Jump Start # 3985
1 John 3:2 “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”
The known and the unknown—that’s what is built into our verse today. The known is, “we will be like Him.” The unknown is, “it has not appeared as yet what we will be.” Combined, these expressions often leave more questions and raises more curiosity than what we started with.
We will be like Him. Great. What is “He” like? Consider some post resurrection images from the pages of the Bible:
· The resurrected Jesus had a physical body: “…see My hands, and reach here your hand and put it into My side” (Jn 20:27)
Jesus was physical. His wounds were still visible. The resurrection did not heal what the nails and the spear had done to his body.
· The resurrected Jesus ate food: “They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them” (Lk 24:42-43).
· The resurrected Jesus suddenly vanished: “And their eyes were opened and they recognized Him; and He vanished from their sight” (Lk 24:31).
· The resurrected Jesus seemed to appear in a room: “So when it was evening on that day, the first day of the week, and when the doors were shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’” (Jn 20:19)
The text doesn’t specifically reveal how Jesus got into that room. Many believe that He just appeared or walked through the walls.
In Paul’s description of the resurrection, he told the Corinthians, “So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1 Cor 15:42-44).
The body of Jesus wasn’t purely spiritual. The disciples could see it and touch it. The resurrected body of Jesus ate. It walked seven miles with the two men of Emmaus. But, what we also know is that the raised body of Jesus lived forever. It did not nor could not die.
So, what are we to make of all of this? How are we like Him? What is our resurrected state going to be like? More than anything we know it is going to be fine. God has always taken care of us. God has always been very good to us. We will be raised to never die again.
It’s easy to speculate, guess and make assumptions such as we will be eating in Heaven. I think that is a leap beyond faith to make that claim. Others want to know how they will look when they are raised. Will I be raised looking the age when I die? Will I look like I did as a teen? There is so much that we do not fully understand. Imperishable, glory and power are the statements Paul uses.
We will be like Him. More importantly, we will be with Him. God will take care of you. Sometimes we worry about things that we shouldn’t. Sometimes we want to know things that we just cannot know. Faith and trust, that’s the key.
And, to know that our journey doesn’t not end here. There is no final page to our story. We don’t have a “The End.”
Roger