What Will Our Bodies Be Like In Eternity?

This is the third of some short answers to questions about eternity. Part 1 | Part 2 

I remember as a kid fantasizing with my brother about being able to walk through walls like Jesus did or just appearing somewhere I wanted to be like Jesus just turning up on the road to Emmaus. Although, these days I would probably just always end up at Franks BBQ. I still think that being able to do that would be really cool. I wouldn’t mind being taller too but sadly, if I use the same logic as being like Jesus, I am the average height of a Jewish man. What can we really expect our resurrected bodies to be like in eternity?

We will have a Body

There are a few things the Bible is pretty clear about. In eternity we will have a body, we won’t just be disembodied spirits or ghosts (1 Cor. 15:42-44; Job 19:25-27). If we continue to use creation before the fall as a guide, there we see Adam and Eve fully human. It also seems pretty clear that your resurrected body will be recognisable as being you. 1 Corinthians 15 speaks about our physical body being buried and then that same body raised in perfection. The only clear example of this is that Jesus was recognisable after His resurrection. Sometimes Moses and Elijah at the transfiguration are used as examples but we’re only told that they were there not that they were recognised as being Moses and Elijah (Lk 9:30). After all how would Peter, James and John recognise them?

Will we be able to walk through walls?

What about the idea of being able to walk through walls or translate to other places like Jesus did? Well, maybe but there’s no definitive answer from the Bible on that. Mostly, we get that idea from the things we see Jesus do after His resurrection. All the other examples of translation (like Philip in Acts 8:39) are works of the Spirit so it’s hard to say that these types of things are characteristic of the resurrected body. It may be that Jesus was able to do these things just because He was Jesus.

We will have a perfect body

What can we say for certain about our resurrected, eternal body? The clearest answer is how Paul answers that question (1 Cor. 15:35). God creates everything with a body suited to its place and purpose (1 Cor. 15:38-39) and so there are natural bodies and spiritual bodies (1 Cor. 15:44). That is, this body we have now is suitable for this world and the body we have in eternity will be suitable for that world. Just as we have borne the image of the first Adam in this body in some way we will bear the image of the Second Adam in eternity. That means that it will be a body completely free of sin and all of its effects. We will be everything we were meant to be. Complete and total freedom from sin and thus Paul’s great refrain of victory, But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Cor. 15:57)

Still, it would be pretty cool to walk through walls.

BPM