As Christians, we have a tremendous hope: the hope of Heaven! But Satan has done a good job of diluting that hope by filling our minds with myths. Here’s one of the top myths people believe about Heaven:
Myth: We will live forever as disembodied spirits.
Wrong, wrong, wrong. In Heaven, we will have resurrected bodies. Bodies that are as physical as the bodies we have right now. Bodies that are forever free from disease and weakness and pain.
The problem is, that’s where we usually stop. “Sure, I’m going to have a body free from injury and illness and aging and death. Good. That’s nice. What’s for dinner?”
Have you thought about what you will be able to do when you have a resurrected body? This is where the real hope comes in! Hope is not just the absence of illness and death, but the presence of fullness and life!
Today, our bodies can run and jump, play piano, throw a football, or scuba dive along coral reefs. But our new, resurrected bodies will be different in some ways – better than what we can know now.
Will I be able to dive among tropical fish without snorkel or scuba gear?
Will I be able to run straight up a mountainside?
Will I be able to see farther than today’s telescopes, and in more detail than today’s microscopes?
Will I be able to fly?
Will I have new senses in addition to the five I now have to experience the world in even greater glory?
Let your imagination run wild – I guarantee it, our new bodies will be better than anything you’ve ever imagined!
Do you think I’m exaggerating? I’m not! Listen to these words from I Corinthians 15 from the translation The Message:
‘Some skeptic is sure to ask, “Show me how resurrection works. Give me a diagram; draw me a picture. What does this ‘resurrection body’ look like?” If you look at this question closely, you realize how absurd it is. There are no diagrams for this kind of thing. We do have a parallel experience in gardening. You plant a “dead” seed; soon there is a flourishing plant. There is no visual likeness between seed and plant. You could never guess what a tomato would look like by looking at a tomato seed. What we plant in the soil and what grows out of it don’t look anything alike. The dead body that we bury in the ground and the resurrection body that comes from it will be dramatically different.
‘This image of planting a dead seed and raising a live plant is a mere sketch at best, but perhaps it will help in approaching the mystery of the resurrection body—but only if you keep in mind that when we’re raised, we’re raised for good, alive forever! The corpse that’s planted is no beauty, but when it’s raised, it’s glorious. Put in the ground weak, it comes up powerful. The seed sown is natural; the seed grown is supernatural—same seed, same body, but what a difference from when it goes down in physical mortality to when it is raised up in spiritual immortality!’
As amazing and different and beautiful as a seed is from the fully-grown fruit or vegetable or tree, that is what we will experience when we exchange our current body for our resurrected body! Now, that whets my appetite and gives me hope!
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