What Kind of Bodies Will We Possess in Heaven

Pastor Mike will be speaking on What Kind of Bodies Will We Possess in Heaven. He will be reading out of 1 Corinthians 15: 42-53.

Some of you have spouses, some of you have parents, and you have family members that are so dear to you, siblings that have been close friends to you, and you will know them as they are known, but here’s the beautiful thing, they will have a glorified body. It’s time for Hope Worth Having radio program. My name is Mike Sanders, senior pastor of the Open Door Church, and we’re excited that you could join us.

Today we are going back to a study on heaven, and so the question before us is, what kind of bodies will we possess in heaven? We’re gonna be in 1st Corinthians 15 verse 42 through 53, and what will our bodies be like? That’s a great question, so let’s get into the Word of God and find out. Let’s take our Bibles this morning and let’s go to 1st Corinthians chapter 15. 1st Corinthians chapter 15 verse 42 through 53 will be our text.

As you’re turning there, I remind you that we’ve been in this series of five questions about heaven and five questions about hell, and this is the last question on heaven. We are addressing it today, and that is simply the question, what kind of bodies will we possess when we are in heaven? What kind of bodies will we possess? Now, when we come to 1st Corinthians chapter 15, we are reminded that the purpose of this chapter is the apostle wants to answer questions that the leadership of the church has sent to him about specifically the resurrection. Now, unfortunately, there were some in the church at Corinth who did not even believe in any kind of a resurrection, and then there were those that only believed in a spiritual resurrection but not a bodily resurrection.

So it is with those questions and thoughts and understanding that the apostle writes 1st Corinthians chapter 15 under the inspiration of the Spirit of God. Now, sometimes when we think about bodily resurrection, it’s hard for us to conceive it. It’s hard for us to fully understand it.

We taught you many weeks ago that when our loved ones leave this world and they are promoted to heaven, their soul and spirit goes to be with God. The Bible tells us to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. We have the misconception that sometimes the body, soul, and spirit immediately goes to be with God, but that’s not true.

Just the soul and spirit. There will be a resurrection. Jesus taught us that he would raise us up in the last day.

The apostle Paul said, the dead in Christ shall rise. There is coming a time when the soul and the spirit and the body will be reunited in a resurrection, and then there will be that body, soul, and spirit living with God throughout all of eternity. Yet some are of the persuasion that there will never be a uniting of their soul and their spirit, and that their body will always remain in the ground, and it will never be resurrected.

But I want you to know that the teaching of the resurrection of the body of the believer in Jesus Christ is a foundational teaching in Christianity. It is central to the Christian’s blessed hope. We believe without a doubt that not only did Jesus Christ rise from the tomb, that Jesus Christ bodily was resurrected, but we also believe that we, as followers of Christ, will one day experience the same resurrection, which takes me to my first point that I want us to learn as we try to understand what kind of bodies will we possess, and that is that Jesus’ resurrected body is the pattern or the model for our resurrected body.

Now, let’s pick up in verse 42, and let’s begin to read together in this passage. The Bible says, So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption.

It is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor. 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. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body, and so it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam, which is referring to Christ, became a life-giving spirit.

However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural, and afterward, the spiritual. The first man was on the earth made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven.

And was the man of dust, so also are those who are made of dust. And as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are heavenly. Verse 49, And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man.

Now, this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does corruption inherit incorruption. Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.

In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. Now, I want you to go back to verse 49 again, and I want you to see this emphasis that the apostle makes as he says to us, and as we have borne the image of the man of dust, which is Adam, and he says, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man, which is Jesus Christ. In essence, what the apostle was teaching us, that our resurrected bodies will reflect the resurrected body of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

We jump back to verse 23 of chapter 15. Just back up for me, if you will. As the apostle was teaching about the resurrection, he is teaching the order in which the resurrection will take place, in that there are many different resurrections in the scripture.

We’ve taught you that before, and we went through those different resurrections. But here, the apostle reminds us of that order, verse 23, but each one in his own order, Christ, the firstfruits. Afterward, those who are Christ at his coming, then comes the end when he delivers the kingdom of God, the Father, when he puts an end to all rule and all authority and power, for he must reign till he has put all enemies under his feet.

Go back to verse 23, that phrase, Christ, the firstfruits. What is he talking about, the firstfruits? The farmers in the Middle East, when they would see the firstfruits of their crop, they would understand, not that it was the first resurrection in order relating to, I ran the race and I was first, but rather the first in quality. He was talking about, this will be the kind of resurrection that you will have.

You will have the same resurrection that Christ has had. We know that Jesus was not the first to be resurrected. If we’re students of the Bible, we know that Lazarus himself, in John chapter 11, was resurrected before Jesus Christ.

We go back to the Old Testament and we’re reminded that Elijah the prophet laid over a child and that child was resurrected from death. So we’re not talking about first in the sense of, I ran the race and I was first, but we’re talking about the firstfruits, the first kind of resurrection. What’s the distinction between the resurrection of Christ and all resurrections that had preceded the resurrection of Christ? It is simply this, that the resurrection of Christ was a resurrection unto life.

And all other resurrections before that were resurrections unto death. Meaning, yes, Lazarus was resurrected, but Lazarus had to die again. But when Christ was resurrected, he was resurrected forever and he is alive forevermore.

And what the apostle is saying is that your resurrection is going to be like the resurrection of Christ. And that in this understanding that it is the firstfruits, that is that all resurrections that come after the resurrection of Christ are resurrections unto life. So Jesus’s resurrection, as well as his body that was resurrected, is a pattern for us.

And again, verse 49 certainly teaches us that as we have learned. So the body is destined to perish, but the Bible tells us it will be made like the body of our Lord. You say, what do you mean? Well, again, Philippians 3.21, the Bible says, who will transform our lowly body.

Let me just stop there. That our body that is limited a body that you now live in that is selfish and sinful, a body that is subject to disease and viruses, a body that is not immortal or incorruptible, but a body as much as you dislike it, it is dying every day. And I know that many of you are doing everything you can to keep your body new and to somehow find the fountain of youth.

But friends, time will catch up with you as it has everybody. And so when the apostle says in Philippians 3.21, who will transform our lowly body, we understand that, that it may be conformed to his glorious body that is the body of Jesus according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things to himself. When the Bible says he is able to subdue all things to himself, it is talking about the authority of Christ, and it is talking about the power of Christ, meaning that God not only has the authority to raise your body, your lowly body, and to transform it into a new body, he has the power to do that.

And you say, I don’t know, Mike, I don’t know if I can embrace that. I don’t know if I can believe that. Are you telling me the God of this universe who created the heavens and the earth, and he from the dust of the earth created Adam and Eve, you’re telling me that he cannot raise our bodies into a new resurrected body? Oh, friends, I’m here to tell you that God is able, and he can do great and mighty things.

You and I will one day be changed perfectly. Our loved ones who love Jesus Christ, and their soul and spirit is even now in the presence of God, enjoying all the blessings that come with that, one day they will be changed perfectly. Their bodies will.

When this change comes, God will remake us into the image of our glorified savior, Jesus Christ. Hang on to this verse. First John 3, two says, beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.

We know that when he appears, we will be like him, because we will see him just as he is. So much to unpack in just this verse. Don’t have enough time, but let me just give you a few things to remind you.

It has not appeared as yet what we will be. Now, friends, there’s a lot of speculation. What will my resurrected body be like? I’ll be sharing a few of those things here in just a second, but I want you to understand, we gotta be careful about being dogmatic.

Draw the line where the Bible does, but don’t draw the line where the Bible doesn’t. I got people running around there saying, hey, we’re gonna be 33 and a half. Well, I’d love to lose 21 years, that’d be wonderful, but there’s nothing in the Bible that says that.

The Bible actually says that you’ll be known as you are known. And so that’s quite a quandary. That’s quite a conflict.

What the Bible says, look again at this verse, it should be up on the screen, that we will be like him. Now, it is not saying that you’ll be the same age as Jesus when he died on the cross, or when he was resurrected and ascended into heaven, but what it is saying in qualitative state of having a glorified body, you will have the very same glorified body as Jesus Christ. So be careful.

Again, I’ve done a lot of reading, a lot of researching, and everybody’s always saying, hey, we can’t be dogmatic about some of these things. And so some of you have children in heaven, and you wonder about your children. You wonder what will they be like? I believe this, they will be known as they are known.

And some of you say, well, will I be able to hold my baby again? I am convinced that you will. Now, I’m not gonna be dogmatic about it, but I am gonna say that I believe that one day in this great reunion, some of you have spouses, some of you have parents, and you have family members that are so dear to you, siblings that have been close friends to you, and you will know them as they are known, but here’s the beautiful thing. They will have a glorified body, a body that will not be subject to disease.

It will not be subject to all the problems of this world. It’ll be a body that’ll be glorious, and it’ll be just like our Savior. Christ is the model for what will happen for all who are found and believe in Jesus Christ.

So we know that the Lord’s glorified body was these things. And again, I encourage you to write this down. If you can’t write as fast as I can talk, I understand, but it is on the church app.

All my notes are in there, and they are available to you, and you can follow along on this in the church app. But here’s the point. First of all, I want you to see that the glorious body that Jesus had was a body that was not bound by time or space.

It is not bound by time or space. The things that I’m gonna say to you about the glorious body of Jesus are backed up by Bible verses. They’re not speculative.

They’re not just Mike shooting from the hip. They’re coming right out of the Bible. They’re coming right out of the word of God.

The second thing that we learn about the body of our Savior after his resurrection, that it was a body that can enjoy food and fellowship. That’s right. That even in the Gospels, we see that in Jesus’s resurrected body, he ate food.

He fellowshiped with others. He was recognizable. He was knowable.

He interact with living people. And I am convinced, friend, that we will enjoy food. People say, why does God have us eat? Because he wants us to enjoy food.

Now, some have enjoyed food more than others, amen? And maybe some need to push away from the table and need to maybe not eat and enjoy so much. But here’s what I want you to understand is that when you get to heaven, why, there’ll be no calories. Oh, I’m just kidding.

There’ll be the wonderful opportunity that Jesus talked about to his disciples before he was crucified and resurrected. He sat there and participated in the Passover and he transitioned it from the Old Testament to the New Covenant in Christ. And it was known as the Lord’s Supper or communion.

And he said, this will be the last time on this earth that we will partake of this together until we meet again in heaven. Friends, you and I are gonna gather around the great table at the marriage supper of the Lamb and we will have a great feast and we will enjoy. People say, what are we gonna eat up there? Well, if you ask Dr. Dino Padrone, we’re having spaghetti.

Amen? If you ask our brother up in Syracuse, Conroy Lewis, who I just saw the other day, he would say, we’re having chicken up in heaven, pastor. Friends, I don’t know what we’re gonna have up in heaven, but I tell you this, it’ll be some of the best eating you’ve ever had. You say, could it be better than my mother’s cooking? Oh yeah, it’s gonna be glorious because your mother’s cooking is the reason you have that big belly.

Okay? I’m teasing you. All right, so it’s a body not bound by time or space. It’s a body that can enjoy food and fellowship.

It is a body that can never die. Now friends, this is the hard thing for us. Our bodies are going to die.

As a matter of fact, when we go back to our text, we are reminded that in verse 50 of chapter 15, now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. This body that you have right now, it’s not fit for heaven. How about that? And the reason it’s not fit for heaven is because it is a mortal body.

It is a corruptible body. It is a body that is not designed for eternity. And that’s why you have to lay down this body.

All of us are going to have to lay down this body. Now we put so much emphasis on the body that it’s very difficult for us emotionally to lay down this body. But friends, one day you are going to come to that moment where you lay down this body.

It’s not that it’s the end of you because your soul and spirit lives forever. To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Can God’s people say amen? But friends, one day God’s going to raise your body.

He’s going to remake it into an immortal, incorruptible body. Look again at verse 51. Behold, I tell you a mystery.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible. And we shall be what church? For this corruptible must put on incorruption and this mortal must put on immortality.

That is what is waiting for us. That’s the body that Jesus had after his resurrection. Number four, I want you to learn that it is a body that shines with a heavenly brilliance.

It’s a body that shines with a heavenly brilliance because it is a glorified body. It is a body that brings the utmost glory to God. There is a brilliance to this body.

And again, we provide these scriptures for you. I hope they’re up there on the PowerPoint or in the app and you can research this and you can study this and see if the things that the pastor says is true. And I think you will find them to be.

But just in that understanding of the body, this is enough to let me know that I want one of those bodies someday, man. I want that body. Now, the first thing that we learn together is that our resurrected body is gonna be like Jesus’s resurrected body.

He is our pattern. He is our model. But number two, the resurrected body of believers is a literal body.

It’s not just a body that is spiritual. People say, well, we believe in the resurrection, pastor, but we don’t believe it’s a physical resurrection. We just believe it’s a spiritual resurrection.

I wanna help you with that a little bit. First of all, I remind you in the Gospel of Luke chapter 24, verse 39. Again, Jesus said in his resurrected body, behold, my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.

Handle me and see me, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have. If we’ve already concluded that our body is gonna be like Christ’s resurrected body, then Christ’s resurrected body was one in which he not only told him to see it, but he told him to handle it or touch it. He told him that it was a physical body.

It was a body of flesh and bones. It was a body that had the flesh, a glorified flesh, and a glorified structure of the bones. It was a literal body because the spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have.

All saints will be reconstructed. We go back to verse 50, and again, I’m gonna read a few verses here just to help us out a little bit. Behold, I tell you a mystery.

We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed, for this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible has put on incorruption and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. How beautiful.

Now, what does this mean? What does this mean that God is saying that we’re gonna have a literal body? Friends, I want you to understand that he’s helping us, and you go back to 1 Corinthians 15, and you go back and he talks about verse 44, that it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. What does this mean, pastor? What does this mean? What does this mean? He’s talking again, and I’ll bring more light to this, but again, he’s not talking about that it’s just gonna be a spirit, but it’s gonna be spiritual in that the Spirit of God is going to raise this body just like the Spirit of God raised our Savior, but it’s a body that is not like the body you have in this sense. It cannot experience death.

It cannot experience decay. It cannot experience disease. Some of you say, man, I can’t see as good as I used to.

Why would Glenn get up here and say, man, I love these new pew Bibles? I never had anybody say that before. Well, that’s because when he gets up here, he can’t see, and he has to keep getting closer and closer and closer, and some of you are doing that even at your home. You’re getting closer and closer, so we got larger print.

Now, why did we get larger print? Because the pastor one day picked up one of these Bibles and said, man, I can’t read it. I can’t see, and I put the edict out there. Order some new pew Bibles and make sure that they’re larger font so we can read because us old people.

Well, not quite. I still have a year according to Jerry. I’m 54.

He only takes old people that are 55 and up, but he’s gonna make an exception for me. How about that? I can’t see that well, but he told me to drive the bus. We’re gonna have good times.

Listen, your body is decaying, and we are experiencing things. People say, why is there disease in this world? Why is there cancer? Why does this thing happen to this person or that person? Friends, I’m just here to tell you it’s not that they did anything wrong or that they did anything right. Maybe they shouldn’t have drank as much Mountain Dew as maybe the other person didn’t.

I don’t know, but all I am saying is this, that these bodies don’t live forever, and they get diseased. And some of you, you woke up this morning and your ankle hurts, and some of you, your hip hurts, and some of you, your shoulder hurts, and some of you, you’re still trying to find what you lost. You’re still looking for it because you got one of those extra parts, and so you went out there and you said, give me that, where is that thing at? But anyways, our bodies don’t last forever.

That’s what Paul means. All that’s going away. That’s going away.

The third thing I want you to learn this morning is that the resurrection body is a glorified body of flesh. It’s a glorified body of flesh. Again, let’s go back to, I wanted to read verse 44.

I was kind of getting a little bit ahead of myself, but here’s what I want you to see. It is sown a natural body. It is raised a spiritual body.

There is a natural body and there is a spiritual body, and so it is written, the first man, Adam, became a living being. The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. To have a spiritual body is not to have a body that’s made out of spiritual stuff, but it is a body that God gives to us that is controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit.

The idea behind the word spiritual in the Greek is one of control or one of guidance, not substance. Please understand that. I think Romans 8-11 helps us to see that.

Look, Romans 8-11, but if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, remember, who is it that raised Jesus from the dead? The spirit of the father who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Now, look back at verse 37 of chapter 15. Look back there.

Go ahead and join me. Look back at verse 37 and 38, and here, notice what it says. And what you sow, you do not sow that body that it shall be, but mere grain, perhaps wheat or some other grain.

But God gives it a body as he pleases and to each seed its own body. It’s quite amazing when you think about the resurrected body. We talked about it being eternal, immortal, but incorruptible, a body that does not decay.

How wonderful is that? You’re not gonna wake up with arthritis. You’re not gonna wake up with pains. You are going to enjoy the blessedness of a brand new, immortal, incorruptible body.

The apostle describes that in 1 Corinthians 15. We encourage you to go even further in our study and go deeper and just contemplate and think about what it means to possess a new body in heaven. It’s gonna be glorious.

We hope today that you will continue to go to our website and sign up for our newsletter. HopeWorthHaving.com is where you can sign up for the newsletter and you can find out what things are going on, what events, activities, and ministries are going on at the Hope Worth Having ministry, so take advantage of that. And we look forward to hearing from you.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.