ESCHATOLOGY-RESURRECTION-BODY
The resurrection body…is more than simply the putting on
of a garment: it is the putting on of a garment over another. The picture is
that of the heavenly body being put on like an outer
vesture or topcoat, over the earthly body, with which the Apostle is, as it
were, clad, so as not only to cover it but absorb and transfigure it. The
assumption of the resurrection body, therefore, is not a creation ex nihilo, as
if it were totally unrelated to the past, but is
simply the fulfillment of a spiritual process which began with regeneration. We
do not receive so much a new and different body as do we get the present one
changed. Thus there is an element of both continuity and discontinuity (cf.
Phil. 3:20-21; 1 Cor. 15:53: “This corruptible must put on incorruption and
this mortal must put on immortality;” see also 2 Pet. 3).
Sam
Storms
Individual Eschatology, November 8, 2006, www.enjoyinggodministries.com.
Used by Permission.
If a skillful
workman can turn a little earth and ashes into such curious transparent glasses
as we daily see, and if a little seed that bears no show of such a thing can
produce the more beautiful flowers of the earth; and if a little acorn can
bring forth the greatest oak; why should we once doubt whether the seed of
everlasting life and glory, which is now in the blessed souls with Christ, can
by Him communicate a perfection to the flesh that is dissolved into its
elements?
Richard Baxter
A Puritan Golden Treasury,
compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 247.
Let us consider this settled, that no one has made
progress in the school of Christ who does not joyfully await
the day of death and final resurrection.
John
Calvin
Institutes, 3.10.5.
The seed
contains the pattern for the plant that grows. All the genetic code for an
entire oak tree is contained inside the kernel of the acorn. Likewise, our
resurrection bodies will bear a resemblance to the body that is buried – but
with a far greater glory. We will be ourselves, only perfect. And the
decomposition of the earthly will only facilitate the remaking of a glorified
resurrection body – with none of the flaws of the old, but with all that is
necessary for a perfect existence in heaven.
John MacArthur
What
Will We be Like in Heaven taken from The Glory of
Heaven by John MacArthur, copyright 1996, Crossway Books, a division of Good
News Publishers, Wheaton Illinois, 60187, www.crosswaybooks.org.
page 132.
Let us not fail to see in the manner of our
Lord’s resurrection, a type and
pledge of the resurrection of His believing people. The grave could not hold Him beyond the
appointed time, and it shall not be able to hold them. A glorious angel was a
witness of His rising, and glorious angels shall be the messengers who shall
gather believers when they rise again. He rose with a renewed body, and yet a
body, real, true, and
material, and so also shall His people have a glorious body, and be like their
Head. “When we see Him we shall be like Him” (1 Jn. 3:2.).
J.C. Ryle
Matthew Commentary, Chapter 28.