As believers, we look forward to the fulfillment of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. One day we will be with Him, not only in our soul and spirit, but also living in our new resurrected bodies. We believe that our full salvation will culminate when we are in His presence fully dressed in our new body and renewed soul & spirit. Oh, what a time that will be, living with Him without the presence and practice of our old sin nature.
In the same way that Adam woke up one day after the eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil with a “different way of thinking”. We also will wake up in our new bodies to discover things have changed in our thinking and behavior. There will be one very noticeable difference. We will be free of the nagging sense of pride and selfishness. At the same time, we will be quite surprising how similar our thinking will be when we inhabited our mortal bodies.
We have only one example of a person that was in their old body then after their death was resurrected in their new immortal body, and that is Jesus Christ. We get a sense of the physical characteristics of the resurrected body, but not of the thinking process that took place. In both bodily states of Jesus Christ, he was without sin or sin nature. We know the verses that discuss the absence of a sin nature of Jesus:
2 Cor 5:21 - For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.
Heb 2:17 Therefore, in all things He had to be made like His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
Heb 2:18 For in that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to aid those who are tempted.
Heb 4:15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin.
Some believers might think that when we are resurrected our thinking will be entirely different than what it is now. We might picture ourselves perpetually worshiping and singing and laughing without any cares “in the world”. To some degree that will be true, but the full reason for Jesus Christ is giving us resurrected bodies will be so we can fully fellowship with Him in the same bodily form that He is right now. That fellowship will be enabled with each of us personally. The individual personal relationship is the fellowship Jesus has with us now and is looking forward to having it throughout eternity.
We read in Job 19 (25-27) that Job was eagerly looking forward to a time when he would be able to see his Redeemer with his own eyes in his flesh. What an insight God had given Job about the resurrection of our bodies. We will have a body that is incorruptible, one that doesn’t die or feel the pains we now experience in our flesh (1 Cor. 15-42-44). All of what makes us who we are is wrapped up in our soul and our spirit. Our resurrected bodies will contain both our soul and spirit with the removal of the sin nature. In a sense, we will be like the “first Adam” without a sin nature, yet with the memories of our old life fully intact.
In the next parts, we will be discussing the different aspects of our thinking that will be part of our resurrection and ruling and reigning with Jesus Christ during the millennium kingdom.
Daniel
June 22, 2015
Millennium Kingdom