What Will Our Spiritual Bodies Be Like in Heaven?
Have you ever wondered what our spiritual bodies will be like in heaven? Dr. Roger Barrier’s article explores this intriguing question using insights from 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul compares our current bodies to seeds that transform into something new and glorious. It suggests that, while our spiritual bodies will be different, they will still be recognizable and free from earthly limitations, much like Jesus’ resurrected body.
What are your thoughts? Do you envision our spiritual bodies resembling our earthly ones or being entirely different? How will it be to have fully formed bodies for those missing limbs etc?
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In heaven you will not have a body. You will be a spirit. And we don’t know what spirits look like. But upon the resurrection you will have a new glorious body and we can assume you will be you but in a glorified way.
Heaven is the waiting place for our souls until Jesus returns and resurrects our bodies to be rejoined with our returning souls in our resurrected bodies. If we are alive when he comes, we will be immediately changed to our new bodies.
Let’s go to the Bible instead of trying to guess what that body will be like. Look at 1 Corinthians 15:
1Co 15:35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”
1Co 15:36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.
1Co 15:37 And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain.
1Co 15:38 But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.
1Co 15:39 For not all flesh is the same, but there is one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
1Co 15:40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another.
1Co 15:41 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.
1Co 15:42 So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable.
1Co 15:43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power.
1Co 15:44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
1Co 15:45 Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
1Co 15:46 But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual.
1Co 15:47 The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven.
1Co 15:48 As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.
1Co 15:49 Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.
Notice in verse 3 and following that Paul asks and answers our question about the resurrection body as follows:
- Paul compares our present bodies with seeds and the resurrection bodies with a full-grown plant (verses 35-38).
- Then, he contrasts our bodies with the resurrected bodies (verses 39-41).
- Furthermore, he says that our resurrection bodies will be these bodies transformed into our eternal bodies with the qualities imperishable (verse 42), glorious with God’s divine brightness (verse 43a), powerful (verse 43b), and spiritual since it is filled with the Holy Spirit (verse 44).
4. That eternal body will be like Jesus’ resurrection body, that is, this body transformed into our eternal body, as Paul shows with his comparison of the seed and plant with our present body in comparison with our future body. After all, Jesus’ resurrection still had the scars from his crucifixion.
Php 3:20 But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ,
Php 3:21 who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.