1558. All Will Be Changed
All Will Be Changed
"Our conversation ("citizenship," A. S.V.) is in Heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ:
"Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body" (Php_3:20-21).
What will happen to the millions who never die?
1. They will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. At the time of the rapture of saints, "shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left" (Mat_24:40-41).
"I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left" (Luk_17:34).
Dr. Pettingill uses the illustration of a great magnet which was thrown along the ground, in a steel mill. As the magnet came near to the earth, immediately, an amazing quantity of nails and pieces of steel seemed to leap from the earth to meet the magnet. Lying about were pebbles and sand and other particles which never moved, because there was no drawing power in the magnet for them.
When the Lord Jesus Christ descends, those who are in Him, who know Him and trust Him, will be caught up to meet Him. Others who have never been "magnetized" by saving grace will be left unmoved.
2. They will be changed. "When He shall appear, we shall be like Him" (1Jn_3:2).
"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed" (1Co_15:51). We, who have borne the image of the earthy, shall bear the image of the Heavenly. The body of this humiliation shall be fashioned like unto the body of His glory.
3. They will possess a body similar to the body of their Lord. There are many who seem to imagine that throughout all eternity, believers will be disembodied spirits, flitting about like butterflies from flower to flower. This is utterly false. "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the Heavens" (2Co_5:1). There are none of us who desire to be disembodied, but we do desire the Coming of our Lord that we may be clothed upon, that mortality may be swallowed up of life. It is for this very thing that God hath wrought us.
After His resurrection Christ said to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold My hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into My side" (Joh_20:27).
The Lord Jesus continued: "A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see Me have" (Luk_24:39).
The Lord Jesus in His resurrection body took the bread and gave unto the disciples. He took the fish also and did likewise. Together they did dine.
In that day, when we shall be with our Lord, we shall have a real, literal, tangible, but glorified body–a body like unto the glorified body of our Lord.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR