Heaven and the Afterlife by Keith Wall & James L. Garlow

Author:Keith Wall & James L. Garlow [Wall, Keith]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Bethany House
Published: 2009-06-30T16:00:00+00:00

HEAVENLY BODIES: FACT OR FICTION?

This raises another matter, having to do with our bodies. After all, how can we see without eyes? How can we talk without lips? Don’t we leave these bodies behind when we die? Do we have any kind of body at all at that point, or are we disembodied spirits who can’t kick the habit of using words and phrases that made sense back when we had forms that could hear and touch and thirst?

Actually, many verses suggest we will have some sort of physical body in this temporary (first) heaven. Randy Alcorn, author of an exhaustive work on heaven,9 makes this case by noting the same account of Lazarus and the wealthy man, who certainly appear to have physical forms. Alcorn also references Christ’s conversation with the thief on the cross, explaining that “today you will be with me in paradise” implies not only an immediate transition but a very personal one, pointing to a conscious, bodily existence on the other side.

Finally, Alcorn cites people coming and going from the first heaven wearing bodies. For example, when Enoch was caught up into heaven, he didn’t leave anything behind10—can’t we assume he took his body with him? When Moses and Elijah descended on the Mount of Transfiguration, they had bodies.11 Did this apply only to them, or does it apply to the rest of us as well?

Whatever kind of body we’ll have, one thing we know for sure: It’s not the final, permanent, perfected, resurrected body we’ll receive later when taken into the permanent heaven. I believe this is what Paul implies:

We know that if the earthly tent we live in [our physical bodies] is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile [after our earthly bodies are gone and before we get our eternal bodies] we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.12

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