Question: Why would anyone who has died need to get their body back in the resurrection? We will be ...

June 1, 2005

TBC Staff

Question: Why would anyone who has died need to get their body back in the resurrection? We will be spiritual beings in heaven. If it is because we’re coming back to reign on earth with Christ in the Millennium, couldn’t God just take some dust and give us a new body? He is God. Also, I can’t imagine a God of love, which He is, giving back some people a deformed body.

Answer: If the resurrection left dead bodies behind in the grave, it wouldn’t be a resurrection. For there to be a resurrection, the body that died must be raised to life again. Our resurrection is because of and like Christ's: we will be “in the likeness of his resurrection” (Rom:6:5). The disciples thought He was a “spirit,” but He said to them, “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have” (Lk 24:39).

Nor will God give anyone back “a deformed body”—or a baby body, or an old, worn-out body. We will all have perfect bodies just like Christ’s. We will not be “spiritual beings in heaven,” but we will have spiritual bodies, able to handle things and to be handled and even to eat as Christ did to prove to His disciples that He was not a spirit—yet able to walk through walls and to transport oneself instantly from one place to another no matter at what distance (Jn:20:26-29).