Tagged: glorification

Glory in Restoration

This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon. 

The glorified body of Jesus easily navigates a world still under the curse of sin. After his emergence from the tomb, Jesus eats, travels, speaks with befuddled eyewitnesses of his resurrection, passes through closed doors, transports himself instantly from one location to another, and finally launches from the Mount of Olives into heaven. 

Our resurrected bodies will have many of these same capabilities. Yet the redemptive work of God isn’t finished at our resurrection. The world in which we now live was not always cursed, nor will it always be cursed. A day is coming when our sovereign Lord makes all things new (Rev. 21:5).

We’ll explore the new heavens and earth in future columns. For now, let’s survey three New Testament passages that address the restoration of our bodies.

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Glory in Resurrection

This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.com. 

The glory we experience now as Christ lives in us, and the glory we experience in death as our souls and spirits ascend into heaven, are partial works of glorification. But full glorification for followers of Jesus takes place when he calls our bodies from the grave and gives us incorruptible bodies like the body he bore when he rose from the dead. 

Physical resurrection is the pinnacle of personal glorification, for in it we shrug off the last vestiges of sin, which have clung to our mortal bodies. In glorification, the effects of the Fall are fully and finally reversed. 

At the return of Christ, all who have died in the Lord are resurrected. Their souls and spirits, which are in heaven with Jesus, are reunited with their bodies, resulting in complete personal glorification; the body, soul, and spirit are fully conformed to the image of Christ and thus free of any effects of the Fall. 

Christians alive on the earth at the return of Christ are instantly transformed as they are given glorified bodies; their souls and spirits are perfected at the same time.

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The Glorification of the Saints

This is another in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.com. 

Memphis Belle is one of the most celebrated aircraft of World War II. Named after the girlfriend of chief pilot Robert Morgan, the lumbering B-17F Flying Fortress carried the first U.S. crew to complete twenty-five combat missions over Europe before returning to America.

Based in England, Belle coursed through flak-filled skies over France and Germany in 1942-43. The 10-man crew battled Nazi fighter planes and delivered its payload before returning to base through the same menacing skies. The crew’s survival through more than two dozen missions was rare indeed. The Army Air Forces lost 30,000 airmen in battles against Nazi Germany. During the heaviest fighting, U.S. bomber-crew airmen had a one-in-four chance of survival.

For a time after the war, however, Memphis Belle sat outdoors, neglected, until an ambitious restoration project began, requiring more than 100 workers and thousands of hours to scrape paint, bend metal, and fabricate parts. In 2018, on the 75th anniversary of Belle’s historic 25th mission, the fully restored legend was reintroduced to the public at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio.

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The Believer’s Resurrection

This is the 21st in a series of excerpts from What Every Christian Should Know About the Return of Jesus, released by High Street Press and available at Amazon.com. 

It’s comforting to keep in mind that when Christ died, he redeemed our bodies, souls, and spirits. Our salvation doesn’t stop with the forgiveness of sins, the declaration of our right standing with God in Christ, and the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, although these are unfathomable gifts of grace. 

Rather, the redemptive work of Christ finds its ultimate fulfillment in future resurrection and glorification, when the effects of sin are completely removed, and believers are fully conformed to the image of Christ. 

Equally comforting is the Lord’s promise that neither death nor hades threatens his children again. John, who hears Christ assure him that Jesus holds the keys of death and hades, later bears witness to the fact that these enemies are thrown into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). 

In our glorified bodies, we no longer sin, nor are we drawn to rebellion against God. As a resulting benefit, we have no reason to fear death, for it is but a distant memory God banishes from the realm of possibility. 

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Article IV-D of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000: Glorification (continued)

Following is another in a series of columns on The Baptist Faith & Message 2000.

Physical resurrection is the apogee of personal glorification, for in it we shrug off the last vestiges of sin that have clung to our mortal bodies. In glorification, the effects of the Fall are fully and finally reversed.

Article IV-D of The Baptist Faith & Message 2000 reads:

“Glorification is the culmination of salvation and is the final blessed and abiding state of the redeemed.”

As we learned in the last column, glorification is the means by which God fully reverses the effects of the Fall, purging sin and its stain from the created order. It involves the return of Jesus, the future resurrection and judgment of all people, and the creation of new heavens and a new earth.

The glory we experience now as Christ lives in us, and the glory we experience in death as our souls / spirits ascend into heaven, are partial works of glorification. But full glorification for followers of Jesus takes place when he calls our bodies from the grave and gives us incorruptible bodies similar to the body he bore when he rose from the dead. 

Physical resurrection is the apogee of personal glorification, for in it we shrug off the last vestiges of sin that have clung to our mortal bodies. In glorification, the effects of the Fall are fully and finally reversed. 

At the return of Christ, all who have died in the Lord are resurrected. Their souls / spirits, which are in heaven with Jesus, are reunited with their bodies, resulting in complete personal glorification; the body, soul, and spirit are fully conformed to the image of Christ and thus free of any effects of the Fall. Christians alive on the earth at the return of Christ are instantly transformed as they are given glorified bodies; at the same time, their souls / spirits are perfected as well. 

Continue reading →