Having considered the timing and manner of Christ’s return it is important for us to now reflect on those things that He will do when He comes. As such we turn our attention in this article to the words of Jesus Himself in John 5 where He reminds us that on the day of His return He will raise the dead. Perhaps the best way of unpacking the teaching of these verses is to ask a number of pertinent questions.

When?⤒🔗

When will He raise the dead? Jesus tells us that ‘the hour is coming’ when He will call forth the dead from their graves. This, of course, begs the question – when is that hour? The consistent testimony of the New Testament Scriptures is that Jesus will raise the dead at the moment of His return in power and glory. 2 Peter 3:7, 2 Thessalonians 1:7 to 10 and Acts 17:31 all refer to a ‘Day’, a day of judgement, a great climactic moment when the Saviour will come to judge all men, a day in which He will raise the dead. Jesus Himself refers to that day in Matthew 24:36. It is clear that there is a day marked on God’s calendar when the world will end and ‘all who are in the graves will hear His voice.

Who?←⤒🔗

Whom will He raise? There are many places in the New Testament where it clearly states that the righteous – God’s people – will be raised up at the last day. A casual glance at John chapter 6 proves the point where again and again the resurrection of the just is set forth in verse 39, 40, 44 and 54. However there are also texts that make it clear that the unrighteous will also be raised up by Jesus when He comes. Paul declares in Acts 24:15:

I have hope in God, which they themselves also accept, that there will be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust.

This same note is struck by Jesus in John 5:28 when He declares that ‘all’ will hear His voice and in the next verse expands on this by declaring that the ‘all’ includes both those who have done good and ... those who have done evil.

What?←⤒🔗

What will our resurrection body look like? R A Finlayson in his excellent book, ‘God’s light on man’s destiny’ states that the Scriptures say ‘very little about the night side of the resurrection’. This is certainly an accurate comment. There is very little record in the Bible as to what kind of body will be given to the unbeliever when his body and soul are reunited on the last day. We can but agree with Professor John Murray who soberly commented:

All we can say of the resurrection of the unjust is that they will be raised from the dead, that their disembodied spirits will be reunited with their bodies, that the integrity of personal life will thus be reconstituted, and their bodies will be endowed with qualities adapted to their eternal abode.

Much more is said about the body that will be given to the believer. Three qualities of this resurrection body are particularly set before us.

It will be Glorious←↰⤒🔗

In Philippians 3: 20 and 21 Paul says:

For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself.

As we contemplate this glorious body that will be given to us we acknowledge that there is much that we do not yet understand but undoubtedly one of the key aspects of this ‘glory’ will be a total freedom from sin and failure. As John reminds us in 1 John 3:2 ‘we shall be like Him’. We shall resemble Christ Himself in the sense that as He was completely conformed unto the Father’s will and without spot and blemish so we will be free from sin in every way.

It will be Spiritual←↰⤒🔗

Sometimes folks wonder how a body could be spiritual. Is this not a contradictory statement? But this is Biblical language. In 1 Corinthians 15:44 Paul speaks about ‘the spiritual body’ which we will receive at Christ’s coming. He is surely thinking about the fact that when our souls and bodies are reunited on the day of resurrection we will be free from sin and utterly under the control and direction of God’s Holy Spirit. That same Spirit which is at work in us now in sanctification will be wholly at work in us then enabling us to be perfectly conformed unto the mind and will of God.

It will be Similar←↰⤒🔗

As we contemplate what lies ahead for us we are excited at the prospect of obtaining, by God’s grace, such a wonderful body ­glorious and spiritual. Will this body bear any resemblance to the body I have now? The answer must be a resounding ‘yes’. In 1 Corinthians 15: 42-44 Paul contrasts the body that we now have with the body which we will receive on the last day. The language he uses is significant. ‘It is sown ... it is raised’. It’s gardening language! The seed that you plant in the ground bears little resemblance to the beautiful flower that grows up from it. Yet there is an intrinsic relationship between the seed sown and that flower which grows from it. In like manner there is an intrinsic relationship between the body which we now have and the body which Jesus will give to us when He comes. There is an essential element of continuity between what I now am and what I will be as one who inhabits the new heavens and the new earth. This is reassuring in relation to the vexed issue of the recognition of our loved ones in heaven. J C Ryle in his pamphlet, ‘Shall we know one another in heaven?’ is comforted by the thought that

the saints in heaven shall know one another. They shall have the same body and the same character that they had on earth – a body perfected and transformed like Christ’s in his transfiguration, but still the same body – a character perfected and purified from all sin, but still the same character. But in the moment that we are saved shall meet our several friends in heaven, we shall at once know them, and they will at once know us.

We look forward as those who are in Christ to seeing, and recognising, our brothers and sisters in glory but we look forward especially to seeing the Saviour ‘who loved us and gave Himself for us’.