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What Will the Resurrection Body be Like?

One of our readers asks: "Will our new bodies be as people of the same age group, or if a child dies at 10 years old will they have a new body recognized as a body of a 10-year-old, and if a person dies at 60 years will they have a new body recognized as a body of a 60-year-old person?"

Scripture tells us very little by way of answering this question. If there is any passage that provides any answer at all, it is Isaiah 65:20. Perhaps our correspondent was thinking of this passage when he wrote.

We should notice that Isaiah 65:20 refers to the new heavens and the new earth (vs. 17), not to this present world, for that shall have passed away and "shall not be remembered, nor come into mind." The verse does not, as many suppose, refer to some future earthly millennium in this present world.

Insofar as the verse gives us any help in answering our question, it suggests that there will be no difference of age in the new creation. The word "thence" means literally "from there," so that the verse says that there will not be from there an old man or an infant of days. This we take to mean, among other things, that there is no difference of age or aging in the new heavens and earth.

Revelation 10:6, which tells us that in this coming eternal state there will be "time no longer" appears to confirm this. The word translated there as "time' refers to time as a succession of moments, the passing of hours and days and years. That there will be no passage of time as we now know it would seem to imply that there shall be no age or difference of age either.

Perhaps we should remember in this connection that our bodies themselves shall be changed wonderfully through the resurrection from the dead. There will be no more marrying or giving in marriage (Lk. 20:34, 35); apparently no eating necessary to sustain the body (I Cor. 6:13); we shall be as the angels (Matt. 22:30).

The fact, however, that Scripture says so very little about what the resurrection body will be like, and so too, what heaven itself will be like, is an important reminder to us. Scripture does not tell us much about these things because it is not necessary for us to know them, nor are they the things that matter.

The resurrection body will be glorious and wonderful, that we do know. I Corinthians 15 gives us some indication of that, especially when it compares the present body to a seed sown in the earth and the resurrection body to the plant that grows from it. They are so different they are hardly to be recognized as the same body. Perhaps the change from lowly earth-crawling worm to the butterfly which soars through the heavens is another picture. Yet even this is not the most important thing.

What we must know about the resurrection is that the changed and glorified body God gives us in the resurrection will be delivered forever from the presence and power of sin and from all the consequences of sin (Rev. 21:4; 22:3). Not only that, but in that body we shall be able to inherit heaven itself, which "flesh and blood cannot inherit" (I Cor. 15:50). And even more importantly, these vile bodies shall be fashioned like His most glorious body (Phil. 3:21). We shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is (I Jn. 3:2). Christ is our hope, not the resurrection body.

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Additional Info

  • Volume: 7
  • Issue: 20
Hanko, Ronald

Rev. Ronald Hanko (Wife: Nancy)

Ordained: November 1979

Pastorates: Wyckoff, NJ - 1979; Trinity, Houston, TX - 1986; Missionary to N.Ireland - 1993; Lynden, WA - 2002

Website: www.lyndenprc.org/sermons/

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    317 North Park St.
  • City
    Lynden
  • State or Province
    WA
  • Zip Code
    98264
  • Country
    United States
  • Telephone
    360-354-4337
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