Christ Transformed In A
Resurrection Body
In
His Resurrection Jesus had a real immortal and imperishable body. Luke 24:40.
So will we.
1. Death
is defeated.
"Do not
be afraid; I am the First and the Last. I am He who lives, and was dead,
and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of
Death.” Rev 1:17-18
He has
authority even over death and Hades [the world of the dead]. He will raise eveyone from death at His Coming!
See John 5:27-29.
“Although He
eternally existed as the Son of God, Jesus' resurrection demonstrated Him to be
God's Son, revealing Him in all His power and glory. —NLT Study Bible
“O Death,
where is your sting? O Hell, where is your victory? Christ is risen, and you are overthrown. Christ is
risen, and the demons are fallen. Christ is risen, and the Angels rejoice.
Christ is risen, and life reigns. Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in
the grave. For Christ, being risen from the dead, has become the first-fruits
of those who have fallen asleep. To Him be glory and dominion unto ages of
ages. Amen.” Chrysostom
“Only in the
resurrection do we have the message that God has given us the provision of His
life in order that we might be man as God intended man to be; in
order that the resurrection life of the risen Lord Jesus might become the
essence of spiritual life in the Christian; in order that we might live by His
life and the expression of His character. The resurrection is the positive
provision of life in Christ Jesus, around which all other theological topics
must be oriented.” J.A.Fowler
2. Resurrection
events.
“Now when He
rose early on the first day of the week, He appeared first to Mary Magdalene,
out of whom He had cast seven demons. She went and told those who had
been with Him, as they mourned and wept. And when they heard that He was
alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. After that, He appeared in another form to two
of them as they walked and went into the country. And they went and told
it to the rest, but they did not believe them either.” Mark 16:9-13
“Mary thought
that with the resurrection, Jesus would resume normal relations with His
disciples. She was trying to cling to the joy she discovered in Her
resurrected Lord. But His fellowship with her would come in a new form (John 20:22). Jesus had
not yet ascended to complete His return to the Father, but the
process was underway. Before His final departure, He would give the Holy Spirit
(John 20:22;
see John 14:15-21,
26; 15:26-27; 16:5-15).—NLT
Study Bible
“He shewed unto them his
hands and his side. The Lord showed his wounds to convince them
beyond a doubt that it was not a fantasy or an apparition. A week later he
shows his wounds to Thomas. The resurrected body still bore these proofs of his
suffering and love. Sixty years later, when John, at Patmos ,
saw the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, he beheld “a Lamb as it had been slain.”
Perhaps our Lord in glory continues to bear the marks of the cross. Perhaps
these will forever, as we gaze in glory, remind us of the story of our
redemption.”—People's New Testament, Johnson’s Notes
“It was fitting for Christ’s soul at His
Resurrection to resume the body with its scars. In the first place, for
Christ’s own glory. For Bede says on Luke 24:40 that He kept His scars not from
inability to heal them, “but to wear them as an everlasting trophy of His
victory.” Aquinus
3. We shall be raised!
“But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus
from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give
life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” Romans 8:11
Though the
body be doomed to death “because of sin,” it shall be “quickened” for those who
have God's Spirit dwelling in them. Even our mortal bodies shall be raised, not
in corruption, but in incorruption.
“Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not
all sleep, but we shall all be changed--in a moment, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
1 Cor
15:51-52
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from
which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who
will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body,
according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to
Himself.” Phil 3:20-21
"Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of
Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which
God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know-- Him, being delivered
by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless
hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the
pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.” Acts 2:22-24
“For early
Christians, resurrection was seen to consist of passing death and out the other
side into a new sort of bodily life. As Romans 8 shows, Paul clearly believed
that God would give new life to the mortal bodies of Christians and indeed to
the entire created world: “If the Spirit of the God who raised Jesus from the
dead dwells in you, he who raised the Messiah Jesus from the dead will give
life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit who lives in you” (Romans
8:11). This is a radical mutation from within Jewish belief. Resurrection hope (as one would expect from
its Jewish roots) turned those who believed it into a counter-empire, an
alternative society that knew the worst that tyrants could do and knew that the
true God had the answer. But the Christians had an extra reason for this hope,
a reason which, they would have said, explained their otherwise extraordinary
focus on, and sharpening of, this particular Jewish belief. For the Christians
believed that the Messiah had already been raised from the dead. Passages such
as Job 19:25-27, which in the King James Version seems to predict bodily
resurrection more solidly than the Hebrew warrants, may have gained this
meaning when read in the Septuagint.”
N.T Wright
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