New Bodies

One day the dream will come true… "we eagerly await a Saviour from heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Philippians 3:20-21).

Our lowly bodies …will be like His glorious body. Astounding. Like Jesus in His resurrected body, we will have hands and arms, feet and legs… A promise like this, though, almost raises more questions than answers… What about sleeping? …Will we look the same? And if we do, will we recognize each other?…

Another thing. What about people who died in the ocean centuries before; whose bodies long ago became fish food? Or people who were blown to smithereens in bomb blasts; or pioneers who perished on the prairies, whose bodies dissolved into dust that was scattered to the four winds? Will God vacuum up the winds, collect and sort everyone's body particles, and divvy out the correct DNA?

These questions became real to me in the summer of 1990 when my ninety-year-old father passed away. He had led a cowboy roughrider life; trading with Indians; riding fast horses, and scaling the highest peaks of the Rockies. So it was not unusual that summer for my family and Ken and me to drive to the top of Pikes Peak to scatter my father's ashes.

We found a private place near the edge of a cliff. Thousands of feet beneath us spread a green valley patchworked in sun and cloud shadows. The icy wind whipped our hair and we held onto our wool hats. An eagle hang glided above our heads. Ken opened The Book of Common Prayer and read: "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, in his wise providence, to take out of this world the soul of our beloved father, John Eareckson, we therefore commit his body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust; awaiting the Resurrection at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose second coming ...the earth and the sea shall give up their dead; and the corruptible bodies of those who sleep in him shall be changed, and made like unto his own glorious body…"

Ken closed the book and read a final verse from Romans 8:11, which assured us that "if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you." With that, my mother stepped closer to the edge, took her husband's ashes in her hand, and threw them to the wind. I watched with wet eyes as a gust carried my father's ashes up and beyond the clouds….

Later that afternoon, we talked about how God would resurrect our dad's body. We didn't get into details, but our faith assured us that somehow it would happen. That night in bed, I wondered how will it happen? Billions and billions of people have lived on earth and have probably shared the same dust and ashes. For all I know, my father's ashes settled on some field in that green valley, providing fertiliser to feed the next generation. It seems silly, but how will John Eareckson's molecules remain distinct from the rest?

Others have wondered the same. The apostle Paul framed their thoughts in 1 Corinthians 15.35 when he said, "But someone may ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?'"… He sketches a few lessons from nature. "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body."

Have you ever seen those nature programmes on television where they put the camera up against a glass to show a dry old bean in the soil? Through time-lapse photography, you watch it shrivel, turn brown, and die. Then, miraculously, the dead shell of that little bean splits open and a tiny leg-like root sprouts out. The old bean is shoved aside against the dirt as the little green plant swells… Not even a degree in Botany can explain how life comes out of death. But one thing is sure: it's a bean plant. Not a bush of roses or a bunch of bananas…. It has absolute identity. Positively, plain as day, a bean plant. It may come out of the earth different than when it went in, but it's the same

So it is with the resurrection body. We'll have absolute identification with our body that died. I will be able to positively recognise my dad as John Eareckson…. He may come forth from the earth different than when he was buried, but he won't be mistaken for anyone else.

And what about his dust and ashes scattered to the winds? How many of my father's molecules are required to be reassembled before he can be raised?…. God will not have to use every part of your body in order to resurrect it. Anyway, you do not possess today any particle of your body that you had a few years ago. We learn in biology that human cells are being replaced every three and one half years. The flesh and blood that makes up 'you' today is not the same flesh and blood you had in your teens. Yet, somehow, the particular person that you are carries on.

Obviously, God is not as hung up as we are on DNA. Jesus gives a biology lesson in John 12.24: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." It is no more difficult to believe in the resurrection than it is to believe in the harvest.

From 'Heaven', Marshall Pickering 1995