The afterlife is not something I normally blog about, but I was reminded recently of a doctrine that I first heard about 20 years ago.

This is a teaching that some people believe and share, that being, that Jesus will be human in heaven for all eternity.

‘What on earth?!’ I thought when I first heard it (no bad joke intended).

I find this belief that a number of evangelicals appear to hold to absolutely bizarre in the extreme for a number of reasons.

Firstly, they seem absolutely sure that they know what the resurrection body will be like. This is completely at odds with the Apostle Paul, who suggests it is folly to even ask what the resurrection body will be like:

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” How foolish!

Paul then goes on to explain about different types of bodies and flesh. One point he appears to be making is that we are in a natural body now but will be in a spiritual body in the resurrection age. What exactly that means, he doesn’t detail.

So, speaking with absolute conviction on matters of the resurrection of the body appears to be saying things The Bible doesn’t.

(and The Bible warns about doing that…)

But secondly, I find such a conviction of Jesus’ eternal human flesh as super bizarre because, if Paul suggests anything, he suggests that we sinful humans now, won’t be human flesh in heaven:

I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

If we’re not going to be human flesh in heaven, why would Jesus be?

Even if you disagree with me, surely a reading of Paul’s text shows that there are things that we cannot know yet about the resurrection body:

Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

We will all be changed. How? Don’t know. It’s a mystery.

Yours trying not to be a fool,

Alison