Heaven- Forever Changed Series

HoHum:

School House rock- I’m a machine, you’re a machine, Everybody that you know, they are machines. To keep your engine running you need energy, for your high powered, revved up body machine, your high powered, revved up body machine; Machines, what a description?

WBTU:

“In a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” 1 Corinthians 15:52, NIV.

Thesis: What will change? How will we be changed?

For instances:

A. What has been will be gloriously changed

The curse will be removed (Rev. 22:3) and with it, all will be made new (Rev. 21:5). Richard Baxter said that, come heaven, we will have “changed our place and state, our clothes and thoughts, our look, language, and company.”

We will have resurrected bodies and minds- enhanced, improved and thoroughly healed (Isaiah 35:5). “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” Isaiah 35:5, 6. What every doctor dreams of! It will be a spiritual body. Not just spirit, like wispy clouds or ghostly apparitions, but spiritual, immortal, eternal- just like our souls. “it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” 1 Corinthians 15:44. “Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.” 2 Corinthians 5:1. What will that glorious body be like? We can have some idea by studying our earthly form. “Somewhere in my broken, paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become,” Joni Eareckson Tada has written.

Jill Briscoe admits: “Some of us that have struggled with accepting our bodies we have been given for earth may not be terrible enthralled with the idea of another one quite like it for eternity!” But she reminds us that Paul pictured our heavenly and earthly forms as different as a blossom to the bulb. Jill Briscoe goes on, “Think of a daffodil bulb, then think of the flower. Could there be any comparison between them? Yet both are unmistakably daffodil in nature.” Both are suited for their environment, she continues: “One belongs to the earth... But the flower of the bulb dances in the fresh air and sunlight above the ground.”

“So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 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. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” 1 Corinthians 15:42-44, NIV.

According to Paul, what was once perishing and perishable, dishonorable, and weak in its physical form becomes indestructible, glorified, and powerful in its spiritual form, suited for life in heaven- 2 Corinthians 5:1-5. Just as we bear the image of the first man, Adam, and his dusty earth form in our humanity, we bear the image of heaven and the “heavenly man,” Jesus, in the afterlife (1 Corinthians 15:47-49)

Our better bodies will have shape and substance yet be able to move about instantly and freely, just like Jesus could after His resurrection. We will not resemble the angels; we will looks like ourselves, but without flaw. This means that those who knew us on earth will recognize us in our eternal form, though we may not look the age at which we died. Especially for those who died very young or very old, we can reasonably expect them to be “resurrected physically mature” based on the fact that Adam and Eve were created as adults in the Garden of Eden.

B. Everything wrong on earth will be made utterly right

One way to think of this is that when we are finally with the Lord in His kingdom, nothing will be broken anymore. Not our bodies or our minds or our hearts. Not our families or our wills. We will have rest from temptation and the accusations of the devil; we will no longer fight the lusts and addictions of the flesh. All fear will be vanquished, all dreams and hopes and godly desire fulfilled. Every thing will be set straight and purified.

With our new bodies and minds will comes wholesome desires-“Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” 1 John 3:2. What we long for and enjoy will be untainted, right, and good. Every thought in heavenly world will be holy and pleasing to God; every deed a tribute to Him. “Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.” Revelation 21:27. We will no longer sin, no longer be sinners, no longer be enslaved by our own sin or that of others. Everything about us- including our ability to love and be loved- will be able to operate at full capacity. This can happen in world where there is no sin.