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Transcript 263A — Jesus' Resurrected Body
HC: Good evening. welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: I'd like for you to explain the difference between the body Christ had from resurrection till He ascended, and the form He will have when He returns.
HC: The question is asked, "What was the body in which Jesus was resurrected, and how does that differ from the body that He will come in when He returns on the clouds of glory at the end of time?"
Now in Acts we read, when Jesus ascended into Heaven from Mount Olivet, the angels appeared to the disciples and said, in verse 11, "Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up into Heaven? This Jesus who was taken up from you into Heaven will come in the same way as you saw Him go into Heaven." Now this is very important that we read this carefully. It doesn't say that He will come in the same body that He went up into Heaven, in the same appearance as He went up into Heaven. It says He will come in the same way. In other words, He went from this earth in a very literal fashion. He actually had to do with this earth, and went up into Heaven. And God is saying here that when He comes on the last day, at the end of time, He will come again as His Majesty, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will not come in the person of the Holy Spirit, as He exists in the world today But He will come as the second person of the Trinity, as the Son of God, in a very personal way.
But there will be a vast difference in the body that He comes with from that in which He was resurrected. First of all, let's look at His resurrected body. Now when He went into the grave, we read of Him that He did not suffer corruption. We read this in verse 31 of Acts 2: "Nor did His flesh see corruption." The victory of the cross was of such a nature that the body that was put into the grave did not decay as our body does when it is put in the grave.
Secondly, we know that when He was resurrected, His body still was very much like the body that went into the grave. We know this because He told Thomas, "Put your hand in My side, and feel the place where the sword thrust was. Put your fingers in the imprints of My hand." His body was very much like that which went into the grave.
More than that, He said to Thomas, in Luke 24:39, "See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me, and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see that I have." So Christ is insisting that in His resurrected body He is flesh and bones."
Now remembering that, let's look at I Corinthians 15. There we read, in verse 50: "I tell you this, brethren, flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. Nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable." Now I know there's a dual meaning here. Flesh and blood can refer to the fact that we in our human nature, as we exist in flesh and blood, cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. It is God who has to inherit it for us. He is the one who, by grace, is going to save us.
But it also has the implication that we do not go into Heaven as flesh and blood. We must receive our resurrected bodies. That is, in fact, the context of 1 Corinthians 15. It is talking about the resurrection of our bodies on the last day. And it's speaking here of our resurrected body as a spiritual body, not a body of flesh and blood.
Now if Jesus told the disciples, after He rose from the grave, "Touch Me, and see that I am flesh and bones," we know that this was not His glorified body. Now we know this for another reason. Had He been in His glorified body, in His heavenly body, no man could have looked at Him. His glory would have been far too immense for anyone to have looked upon Him.
But as a matter of fact, after He was resurrected, Mary thought He was the gardener. Christ had covered her eyes so that she did not immediately recognize Him. The two men on the way to Emmaus also thought He was just a stranger, a fellow human being, because God momentarily had covered their eyes. But they saw Him only as a man.
But when Jesus is in Heaven, He is not there as flesh and bones, or flesh and blood. He is in His glorified eternal body, that is far more glorious than anything that we could ever look upon with our naked eyes. And it's in this body that He will return at the end of time, when He comes on the clouds of glory. Note Matthew 24:30: ''They will see the Son of Man coming on clouds of heaven, with power and great glory."
We read earlier, in verse 27: "For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man." Now imagine, people from all over the world, and don't get snared by the fact that this is the planet earth, and light travels in a straight line. God established that rule, and you can rest assured that that rule will be set aside on the last day. Light is going to bend, so that everyone on the fact of this globe will see Him coming. His glory will envelop the earth. And they will see His glory, as He comes as King of kings and Lord of lords.
And it's no wonder, therefore, that the unsaved will cower in fear and call for the rocks to crush them, and the mountains to cover them, because they'll know that He is the Christ, and that He has come to judge them. It will be at this time that the prophecy will come true that every knee shall bow, and every tongue will confess Him as Lord.
And so this is the body in which He's going to return, in His glorified spiritua1 body.