The resurrection of the body.

Notice again the emphasis on everlasting life. From the context I would say that the Lord was referring again to the resurrection of the body.

We often say John 3:16 means if we believe in Christ we will not go to Hell but will go to Heaven. Yet this is not what the verse says. It states if we believe in Christ we shall not perish but have everlasting life. Personally I believe this means we shall have everlasting life in our body.

Because of the unscriptural emphasis on making Heaven our eternal home, we have not assigned much importance to the making alive of our mortal body. It is true that if the spirit Heaven were to be our eternal home the making alive of our mortal body would not be of central importance.

But if we are going to rule with Christ on the earth, then we are going to have to have a physical body. It will not be enough merely to have a righteous inward nature. We shall have to be clothed in a body that can appear on the earth.

If you will notice, Paul groaned for the redemption of his mortal body. The redeeming of our mortal body is not a minor issue in the program of redemption, rather it is central.

We have eternal life now in our inward nature. But that same eternal life is destined to include our mortal body.

And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:11)

Let us, like the Apostle Paul, lay all else aside, counting it garbage, that we might attain to the resurrection from the dead.

To be continued.