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What kind of bodies will they have?
(Octavius
Winslow, "Morning Thoughts")
"How will the dead be raised? What kind
of bodies will they have?" 1 Cor. 15:35
The identical body that was sown, yet . . .
so changed,
so spiritualized,
so glorified,
so immortalized,
as to rival in beauty the highest form of spirit,
while it shall resemble, in its fashion, the
glorious body of Christ Himself!
We can form but a faint conception, even from the
glowing representations of the apostle, of the glory
of the raised body of the just. But this we know, it
will be in every respect a structure worthy of the
perfected soul which will inhabit it.
Presently, 'the body' is the antagonist, and not the
assistant of 'the soul'—its clog, its prison, its foe.
The moment that Jesus condescends to "grace this
lowly abode" with His indwelling presence, there
commences that fierce and harassing conflict between
holiness and sin, which so often wrings the bitter cry
from the believer, "Oh wretched man that I am! Who
shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
Oh, what a encumbrance is this body of sin!
Its corruptions,
its infirmities,
its weaknesses,
its ailments,
its diseases,
all conspire to render it the tyrant of the
soul, if grace does not subdue it, and bring
it into subjection as its slave.
How often, when the mind would pursue its favorite
study, the wearied and over-tasked body enfeebles it!
How often, when the spirit would expatiate and soar
in its contemplations of, and in its communings with
God—the inferior nature detains it by its weight, or
occupies it with its needs! How often, when the soul
thirsts for divine knowledge, and the heart pants for
holiness—its highest aspirations and its strongest
efforts are discouraged and thwarted by the clinging
infirmities of a corrupt and suffering body!
Not so will it be in the morning of the resurrection!
Then shall "the perishable must clothe itself with
the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality!"
Mysterious and glorious change!
"In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the
last trumpet," the dead in Christ shall awake from
their long sleep, and spring from their tombs into
a blissful immortality!
Oh, how altered!
Oh, how transformed!
Oh, how changed!
"Sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body."
"A spiritual body!" Who can imagine, who describe it?
What anatomy can explain its mysteries? What brush
can paint its beauties!
"A spiritual body!" All the remains, all the vestiges
of corrupt matter—passed away!
"A spiritual body!" So regenerated, so sanctified, so
invested with the high and glorious attributes of spirit,
that now sympathizing and blending with the soul in its
high employment of obeying the will and chanting the
praises of God—it shall rise with it in its lofty soarings,
and accompany and aid it in its deep researches in the
hidden and sublime mysteries of eternity!
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