EASTER SUNDAY
NEW RESURRECTED BODY
DR. JIM DIXON
MARCH 27, 2005
MATTHEW 28:1-9
Medina, in Saudi Arabia, is famous. It is famous because it contains the remains of Muhammed. Arlington Cemetery in Virginia near Washington, D.C. is famous because it contains the remains of notable Americans. The eternal flame burns over the grave of former President John F. Kennedy there at Arlington Cemetery. Westminster Abbey in London, England, is famous because it contains the remains of British nobles and notables—king and queens, ministers and poets. Britain’s finest are buried there. But there is a tomb in Israel, there is a tomb in Jerusalem, that is famous because it contains no remains. It is famous because no one is buried there. It is famous because it is empty and it, of course, is the tomb of our Lord Jesus Christ. That tomb is empty because He has risen from the dead and He is the hope of the world.
The Bible tells us that all of us who believe in Him, all of us who follow Him, one day will be given resurrection bodies just like the resurrected body of our Lord Jesus Christ. This morning I thought it would be interesting and I thought it would be fun to take a look at the resurrection body promised to us as Christians. Now, the Bible uses five words to describe the resurrection body and I’ve given you those five words on the back of your program where you see the Easter Message page. You also see a passage from 1 Corinthians, chapter 15, because all five of these words are found in this passage in 1 Corinthians 15. They are also found in other places in the Bible but these five words explain for us the resurrection body.
The first word is “heavenly.” The resurrection body will be a heavenly body. The Greek word is epouranios, from the prefix epi, which means “pertaining to, appropriate for, or fit for,” and then the Greek word ouranos, which means, “heaven.” But the beautiful thing is this word is always in the plural, so instead of “fit for heaven,’’ the word literally means, “fit for the heavens.” You will have a heavenly body and that body will be fit for the heavens.
To understand this, we need to understand that in the Bible there are three heavens. The first heaven is the atmosphere of the earth. Jesus spoke of the birds of the air. The word is ouranos, the birds of heaven, referring to the atmosphere of the earth. That is the first heaven. Then in the Bible the second heaven is the cosmos. It is the galactic systems. It is the universe. That is the second heaven in the Bible. Then the third heaven is the dwelling place of God. You will remember that the Apostle Paul said that he once was taken up to the third heaven and there he saw things too wonderful to describe, things that he was not allowed or permitted to describe. He was in the third heaven, the dwelling place of God.
You will have, as Christians, a heavenly body and it will be fit for the heavens. It will be fit for all three heavens. It will be fit for the earth. It will be fit for the galactic systems and the universe and it will be fit for the dwelling place of God.
The bodies we have now are earthly bodies. They are fit for earth only. In the beginning, God gave mankind dominion over the earth. We have, perhaps, in some measure abused that stewardship, but God wants us to understand as His people that in the life to come He will give us dominion over all the works of His hands and we will, as the Bible says, ‘‘reign and rule with Christ.” Whether we are male or female, man or woman, we are equal inheritors of the grace of life and we, in Christ, will have heavenly bodies.
We’re told in Isaiah, chapter 65, “Behold, I will create a new heavens and a new earth, and you will be glad and rejoice in that which I create.” Bible scholars debate, “Will that be a new universe? Will He destroy this universe and make a new one, or is He just going to change the existing universe?” We don’t know, but we know this: we know that the new body will be fit for all of it. It will be fit for the new heavens and the new earth, the New Jerusalem. It will be fit for the dwelling place of God, fit for the heavens.
Secondly, the new body is described as indestructible. It will be an indestructible body. I know most of you probably don’t follow spring baseball, but you may have noticed that two days ago on Good Friday the Rockies were playing in Tucson, Arizona, and the game was called after five innings because of swarms of what the newspaper called “Africanized bees.” These so-called African killer bees particularly attacked Darren Oliver, the Rockies pitcher as he was on the mound. Three times he fled the field. The fourth time they called the game. After the game, Darren Oliver said he believed that it was the coconut oil in his hair that drew the bees. He said he was having truly the worst hair day of his life. He said, “You know, I love baseball but I love myself more,” and he wanted to protect his body. We can understand that. We all want to protect these bodies. That’s why we wear seatbelts. That’s why we buy automobiles with airbags. My wife’s car, her Volkswagen, has eight airbags. My car has two airbags. It has three airbags counting me.
Of course, we all try to keep our bodies safe. Most of you wear a helmet when you ride your bicycle. You wear a helmet when you get on your motorcycle. You go to a doctor annually for a check-up. You try to eat right, try to do a little exercise, perhaps take a few vitamins. You’re trying to protect your body. But of course, in some sense, it’s a losing battle with these earthly bodies. The Bible says, “We will be given a new body, we who follow Christ, and that new body will be indestructible.’’ The Greek word there is aphtharsia and this word literally means, “without corruption, not subject to decay.” The new body will not be subject to decay. I love that.
I love the story of the guy that turned 100 years of age. At 100 years of age, a newspaper reporter came up and said, “What’s the key to your longevity?” He said, “I don’t know yet. I’m still discussing it with two different cereal companies.” The newspaper reporter smiled and he said, “Well, I hope to see you next year.” The man said, “I don’t see why not. You look plenty healthy to me.”
Of course, the truth is very few of us are going to live in these bodies to 100 years of age. These bodies are very, very temporary. I think many of you of course are aware of the fact that the tomb of Tutankhamen was some time ago discovered in Egypt. Tutankhamen was the boy king, the boy pharaoh who ruled Egypt in the 14th century before Christ. It was April 22, 1922, when Howard Carter, the famous British archeologist, unearthed the buried chamber of Tutankhamen in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, Egypt. It was an amazing find. Other burial chambers of other pharaohs had been found but they had all been pilfered. They had all been burglarized. This burial chamber was perfect. As Howard Carter and his team went through that secret passageway, they found the 4-room chamber with over 5,000 precious objects, including the three-layered coffin of the boy pharaoh, the innermost layer made of solid gold. By that three-fold coffin, they found a vase and in the vase they found flowers, dried but preserved by the desert air. Howard Carter said it was a reminder of ancient grief.
We don’t need an archeologist and you don’t need a pastor to tell you there’s a lot of grief in this world. There are a lot of graves, hundreds of millions of graves on the earth. There are a lot of tears, a lot of loss, and a lot of suffering, but the Bible tells us as Christians that the day will come—Revelation, chapter 21—“The day will come when God will wipe away every tear from our eye and death will be no more. Neither will there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for, the former things have passed away.” We’ll have been given indestructible bodies, aphtharsia, no longer subject to decay.
Thirdly, the new body will be a powerful body. The Greek word is dunatos, from the Greek word dunamis, from which we get the English word “dynamite.” But of course in biblical times there was no dynamite. Dynamite was invented by Alfred Nobel, who was a Swiss chemist and industrialist and the man who gave us the Nobel prizes. Of course, dynamite did not exist in biblical times, but the word dunamis and the word dunatos referred to miracles and to the power of the miraculous. In the Bible, miracles are called signs, wonders, and powers—semeion, teras, and dunamis. And so we’re to understand that the new body, the body that Christ promises His people, will be a body with miraculous powers, incredible miraculous powers.
At Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, they have conducted exhaustive studies of para-psychology, mental telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, and psychokinesis. Mental telepathy is the ability to read another person’s thoughts; clairvoyance is the ability to see what is hidden, what is not visible to the eye; precognition is the ability to know the future, to see what has not yet taken place; and psychokinesis is the ability to move objects with the power of the mind.
Most scientists today doubt that these power exist on this earth and they doubt that these bodies are capable of such feats. Some scientists believe that perhaps a few individuals in small measure can exhibit some of these phenomena. Other scientists believe that if we could use the fullness of our mind instead of the 3% to 10% we use we might be capable of some of those things but, you see, in Christ we’re getting a new body and it will have miraculous powers and maybe some of these things in the world of parapsychology will be available to us.
You look at the body of Christ, the resurrection body of Jesus Christ, and He was able to do amazing things. I mean, He just appeared and then He disappeared. He was in Galilee, then He was in Judea. He was on the road to Emmaus. Then He was in the Upper Room behind closed doors, behind locked doors. He seemingly was able to appear and disappear, seemingly capable of mass energy conversion. Of course, He ascended from the earth, from the Mount of Olives. He just rose up. His body was just defying the laws of gravity. It just rose up in a singular rapture as He ascended into the heavens. That was amazing divine power, miraculous power, and God wants you to understand that in Him, in Christ, when you get to heaven you’re going to have a body like that.
Fourthly, this body will be a spiritual body. The Greek word is pneumatikos, from the Greek word pneuma, which means “spirit.” This word pneumatikos does not mean invisible. It does not mean non-material. You will have a material body. Jesus went to great pains to prove that His resurrection body was material. He said, “See, touch, feel. A ghost has not flesh and bone as you see that I have.” He took food to eat. He wanted them to understand the new body has substance, but you see it will be a spiritual body because it will be governed by the Spirit. It will be controlled by the Spirit. The Bible tells us that these earthly bodies are controlled by the sarks, the Greek word meaning “flesh.” We have sin patterns that literally are ingrained in our brains. Of course, our biochemistry affects our temperament and our temptations because we have these earthly bodies and they’re encumbered by the flesh, but the heavenly body will be free of all that and we’ll be governed by the Spirit as the Spirit of God communes with our spirits. We will exhibit the fruit of the spirit, which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
Have you ever wondered why in heaven you’ll never sin? What’s going to keep you from sinning there? You’re going to have a new body and it will be of a different order, a higher order. It will be spiritual, pneumatikos, governed by the Spirit.
Finally, the new body will be a glorious body. The Greek word is doxos, from the Greek word doxa, from which we get the English word doxology. We sang the Doxology this morning. In churches, clergy and ecclesiastical people speak of the lesser and the greater Doxology. The lesser doxology is the Gloria Patri. The greater doxology is the Gloria in Excelsis. Doxology means “word of praise.” When the Bible says your new body will be doxa, it means that it will be “worthy of praise.” The body you have now is worthy of praise. When you get up in the morning and look in the mirror, you might not think so. There might not be any time during the day when you think your body is worthy of praise, but it is.
You have, right now, ten trillion cells in your body and they come together to form the parts and perform the functions necessary to sustain life. In your brain you have as many as l00 billion cells. That’s a fraction of the 10 trillion in your body, but there are l00 billion cells in your brain. In your cerebral cortex, every cubic half-inch of material contains, incredibly, 620 miles of connecting fibers. I mean, it is incomprehensibly complex and you are marvelous and miraculous. I mean, you are more marvelously complex than any computer humanly imaginable. In your nervous system, you are sending messages and receiving messages and they are traveling at hundreds of miles per hour in your body right now. But of course your body is winding down. If you are thirty years of age or older, you are losing 100,000 brain cells a day. Some scientists believe that it begins at age 20—thirty-six million brain cells lost a year and a billion brain cells every 30 years.
You’re thinking, “Well, that’s not a big deal because I have 100 billion brain cells,” but of course it’s an indication that you’re winding down. We’re all winding down because some day we’re going to need a new body and that’s what Jesus promises. He promises a new body, a body that is heavenly—fit for the heavens, a body that is indestructible and not subject to decay, a body that has miraculous powers, a body that is governed by the Spirit, a body worthy of praise.
If you’re a Christian, if you’re a follower of Jesus Christ, this is your destiny in Christ. You’re bound for heaven with a heavenly body. If you’re not a Christian, you can become one today. There is grace for you.
This is March 27 and on March 21 long ago in the year 1748, John Newton accepted Jesus Christ as Lord. John Newton was 23 years old. He was on a slave ship on the coast of Africa. He was engaged in the buying and the selling of human flesh. He had lived a debauched life but there in the midst of a stormy sea on March 21, 1748, John Newton asked Jesus Christ into his heart. Of course his life changed and he went back to England. He became a pastor. He mastered Hebrew and Greek and he began to teach the word of God. He became close friends with William Wilberforce and together they fought for the abolition of slavery. It was John Newton and William Wilberforce who brought about the eradication of the slave industry in Europe. Of course it was John Newton who also wrote one of the most famous hymns in the history of the world. It was John Newton who wrote “Amazing Grace.” “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now I’m found. I was blind but now I see.”
God wants you to know this Easter morning there is amazing grace for you. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done. There’s amazing grace for you. Your faith does not need to be perfect. You must have simply faith enough to make a commitment to follow Jesus Christ as Lord. If you’ll make that commitment today and if you’ll commit to follow Christ as Lord for the rest of eternity, that you would live to please Him… If you’ll make that commitment, He will become your Savior and by the cross your sins will be forgiven you and you’ll enter into the promises of Christ—the promise of heaven itself, the promise of a heavenly body. Let’s look to the Lord with a word of prayer.