Our bodies are wonderful and amazing creations that bespeak the glory and goodness of God.
“You formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”
And yet, because of the curse of sin, our natural bodies are prone to weakness, temptation, and death:
“The spirit is willing but the body is weak.”
“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Is this not vanity of vanities?
“Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you?”
What good can come of death? None apart from Jesus.
“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.”
But Jesus conquered and redeemed death by transforming it into the gateway to eternal life. When seed is sown, it must die before it can become what it was always meant to be. Furthermore,
“Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.”
But when believers die, they are remade. No longer do they bear the image of the man of dust; no longer are their bodies corruptible, weak, or perishable. They are given a spiritual body, a glorious body that is imperishable, incorruptible, indefatigable, and incapable of sin.
“It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”
And just as Christ can never die, so will we never die.
“He will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”
Lord, help me to bear with the infirmities and weaknesses of this poor seed in which I live now, and haste the day when I will be forever remade in the true likeness of the man from heaven!