The Resurrected Body of Believers

Transcript

GRM 1255
01/10/21
The Resurrected Body of Believers
Selected Verses
Gil Rugh


We were talking about the rapture of the church, the future translation of the church from earth to heaven. Including both those who have died as believers as part of the church of Jesus Christ beginning in Acts 2 down to that event we call the rapture, and also the living will undergo a change in a moment of time, an atom of time, to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. I want to talk a little bit about the resurrection bodies that we will have as believers. It's important we keep our focus where the Word of God says it should be so we can enjoy the peace of God, so we can enjoy the confidence and assurance that only He can bring to the lives of His people as we keep our focus on Him and His promises. A lot of turmoil in the world, it seems to get worse, uncertainty, you add to the virus with everything else that is taking place. Where will this all end? Well, we as God's people know where it will all end, not because we are smarter than anybody else but because we have come to know the God who has made Himself known in His Word. And one of the areas of great interest and importance… People sometimes think, here we are talking about something that is not relevant to everything that is going on in the world. But this is what is most relevant, what the God who is sovereign over this world has to say.

What He says about our future is key on shaping how we live day by day. We talked about that rapture of the church, the time when we are called into the presence of the living God and we will stand to be rewarded at the bema seat of Christ. But what will our bodies be like, what does the Scripture say about what we call the glorified body? Let me just make a note, everybody gets a resurrected body, believer and unbeliever alike, it is the destiny of every person from Adam on that this physical body will go on for eternity. We're going to be focusing on the body of those who are believers in the living God, in the salvation He has provided in His Son. But it is important not to forget that everybody will be resurrected from the dead. The Scripture in the Old Testament and the New Testament alike says there are two kinds of resurrection; there is a resurrection to life and there is a resurrection to death; there is a resurrection for believers and there is a resurrection for unbelievers. And we will go on for eternity in these physical bodies, either in the presence of God's glory or separated from that glory in the eternity of hell. But we will all receive resurrected bodies.

We're going to talk about the resurrected body of believers, those who have placed their faith in Christ. We'll start in 1 Corinthians 15 because this is the most important chapter in the Bible as far as bodily resurrection is concerned. Now as we are going to see, it's not the only chapter that talks about resurrection, but this is the fullest discussion of bodily resurrection that we have in one place in all the Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15. He started out by talking about the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ that is focused on His death, burial and resurrection and that's in the opening verses of 1 Corinthians 15. Then as we come down, we're going to pick up with verse 12, “Now if Christ is preached, that He has been resurrected from the dead, how do some among you say that there is no resurrection from the dead?” There you see the infiltration of the church by unbelievers and false teaching begins early. Here you'll note he says, “How do some among you.” He's not talking about pagan unbelievers out there but some among professing believers and some maybe believers who were confused. But nonetheless they are part of the Corinthian church. “How do some among you say there is no resurrection of the dead?” People say we just believe and then when this body dies we go to be with God and that's good for eternity. Paul says that's not so.

Note the next verse, “But if there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is vain, your faith also is vain.” And we have been liars, basic sum of the sense in what he says in verse 15. He says we've gone around preaching Christ has been raised from the dead, and we've been preaching that believers will someday be raised if they have died. Now if that's not true it's all a lie, you'll note the inseparable connection. Verse 13, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, not even Christ has been raised.” We can't say, Christ was an exception, He was raised but the rest of us are not. The resurrection of Christ is inseparably connected to the fact that God has ordained resurrection. And if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ wasn't raised. If Christ wasn't raised, then there is no salvation through faith in Christ. It's all empty, worthless, religious activity. People think, at least it is good to be religious. That doesn't come from the Bible, the Bible never says it is good to be religious, the Bible never says it is good to have religious beliefs. Even Christians today think at least we have a lot in common with people who are religious. We don't have anything in common that really amounts to anything. So here the Corinthian church has to grapple with if Christ hasn't been raised there is no salvation through faith in Christ.

And then he repeats it again, verse 16, “If the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, your faith is worthless; you are still in your sins.” He keeps going around this circle of the resurrection of the dead, and if there is no resurrection of the dead there is no resurrection of Christ; if Christ has not been raised, then believing in Christ is believing in a lie. And there is nothing beneficial about believing in a lie, you are on your way to hell. But there is resurrection and Christ has been raised.

Look at verse 20, “But now Christ has been raised from the dead,” note this, “the first fruits of those who are asleep.” Christ is the first to get a resurrected body. Other people have been resurrected from the dead in the Bible; Lazarus, probably the one we are the most familiar with, was raised from the dead. But he did not get a resurrected body because he was resurrected back to physical life and he would have to die again, experience physical death. So other resurrections that took place were being brought back to physical life but you would have to die again. Christ is the first one to get a resurrected body that would never have to die, that would never die again. So He is the first fruits, drawn from the Old Testament, those first ears of grain brought in and presented to the Lord, which were in anticipation of a coming harvest. So the resurrection of Christ is just a guarantee there is coming a resurrection, the connection in verse 21, “For since by a man came death, by a man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ all will be made alive, but each in his own order.” The fact that we are connected to Adam, the one created at the beginning of Genesis, means we die because Adam sinned and the penalty was death and his body which was made out of the dust would return to the dust. And so true of all his descendants. But when you place your faith in Christ then you have a new life, so He brings life that will bring about resurrection of the dead.

Now we're not going to pursue the different resurrections. If you have the chart on the resurrections? Just as a reminder where we are and what we are talking about, different resurrections at different times. You can see the death of Christ here, He is the first fruits, He is the first one who gets a resurrected body, a body that is now indestructible, can never die, can never perish. And then we have the Church Age and now we have the rapture of the church right here and that is the first fruits, we will be those who are resurrected from the dead. So everyone, and we talked about the rapture of the church, this is where this happens. So “each in his own order,” verse 23 said, there is an order of resurrections. Christ was first, then afterwards the church, Acts 2 down to the rapture. Then we have this seven-year period called the tribulation and then Christ returns to earth. This is the point where Old Testament saints are resurrected, David, Abraham, Adam, all the prophets. They were not resurrected here, that's just for the church, the bride of Christ. But they will get bodies resurrected here, along with anyone who comes to trust Christ during this seven-year period called the tribulation. This together comprises the first resurrection, that's a resurrection to life. Christ leads the way in that.

But there is another resurrection, the second resurrection and that is the resurrection of every unbeliever, that occurs at the end of the thousand-year millennium, the first phase of the eternal kingdom, Christ has been ruling, and all that takes place here. Then there is a resurrection, and Revelation 20 talks about this, the bodies of the dead, wherever those bodies were, are called back and there is a judgment here and people are sentenced to an eternal hell. So everybody gets a resurrected body. Those who get their body resurrected here are those who never entered into the salvation that is found only in the living God and His provision. They will have bodies that are incapable of dying but are capable of intense, eternal suffering for eternity. Believers, wherever they are resurrected, here or here, they are part of that first category of resurrection. The Old Testament and the New Testament talk about the resurrection of life and the resurrection of death. We may pick up a passage out of Daniel 12 that refers to that. Jesus referred to it in John 5, the resurrection to life or the resurrection to death. Revelation makes clear the distinction in the resurrection, particularly chapter 20 with that resurrection, the first resurrection, and then the resurrection for final judgment.

We're going to look at the details of what is involved in getting a glorified body for those who are believers in Jesus Christ. What kind of body will we get, what will it be like? And the best way to find out is to look at the body Jesus had when He was raised from the dead. And we'll look at some passages, we'll probably look through these characteristics, and then we'll look at some passages that make clear we are going to get a body like His body. We'll look at one of them right now, come over to Philippians 3:20, “For our citizenship,” talking about believers in Jesus Christ, “is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” As we talked about, when He descends at the rapture of the church the call is to meet Him in the air. We are looking and waiting for Him. He “will transform the body of our humble state,” this physical body, we'll talk about its characteristics is a moment, “into conformity with the body of His glory.” Note the connection, we read in 1 Corinthians 15 the resurrection of Christ and the resurrection of a believer are inseparably joined, and when we get our resurrected, glorified bodies it will be in conformity to the body He had, “the body of His glory.” That was not the body He had during His 33 years on this earth, but after His crucifixion and resurrection He had a glorified body. Our resurrected body will be brought “into conformity with the body of His glory” note, “by the exertion of the power that He has to subject all things to Himself.” It will take the power of God to bring about that transformation of our bodies, and it will bring it into conformity with the body of His glory. So we want to be sure we have the connection and that's how we will learn a little bit more about our resurrected bodies.

Come back to 1 Corinthians 15, want to walk through some of the contrasts between this physical body and our resurrected body. So we have a slide called “The Believer's Resurrection Body,” it comes from 1 Corinthians 15 beginning at verse 42. But look at the preceding verses and then we will lead into this first point. Verse 35, “Someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?’ ” Some who were probably denying bodily resurrection in the church at Corinth, as we saw in the earlier verse, were saying we'll just try to figure that. Does that make any sense to you? Paul, under the direction of the Spirit, can show his exasperation. “Someone will say, ‘How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?’ You fool!” Let's just get right to the heart of the matter, you are a fool, you are someone who doesn't have knowledge. As I worked through this I'm always reminded, Lord, I don't want to be a fool. A fool is someone who ought to know better because of what God has said. We sometimes think ignorance is an excuse; here under the Spirit of God he calls them ignorant fools, those who don't have any knowledge.

What's wrong with you? “You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body just as He wished.” In other words, just look around you. You put a seed into the ground, it dies, it decays, it disintegrates, but life comes out of it and that flower, we'll use that for the picture, has a beauty and a glory. You don't say that's just like that seed, it is something far more awesome than that seed. So the seed decayed but you got something out of it, that's the picture of the body, it goes into the ground. Paul's body has been in the ground for 2000 years, he is the one who wrote this. What kind of condition is his body in? Do you think that body could amount to anything? If that's the way you think, you are a fool because you haven't taken into consideration what God does with something like that little seed that will disintegrate in the ground. Out of it He brings something far more glorious than you could have imagined. So you can say, that flower is that seed and it was contained in that seed, it came out of that seed, so in a sense it is that seed, but that seed now with a glory that seems almost indescribable.

“God gives it a body,” verse 38, that's the key. Remember we saw in Philippians 3 it's the power of God that is going to bring a transformation to this body. “All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, and another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and another of fish.” Unbelieving world doesn't believe that, they are fools, they think we all evolved, we are all in the same line, just maybe further down the chain. But here we are told we are different in every way, it's a different flesh. This physical body is ordained by God from creation to be eternal. Not just a spirit dwells in this body, this body is eternal, it will endure, everybody born into the human race will endure for eternity, live for eternity in this physical body, their physical body, depending on whom we are describing,. So what he is talking about, it is a different flesh, one is permanent, the other is not. “There are also heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one, and the glory of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.” You understand, I have underlined in my Bible verse 38, “God gives it a body just as He wished.”

And what the unbeliever has to do is figure out everything without acknowledging and recognizing God in a true biblical way. But you bring God into the picture, verse 42, “So also is the resurrection of the dead.” Now note the contrast here, this is the first contrast: it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption; a perishable body, an imperishable body. That's the contrast, one is perishable, one is not perishable; one is corruptible, one is not corruptible. That's one point, we might say minor point. No, it is a major point, this body as it is is put into the ground, it will decay, dust to dust, we're back to the opening chapters of Genesis, the penalty for sin. For those in Adam all experience that, but the resurrection body is raised incorruptible, imperishable, eternal.

Second contrast: it is “sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory.” It's a dead body. We embalm people in our own country, not the only country that has done it or does it. Why? To slow down the process of decay so maybe we can have a funeral. The Egyptians way back when Joseph was there, they embalmed and the thought they were preserving the body for eternity but it didn't work out so well because we now go into those graves and they are not very pretty bodies. Have you ever seen the pictures of one of those embalmed bodies they have? Some of you have been to Egypt and been to the museum there; not very pretty. It is sown in dishonor. Sometimes you watch one of the crime programs on TV and they dig up a body to try to analyze, to solve a crime. I said I wouldn't want to be one of those kinds of doctors, a coroner that's there digging through corrupting flesh and the bugs get in, it's not pretty. You say why would we want to talk about that? Well, it is sown in dishonor, it's a dead body, it's not good for anything anymore, can't use it, we put it in the ground, we get it out of the way. “It is sown in dishonor,” it's over, we weep, we sorrow, and life goes on as we talked about in the book of Ecclesiastes. “It is raised in glory.” Now I want you to note something, we're talking about the same body in these comparisons, we're talking about the believer here. It is sown in corruption, it is raised incorruptible; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. The transition and transformation is beyond maybe what we can fully grasp, we take it by faith.

The third contrast, it is “sown in weakness, it is raised in power.” And it is weakness, if it isn't weak it wouldn't have died, and as we get closer to that realm we realize more the weakness. And it is put in the grave because of the weakness. Sooner or later something overtakes us, might be a disease, might be a heart attack, might be in a car accident. “It is sown in weakness,” it will be put in the grave and being put in the grave is a sign of weakness, right? Something overwhelmed the body, it is doomed to die. “It is raised in power,” God raises the body of a believer, it is a body characterized by power, death can no longer overtake it, disease can no longer overtake it, viruses can no longer impact it, “it is raised in power.”

“It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.” These are the contrasts in verses 42-44. “Sown a natural body,” it's the body I got in the natural process as a descendant of Adam. It came down to me with the characteristics on the left hand side of that slide: corruption, dishonor, weakness, natural body. It's the kind we all got. No matter how we look, the little differences in our appearance, we all have the same kind of body, it is a natural body, we are all the descendants of Adam and Eve.

But on the right side is what the body that God raises will be like, it is the same body, that's crucial, it's the same body. So with that in mind let's just look at some of the characteristics of Jesus' body. We already looked at Philippians, that we'll be raised by the power of God, the body in conformity to the resurrected body of Jesus Christ. So we are going to look at the characteristics of His body and we'll note something about what the body we are going to get is like. That's what God told us.

Number one is the point I've emphasized, it was the same body that was crucified and buried, it was the same body. We could just start out by saying it was the empty tomb, but we'll look at a couple more specific points, but the tomb was empty. So the first point is it was the same body that was crucified and buried, same body. This is crucial, when you disassociate even resurrection from it being that body, that same body, you are off the biblical track. How do we know? Well, with Christ it had the nail prints, it had the wound of the sword in the side, the spear. Come to John 20, here Jesus appears and there may be other parallel passages and others that could collaborate, I've just limited it for time and space to put on the slides here and also for our time together. In John 20 Jesus meets with His disciples. And Thomas… we call him doubting Thomas because Jesus met with some of the disciples and Thomas wasn't there, and the disciples that were there said Jesus was here, but Thomas said, I don't believe it, I won't believe it unless I can actually see the nail prints in His hands from His crucifixion and the wound in His side from the spear, I have to have concrete, irrefutable evidence.

John 20:24, “But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus,” and you have in the margin Didymus means ‘twin.’ He was a twin, so Thomas the twin “was not with them when Jesus came,” he was not at that prayer meeting. The other disciples had been telling him, we've seen the Lord. He said, unless I see the hands, the imprint of the nails, put my finger into that, can touch it, can see it is really a real nail print, see where the wound was, really put my finger there, see it is a real wound, it's the same body we put in the grave. The end of verse 25, __________ I will not believe. Eight days later the disciples are meeting and Jesus meets with them, He comes into the room, we'll talk about that in a little bit. And “He said to Thomas, ‘Reach here with your finger, and see my hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.’ ” Thomas is convinced, makes that great statement, “My Lord and my God,” I believe, I believe. Jesus said, you saw and believed, blessed are those who haven't seen. That's us, we haven't seen the resurrected Christ, we just believe the testimony that is given. He could really put his finger there and there is the wound, there is the hole in the side.

Now just an aside, I don't think that means you are going to get the same ugly body back, it is going to be glorified, remember. But these scars are marks of our redemption so they are permanently there in the resurrected body of Christ as an eternal reminder that we were redeemed by the sacrifice of the One who was the Lamb of God. But it is a testimony that it is the same body put into the grave after being crucified on the cross, that was raised from the dead. It is identifiable as such so there is no doubt about that. And that's why we went to 1 Corinthians 15, connecting the resurrection of Christ with our resurrection, and then other passages that we are looking at. There are other places similar kind of thing, but we'll just take that for now.

The second evidence that it is the same body is that He was recognized after His resurrection from the dead, people recognized Him. Let's go to Luke 24, and we're going to pick up with verse 13. Two disciples are walking along, they are traveling a road and it is identified, and they are talking about Jesus and what has happened. And another man joins them and walks along. What are you talking about? And one of the disciples, verse 18, “named Cleopas, answered and said to him, ‘Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem’ ” and don't know what is going on? They crucified Jesus the Nazarene, He did mighty deeds and we were expecting He would be the Messiah but they crucified Him. But you'll note verse 16, “their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him,” in other words, if God didn't supernaturally blind them from recognizing who Jesus was, they would have known who He was. But their eyes were prevented, it took a special action of God to keep them from recognizing Him. So they go on verse 21 says. We were hoping He was the One going to redeem Israel and now we heard somebody went to the tomb and they said the body is not there. And then some of us went to see the tomb ourselves and the body is not there. And what does He say to them? Sound like Corinthians? “Oh foolish men.” Foolish, what do you mean foolish? We just told you the facts. You are “slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken,” have written.

That's why I say I don't want God to have to say to me you are a foolish man. You know what it ties to, you didn't really know the Scripture and understand it when you should have. Well, Lord, I never took that part of the Scripture to heart, I just never got into it. Foolish man! You are expected to know it. Why do you think God gave it? He explains to them from Moses through the prophets. What would He talk about? What do you think all those sacrifices were about? What do you think Abraham was talking about when he said that God would provide Himself a lamb for sacrifice when he was going to sacrifice Isaac? What do you think Isaiah wrote about when he wrote Isaiah 53? What are you men doing, aren't you studying the Scripture? So He explained to them these things. Then verse 31, “Their eyes were opened and they recognized Him.” They do recognize Him, so that's something to know, when we get to glory we will recognize one another. I realize the improvement is going to be so great that we may have to take a second look. We may say, I didn't recognize you at first, you were so ugly so it's hard to tell if it's you (we probably won't say it that way). But we're all going to be transformed yet we're not going to lose our identity. That's why we're going to sit down and have dinner with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and we'll know who they are. And you will know who your loved ones are, that's why 1 Thessalonians 4, when we talked about the rapture, said we will be caught up to meet our loved ones in the air. We're all going to be in resurrected, glorified bodies but we will know our loved ones. So it will be the same body that is buried.

Now again, people who know little bits of Scripture, they get off and they'll be telling you that's why you should take care of this body, that's why you only want to eat things that are healthy because this body is going to last. It's not going to last as it is, it's probably going to go into the ground and turn to dust if Christ doesn't come. That's not the future, but what God is going to do with this body after it turns to dust, He's going to call it back and with the power that only He has, take this body, bring it into conformity with the body of the glory of Christ. So be careful of people who are selling you something and say that's why we have to take care of this body. That's what they are doing with this planet—it's God's creation, we have to take care of it, going to be the Kingdom. Those are people that are fools, even if they have infiltrated the church, they are fools. I'm not saying don't take care of your body because if you don't eat right and you do dumb things you pay a penalty in this life. But that won't carry over. My dad liked certain treats and he couldn't go to sleep without a cup of highly caffeinated coffee and a doughnut from the stale shelf of the food store. Well, I said to my dad you have to take care of that body. It doesn't matter, he's been in the grave, he was cremated. Doesn't matter what condition his body was in at death. Now maybe it created problems when he was alive, that's a good reason to take care of your body. But God is going to take care of everything I didn't take care of and better, His power will make it new. All right, it's the same body.

Secondly, it's a body that had material substance. We don't want to get confused and off-track here. It's going to be this material, physical body that comes back in a glorified condition. You're still in Luke 24, let's look at what Jesus did with the disciples. There are about a dozen appearances of Christ before His ascension in Acts 1, so that's where you gather these from. I haven't organized them and making a point this was this appearance, that appearance. But there are about a dozen appearances, so it's collecting information from these dozen appearances. What does it tell us about the body He had? Well, it tells us it's the same material body. Look at Luke 24, He ate food, verse 41, while they were amazed, He's meeting with the disciples, the context, you can read it. Look at verse 42, “They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them.” Because do you know what they were thinking? I think He's a spirit, it's not really the body, it's a spirit. It's like sometimes Christians think, you are just going to be a spirit. They said, it wasn't just a spirit, His spirit has appeared. No, give me a piece of broiled fish, and He ate it, that tells you something. I know some of you don't like fish, some of you like fish. That's not the point, the point is He could eat, He could eat fish, He could eat it. So do you know what? When everybody is celebrating in the kingdom and they have the wedding feast of the Lamb and we are there in glorified bodies thinking I wish I could have that, you can, in your glorified body you will be able to eat. That brings some questions to my mind, didn't we have human waste? I don't want to get off-track here, but if you have a perfect body that functions perfectly, it will perfectly absorb everything as it should so you don't have to have waste. I don't know, I don't have to solve God's problems, I just have to believe. Jesus had a body and He could eat, and He ate fish to show it was a physical body.

And that's not all, while we are here in Luke, the second point, it could be handled and felt. Look at verse 39, “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” Angels don't have flesh and bones, they never have, they never will, they were created as spirit beings. We were created as human beings with human flesh, which is different than other flesh from creation. As we saw in 1 Corinthians 15 there are different kinds of flesh. We have flesh and bones. So they could grab onto Him. You see your loved one walking down that street of gold, you can run up and give him a hug, it won't just be a went-right-through-you, like you see in the ghost kinds of things they do, you know, you just move right through them. You won't do that, it has flesh and bones, it can eat. It doesn't say blood, it may be because physical blood sustains this physical body as it is; the life of the flesh is in the blood. It may be because He wanted them to note that the body was tangible. I grab onto my hand, I don't say to someone take hold and feel my blood. (Well, when they take your pulse they might.) But really, you take hold and you feel the flesh and the bones, that's the point, there is substance to it, it's real, it's the body that was buried. There are other examples that would fit, with the nails in the hands and the spear in the side that we looked at in John 20 as well.

The third point, we noted these points as we move along, the third one being it was a body without its previous limitations. And we'll stay in Luke here, we could go to John 20 on some of these things and we may in a moment, but you are here. He appears and disappears in Luke 24:36, “While they were telling these things, He Himself,” Jesus, “stood in their midst.” It doesn't say He came up. He just stood, all of a sudden there He is. Where did He come from, how did He get here? They are telling these things, He Himself is in their midst. Look at verse 15, these disciples are walking along, “Jesus Himself approached and began traveling with them.” Where did He come from? He just appears and disappears.

Come over to John 20, we've been there, but remember the disciples are in what we call the upper room with the door locked because they are afraid of the Jews. They'll be coming for us because we are His disciples. So in John 20 verse 19, “It was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst.” Didn't even say Jesus knocked on the door, didn't say Jesus opened the door, all of a sudden He is just standing there, how are you men. He said, “Peace be with you,” and then He showed them His hands, His side. (This is the account where Thomas was not.) So He was able to move and travel. A glorified body will be without restrictions. Well, how are you going to do that? If you have a physical body of flesh and bones, how am I going to get into that room without opening the door? I could see that if you were a spirit and you just made it through. But if I say, watch this, I'm going to drive my hand through this board, probably not going to go very far. Now some of you may be karate experts, but you don't… you know what I mean. We just don't do that, you can't do that. Sometimes kids are playing and they are not watching and they run into a door and you jokingly say, you have to open that first. But Jesus didn't have to. Maybe part of us administering the kingdom will be dwelling in the New Jerusalem which is prepared as a dwelling place for us, and we will be out administering that magnificent, enlarged earth. How am I going to get there? Jesus, give me a schedule of my events so I can make reservations? Maybe I'll just go, maybe I'll just be out there and be gone. He did that, so certain limitations are removed from this physical body. I don't have answers that He hasn't given, but He says I will be brought into conformity with His body.

Come over to 1 John 3:1, “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are.” Now note this next line, “For this reason the world does not know us, because it does not know Him.” So you see, we are going to be out of sync, out of step. The more the church tries to get in harmony with the world, the more the church gets off-track; we are God's children, we don't fit. We try to be good citizens, we'll be talking about that in Romans 12, but I'm not attached here, this is not my home as it is. Look at verse 2, “Beloved, now we are children of God,” we are children of God now, “it has not appeared” not been manifest yet, “as what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” That's the same thing as we were told in Philippians 3:21, He will transform this body into conformity with the body of His glory. We oftentimes have a hard time, we think Jesus was God as well as man. So here we have a glorious God, but that glory being manifest through His physical body is connected to His physicalness. And we will share that glory, we won't share the deity. He will eternally be God but He will eternally be man. And we will see Him and we will be like Him. That's the transformation, it's a work done by the Spirit of God.

Come over to Ephesians 1, I'm thinking we may do the book of Ephesians, we go to Ephesians a lot. Some of you think we just did Ephesians; it was 1975 the last time I taught the book of Ephesians. I was corresponding with George Stroh who pastors Maranatha Church outside of Phoenix while we were in Colorado here recently. And I told George I may do the book of Ephesians, I haven't done that since 1975. And George sent back and says yes, I know, Linda and I were saved in Ephesians in 1975. Well, that's a good reason to do Ephesians, maybe some more people will get saved in Ephesians. Some of you got saved in Romans, you are still saved, it's just as good as Ephesians.

All right, Ephesians 1, and Paul's infamous long sentence is here, we're going to pick up with verse 18. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling.” Note this, people play down prophecy, prophecy is so important. Paul says I am praying “that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe, in accordance with the working of the strength of His might.” Note the building up of words here and when you do you talk about God's power, God's strength, God's might. “Which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority” and so on. You know what the point is, that same power that worked in Christ and brought about His resurrection is the power that works in us and will bring about the ultimate completeness of our redemption with the transformation of our body. We just can grasp so little of what God has prepared for those who love Him, the magnificence of it all.

How is it going to be done? By God's power. We are muddled around in the affairs of the world and the turmoil and the fears, they press in on us and we begin to think we have to live like the world. I don't. Paul writes here under the direction of the Spirit “that the eyes of our heart may be enlightened,” verse 18, “so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints.” We are heirs and joint heirs with Christ. We act like, what's going to happen to our country, where are we going from here? This is so disturbing, so discouraging. Where is our focus? Any wonder Paul has to rattle the cage, so to speak, of the Corinthians and say, you fool. Jesus has to tell His disciples, foolish men. We don't want to be fools. Paul say I am praying God would open the eyes of your understanding. Do you know how that happens? Into the Word. We have people in the church saying eschatology is not that important. Well, Paul is praying that the eyes of our heart may be opened, enlightened, so that we know what is the hope of His calling. You don't have hope for something you don't have. You are looking for the hope of His calling and the fullness of the realization of that. These days and age we think… That's why we are the pillar and support of the truth, come back to the truth and focus our eyes. Yes, here is what we are looking for. You can't rescue this world. In one sense I can't salvage this physical body, only God can do that. If Christ doesn't come, they'll put it in the grave; it will decay like every other physical body.

But that's not the end of the story. I have the indwelling Spirit who is the seal. While you are here you can look at verse 13, when you believe the Gospel, the end of the verse, “you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge,” down payment, “of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory.” It's all anticipation of that, that's where we are. What do you think is going on today? What do you think of the election? What do you think of the virus? What do you think of the unrest and turmoil? I think it is going to be wonderful when God calls us to His presence; I think it's going to be amazing, get a transformed body that is just like Christ's glorified body; I think my future couldn't be anymore glorious. Have you turned on the news? No, have you opened your Bible? You are going to be resurrected, too. Everybody gets resurrected. You are going to get this body brought back to life, never to die again. The point is where will that body be prepared for, heaven or hell? That's the issue. We don't want to lose focus.

I have to take one verse, let me read you Daniel 12, just so you know Daniel talked about the same thing. He talks about the tribulation (the New Testament reveals that) will climax with the rapture. Let me read Daniel 12:2, “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the ground will awake, these to everlasting life, but the others to disgrace and everlasting contempt. Those who have insight will shine brightly like the brightness of the expanse of heaven, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever.” The glory we will have in our glorified body is beyond what we do comprehend, but you'll note there is a resurrection of life, there is a resurrection to disgrace and contempt. Those who have insight, those who have understood and believed the message of God. And do you know what we are to be about? Leading many to righteousness by bringing the glory of the light of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to them, that's what we are about.

Let's pray together. Thank you, Lord, for the riches of your Word. Lord, for the wonder of our salvation, for its greatness. Lord, hard for us in our finite condition to grasp an eternal salvation with an eternal glory, shining with the brightness of the stars like the body of our Lord and Savior in His resurrection glory. Lord, may we be careful as your people to have our thinking, the eyes of our heart or understanding, focused on your Word and the wonders that You have revealed, that we might live in conformity to the truth that we claim to believe. Thank you, Lord, that we are secure, we are here where you have appointed for us for these days. May we shine as lights in the darkness, those who have the Spirit of God dwelling in us, concerned to lead many to righteousness by bringing the Gospel to them. May You be honored. We pray in Christ's name, amen.