What will resurrected body look like?

Hey, thanks again for sending in your questions related to our recent sermons. As you know, this last Sunday was Easter when we talked about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. During the course of that sermon, we also talked about that we as Jesus followers will also one day resurrect with new bodies and live in a tangible physical Earth, a new Earth with Him forever. So the question comes in very logical, natural question to ask. I think one that many of us have is what kind of body will we have as Jesus followers in eternity?

How old will I be? Maybe? Will I still have my gray hair? We all want to know that, right? Is it the peak of my physical fitness?

Is it when I was a little kid? Is it when I’m older? What will my body look like when it is resurrected? And so I think we’ll answer this a couple of different ways. The real answer is we’re not entirely sure, but and so now let’s fill in the rest of that sentence.

First, I would point you to one Corinthians 15 where Paul kind of rhetorically asks this exact question, I think it’s round verse 35, but he says, what kind of body will I have? He asked the exact question what will a resurrection body look like? And then he goes into this metaphor of when you plant a seed, the seed must die in order for the new plant to grow. The seed must die in order for the plant to grow. What is imperishable must or what is perishable must die so the imperishable can come to life.

And so he just gives us this metaphor which isn’t very specifically helpful, right? It’s like, so my body is the seed, but now the new body, the plant doesn’t look anything like the seed. So am I not going to look anything like the way that I look right now? And that’s the only metaphor he gives, right? And so we might think, well, we won’t look anything like humans do currently.

But I don’t think that’s entirely true because we see Jesus in his resurrected body. He appears to his disciples numerous times in the gospels after his resurrection and they recognize Him other than on the road to Emaus, when he is specifically clouding who he is from them. The other times when he appears, they know who he is instantly, right? He appears to Peter. Peter gets all excited, jumps out to see Jesus.

They can instantly recognize who he is. So in our resurrected bodies, I believe that we will be instantly recognizable. We will instantly recognize everyone else. Other evidence of that is mount of transfiguration. Matthew 17.

When Jesus takes Peter, James and John up the mount of transfiguration, they see Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration who lived long before they did. How did they know that it was Moses and Elijah? Now, those aren’t exactly glorified bodies because the resurrection hasn’t happened yet. But I think that’s a similar concept. If they immediately recognized them, I don’t think they were wearing name tags.

I don’t think Jesus was like, by the way, this is Moses and Elijah. I think they just knew this is who these people are. Same thing at the end of Matthew when it says the bodies of Old Testament saints came out of their tombs. It seems that people knew these were Old Testament saints or saints who had died long ago. They somehow knew.

It was clear to them who these people were. And maybe that’s because of one corinthians 13 when it says, when we see God face to face, we will know now we know in part, then we shall know fully. What is it that we shall know fully? Will we just know God’s love fully? Will we know everything?

Will we know the whole system of physics of the universe? I’m not sure, but I think perhaps at least what we will know is who one another are. And so by putting together Jesus resurrected body was recognizable as Him, Moses and Elijah, these saints that come out of their tombs at the end of Matthew, and that we will know fully. I think what we can assume is in our resurrected bodies, the seed will look enough like the plant that we will know one another, and God will give us the knowledge of one another. We shall know fully, and we shall live forever with Him in an imperishable, physical, tangible body.

I don’t know what age will be. I don’t know what we will weigh. I don’t know what color our hair will be. But we will know that it’s us, and other people will know that it’s us, and we will know who other people are. So I hope that’s helpful.

Thanks for sending in the question, and we will see you next time.