“But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.”
1 Corinthians 15:51-53 NLT
There is something amazing coming for us pilgrims. Our bodies are going to experience a transformation into immortality. Although it was always God’s intention to grant immortality through the Tree of Life, sin corrupted mortal bodies. So there is a problem with our natural, physical bodies, because they cannot exist in God’s domain. “What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever” (1 Corinthians 15:50). But anyone of advancing years will know all about the limitations of our physical bodies. The aches and pains increase with age and bring some to the point where they don’t want to carry on. Some experience a constant merry-go-round of hospital visits, GP appointments, and calls upon the local pharmacist, all of which combine to dictate a way of life that never appeared in God’s plan for humans. Sooner or later, God’s people will need a new body, one suitable for spending eternity with God. A new body that will never die.
We don’t know when this event will happen, of course. But the Bible includes many references to the End Times, and when the end of the world was going to happen was one of the last questions the disciples asked of Jesus. His response was, “And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don’t panic. Yes, these things must take place, but the end won’t follow immediately. … And the Good News about the Kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world, so that all nations will hear it; and then the end will come” (Matthew 24:6, 14). There have been many predictions of when the world will end, and in 2015, apparently, 22% of the UK population believed that such an event would happen in their lifetimes. Even religious men and women, like John Wesley, were tempted to make a prediction (1836, in his case). Charles Russell, a forerunner of the JW’s, proposed that Jesus would return in 1874, and when He didn’t, Russell then suggested that Jesus had indeed returned but invisibly. But Jesus was clear that no one knew when the world would end except God Himself. Matthew 24:36, “However, no one knows the day or hour when these things will happen, not even the angels in heaven or the Son himself. Only the Father knows”.
Some in the Corinthian church were puzzled because, in their number, a few deaths had apparently occurred. How will these believers, therefore, experience a transformed body? So Paul put their minds at rest by saying, “those who have died will be raised to live forever“. Not an illogical suggestion at all, because of what happened to Jesus. He was dead, graveyard dead, and yet was resurrected that first Easter Sunday morning. We pilgrims know that one day Jesus will come and take us to be with Him. John 14:3, “When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am“. We know how that will happen, because Jesus told us. Matthew 24:30-31, “And then at last, the sign that the Son of Man is coming will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among all the peoples of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with the mighty blast of a trumpet, and they will gather his chosen ones from all over the world—from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven“.
All this was a mystery to the Corinthians, but with the benefit of the Bible, we know better. I don’t know about you, fellow pilgrims, but I’m looking forward to receiving a new body. A transformed and resurrected body just like Jesus’. No more tears, no more sickness, no more death, and in God’s presence forever.
Dear Heavenly Father. We all pray together, “Come Lord Jesus”. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 