or the hour of Christ’s return at the Rapture. But one day billions of people will suddenly vanish from the face of the earth. Are you ready?
- Dr. David Jeremiah
The Rapture will spark a resurrection renaissance across the globe. Christians who died will live again—not only in a spiritual sense but physically as well. The bodies of believers buried in the ground will come out of the ground. They will be raised up.
Those bodies will be the same ones that went into the grave, though they will be transformed in profound ways. Assuming you and I die before the Rapture, our resurrected bodies on that day will be the same in essence—we will still be humans, and you will still be you. But the resurrection body that emerges will be superior to the old body you are inhabiting now.
These words apply not only to those who will be resurrected at the Rapture but also to those who are alive when Jesus returns. Everything that happens to a resurrected body will also happen to a body “caught up” to heaven in the Rapture.
Specifically, here are four things the Bible tells us will be true of our new bodies in that day.
Throughout the history of time as we know it, there has been only one body not subject to corruption: the body of the Lord Jesus. Psalm 16:10 says prophetically of Him, “For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.” Jesus was buried, but on the third day He came out of the grave. His body incurred no corruption.
Unlike Jesus, when our earthly bodies die and are buried, they see corruption. But Paul told us that when we are raised up on the day of resurrection, we will be raised in incorruption. Our present bodies wear out and grow old, but our resurrection bodies will have no capacity for deterioration or decay. Your new body will be designed for eternity. It will not be subject to accident, disease, aging, or death. It will be pain-free and disease-free. It will never die; it will outlive the stars!
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As several Scriptures tell us, the Lord Jesus Christ in His own resurrection provides the pattern for our resurrection. The Bible says:
The heavenly Man is Jesus. Just as we now bear the image of old Adam in our current bodies, we will bear the image of the Man of heaven, Jesus, in our resurrection bodies.
Over the years, I have been asked these questions: “In my new resurrection body, will people know me? Will they recognize me? And will I know others?”
The Bible is very clear in its answer.
After the resurrection, Jesus knew His disciples, and they knew Him. They recognized the glorified Jesus as the very same One they had known before His death. They were so convinced of the identity of the risen Christ that they all went to their deaths proclaiming the reality of the message of everlasting life.
When you get to heaven, you’re going to know all of the people you met down here—and they will know you. It is unthinkable to me that in heaven we will know less than we do here; we will know much more! The Bible says, “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known” (1 Cor. 13:12).
We will have a greater sense of recognition in heaven than we’ve ever had here on this earth. When Moses and Elijah appeared out of heaven to stand with Christ on the Mount of transfiguration, the disciples instinctively recognized Moses and Elijah as real people. They knew them. When Jesus described heaven in Matthew 8:11, He said, “And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.”
Scripture for further study: Luke 24, John 20, 1 Corinthians 13,15
The Rapture assures us that death is not the end of life—it is simply the beginning of a new existence in our new, perfect, glorious bodies.
Dr. Jeremiah has answered many of your questions, like this one, in his study on the Rapture and what God’s Word has to say about it. Learn more about The Great Disappearance here!
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