. No more war with God. No more war with our soul. No more war with our body. And finally, no more war with fellow believers.¹

Joel Beeke