Bodies Fit For A Heavenly Home (Philippians 3:20-21)

You will need your Bibles open to the book of Philippians in chapter 3, Philippians chapter 3. And we'll get to that here in just a moment. Let's bow together in prayer. Our Father, it is with great joy and delight that we can open up Your Word, that we can read it and study it and meditate upon the glorious truths that You have revealed in.

This book.

We thank You for Your grace of salvation, again, for the forgiveness of sins and our justification, which is made ours through the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And now as we look at Your Word, we pray that You would give us insight and understanding in the truths of Scripture as we reflect upon some of the implications of the resurrection of our Savior.

And we ask that You would be honored through this time and that You would be glorified to make Your truth impressed upon our hearts. The glory of Christ our Lord, we pray this, amen. Most Christians have an underdeveloped theology of bodily resurrection.

I think that that is true writ large. I'm not sure that it is true of those of you who attend here regularly since the subject of bodily resurrection comes up in the preaching and teaching here quite frequently.

It certainly has as we've been working our way through the book of Hebrews. Bodily resurrection is tied in with God's promise of our reward and our inheritance and so we have found ourselves contemplating that truth from time to time.

But for the most part, though, I think most Christians in our country, people at least who named the name of Christ would affirm that God raised Christ from the dead because without that affirmation, you can't even be considered a Christian.

That is central to a Christian profession and to understanding of Christian truth. So that while people may affirm that God raised Christ from the dead, they, most of them, have not thought through the implications of what that means in terms of our hope and our inheritance and eternity, heaven itself.

Most Christians really don't know what they can expect for the life that is to come. If I ask you to paint for me a picture of heaven and I were to pick one of you at random, chances are good that some of you here would have an idea of heaven that you think, I think there's probably phantoms there, spirits, weird looking angels.

I've read Ezekiel. There's weird looking angels there floating around. I picture probably in the back of my mind some organ music playing in the distance and no matter how far you walk into the midst, you'll never find that organ.

It's just ever present. It's always there and people kind of floating by once in a while. I'm floating by and this is really exciting for a brief period of time. But after that, you kind of wonder, is this really what eternity is all about?

Is this what we were promised? Is this what I've lived my life hoping to inherit? This and this is it? And truth be told, if that's your conception of heaven, then that doesn't sound very appealing at all, does it?

That doesn't sound very enticing, very inviting. It's difficult to get excited about that for a week, let alone for all of eternity. That is not what scripture says that heaven is going to be like. Most Christians, I think, have an underdeveloped theology of bodily resurrection.

So let me test it with three very simple questions. I'm going to ask you three and these are going to be easy. These are true or false. And I don't want... In fact, this is how easy it's going to be. I don't want you to raise your hand.

I don't want you to nod your head. I don't want you to affirm or deny. I just want you in your mind to answer each of these three true or false questions. Let's see how developed your theology of bodily resurrection is.

Question number one or statement number one, I should say. The Lord Jesus Christ is in heaven right now with a real, material, physical body. He's in heaven right now with a real, material, physical body, a body that could interact with this realm, a body that could eat fish, a body that could drink liquid, a body that could shake your hand, a body that could give you a hug, a body that could pat you on the back, a body that could move items, knock on wood, bang on the pulpit, a real, physical, material body.

The Lord Jesus Christ in heaven right now, true or false? Don't answer it.

Not allowed.

Statement number two, you, if you are in Jesus Christ, you have repented of your sins and trusted Christ. I'm talking about you, Christian. You will spend eternity in a real, material, physical body, in a real, material, physical place filled with physical, material things and other believers, saints, who also inhabit real, material, physical bodies.

And by real, material, physical bodies, I mean the type of bodies that can eat fish and drink liquids, drink the fruit of the vine. I mean the type of body that can knock on a pulpit and move items, a body that can shake your hand and give you a hug, that kind of a physical body.

In heaven, you, for all of eternity, will dwell in a real, physical, material body along with every other saint and believer in real, physical, material body, true or false? Question number three, all men and women who have ever lived will spend eternity in real, material, physical bodies, either in heaven or in hell.

Real, material, physical bodies so that those in heaven will enjoy the delights and the pleasures and the blessings and the joys of every good things in real, physical bodies that will never die, never deteriorate, and never be destroyed.

In real bodies in which every desire will be satisfied, every longing will be satiated and fulfilled, while those in hell will also spend eternity in real, physical, material bodies that will never die, that will never be destroyed, and will never deteriorate, but they will suffer eternal wrath under the punishment of God forever and ever.

And they will have desires and longings in hell, but they will never be satisfied. They will never be satiated. There will never be any fulfillment for them. In fact, those unsatisfied passions and desires and cravings of their physical bodies, part of the suffering of hell will be the fact that those are never satiated and never fulfilled.

That will be part of the torment. Physical bodies for everyone who has ever lived in heaven or in hell forever and ever, the type of material bodies that can move items, eat fish, drink liquids, and pat each other on the back.

True or false? To review, Jesus is in heaven right now with a real, physical, material body. You, if you are in Christ, will spend all of eternity in a real, physical, material.

Body.

And three, everybody who has ever lived will spend eternity in real, physical, material bodies, either in heaven or in hell. True or false? The answer to all three of those questions is true. All three of those is true.

Now, if you got those right and you are not uncomfortable with that, in fact, if you got those right and you're not uncomfortable with that, and that creates within you an eager anticipation for the life that is to come, then you do not have an underdeveloped theology of bodily resurrection.

If you answered false to any of those questions, or if hearing that makes you uncomfortable, it is because you have an underdeveloped theology of bodily resurrection. And you really do not appreciate what it is that Scripture says concerning the ultimate life that is to come and what God has for those who are His.

And Resurrection Sunday is the perfect opportunity to think through and work out the implications of the doctrine of bodily resurrection because we celebrate the very real historical fact and reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after His crucifixion.

We celebrate that and the church celebrates that every Sunday. We do so because it is real, it happened in history, there was an empty tomb, He has risen, He has risen indeed, and He has ascended to the Father's right hand where He awaits the time when all of His enemies will be made a footstool for His feet and He will return again to judge the living and the dead and to establish His kingdom.

That is what is yet future for us. So we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, the resurrection that was predicted in the Old Testament, predicted and promised by Christ Himself and then witnessed by eyewitnesses who saw Him dead and then saw Him alive three days later.

So we affirm that Christ has risen and we sing of this reality, we read of this truth, we know that God raised Him up, that death no longer has dominion over Him, He is declared to be the Son of God with power by resurrection from the dead.

Now this doctrine of the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an appendix to Christian teaching, it is not some add-on, it's not some addendum, it's not something that somebody tagged on in the Middle Ages at some point because they thought that would be kind of a clever idea to make people have a hope for the world that is to come, you know, as people are dying from plagues and diseases and famines and stuff.

Let's talk about resurrection, that's a good thing, let's add that into Scripture. No, no, that's not how it works at all. Resurrection, bodily resurrection, and specifically the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not an add-on to Christianity, it is the truth, the fact, the historical reality without which there is no Christianity.

That's Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 15. The doctrine of bodily resurrection, which includes the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and the resurrection of all men, and I'm talking specifically today about your resurrection as a believer at the end of time, those two doctrines, those three ideas, they all go together, they are intertwined and interwoven and they cannot be separated from one another.

If you deny that the dead are raised, then you must also deny that Christ has been raised, and if you deny that Christ has been raised, then you must also deny that you have been raised. And if you deny that you will be raised, and if you deny that you will be raised, then you are denying that there is any hope beyond this life, and this is what Paul means when he says, if we have hoped in Christ, in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

If this is all we have and our faith is only good for what we transact here, for what happens in this realm, and we have no hope of bodily resurrection, if we have no hope of life after the grave, physical, real, material life after the grave, then death has gained its victory, death has won, death has conquered something, namely us, and there is no hope.

And so we are of all men most to be pitied. Those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished, Paul says, 1 Corinthians 15. And if we've hoped in Christ in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied.

Because we would have then no hope for any life after the grave. There would be nothing left for us. You die and you become worm food, at least your body does, and if God does not grant us victory over the grave, then there is no resurrection at all.

So there's a lot that hinges on this doctrine. And if death conquers us and if there is no life after death, then death is victorious, then death has the final say, then death robs us of something that is never redeemed and never returned and never vindicated, and death cannot have the final say.

So therefore, there must be a resurrection at the end of life, at the end of time. If there is no bodily resurrection for the believer, then the sting of death remains. It's permanent. Death takes something that can never be remedied and will never be remedied if there is no resurrection.

It strikes us with the ultimate loss, the ultimate robbery. It conquers us and it has the last word. And it is that implication, our bodily resurrection, which we're going to talk about this morning in Philippians 3.

So you need your Bibles open there to Philippians 3. This sermon today is not an apologetic or defense of the bodily resurrection of Christ. We could do that. It's not a look at a resurrection account from one of the Gospels that we could do that.

Those would be good things. But today we're going to be talking about one of the implications of Christ's resurrection, namely the bodily resurrection of the saints or of believers. And I'm going to tie in again at the end of this, the reality of the bodily resurrection for all men.

Heavenly Citizenship and the Hope of Resurrection

Philippians 3, beginning at verse 20 and 21, those are the two verses that are going to occupy our attention this morning. Verse 20 says,. For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Those are our two verses for this morning. I want to set up the context a little bit so you can kind of understand what the Apostle Paul is saying here and the importance of it. You may wonder why it is that in the end of chapter 3, he would mention our heavenly citizenship and even the coming of Christ, which we eagerly wait for, verse 20 says.

We eagerly wait for the Savior from heaven. Why does he reference those two things? The Apostle Paul is trying to fix the mindset, the affections, the love, the attention of the believers in Philippi upon heaven and upon their reward.

So he just simply needs to remind them that our citizenship is in heaven. But it's not everybody's citizenship is in heaven. There is a group of people whose citizenship is not in heaven, namely unbelievers and the false teachers that he has mentioned from time to time throughout chapter 3.

So if your Bible is open to chapter 3, look at verse 2. He mentions these false teachers, beware of the dogs, beware of the evildoers, beware of the false circumcision, for we are the true circumcision who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.

There is a group of people whose minds are so set on earthly things that earth and their works in the earth and their hope is all wrapped up in this world and nothing in the world to come. So they have set their affections in this world.

Their desires have to do with this world. Their hope of righteousness is in this world. Everything that they hope for in terms of forgiveness and salvation and their own righteousness, it is all conjured up from themselves, from inside of their own abilities and their own works.

And the Apostle Paul goes on to list all of the reasons why he himself might have put confidence in the flesh, beginning in verses 4 and following. He has all of this litany, the pedigree that he had of being born a Jew of a certain tribe and he was a Pharisee and he kept the law and he was blameless and he worked really hard.

And in the eyes of most people in Paul's day, they would have looked at him and said, look, if he's going to miss heaven, then I have no hope. This guy's far more righteous than I, far more pious than I.

He's a holy man of God. He thinks about God all the time. He's constantly working and serving God. Look at his pedigree, child of Abraham, born of the tribe of Benjamin, a Pharisee of Pharisees, trained at the feet of one of the greatest rabbis of the day, Gamaliel.

I mean, if anybody's going to get into heaven by his own merit, by his own works, it's certainly this man, Saul of Tarsus. But Paul says when he came to understand who Christ is and how he lacked righteousness before God, he says he cast all of those things, look at verse 8, all of them aside, more than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.

Everything that I would have counted in my credits column as gaining me favor in the sight of God, I counted it as dung, I cast it aside, it is useless so that I may know Christ. And not just know Christ, but be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith.

It is only by that righteousness that one can be saved. It is only by that righteousness, not your own, but the righteousness of another, an alien righteousness. In order to have salvation, in order to attain to heaven, in order to have the favor of God, you and I need righteousness to stand in His presence, but not a righteousness that comes from our own deeds, our own pedigree, our own works, our own abilities, but a righteousness that is credited to our account, an alien or a foreign righteousness that is given to us, imputed to us, credited to us.

It's not a righteousness that we conjure up. This kind of righteousness doesn't come from within the heart of guilty sinners. So the Apostle Paul throughout this chapter has been focusing their minds on Christ and His righteousness, pressing on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Verse 14, he's trying to fix their hearts and their minds and their focus upon heaven. And then look at verse 17, brethren, and here he returns to the theme of false teachers. Brethren, join in following my example and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us.

For many walk, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even weeping, that they are enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their shame, who set their minds on earthly things.

That brings us right up to our passage. There is this group who trust in their own abilities for righteousness. They will not come to Christ. They will not repent. They will not embrace salvation that is offered in Christ and Christ alone.

Instead, they insist on having their own way and insist on offering their own righteousness before God on judgment day. These are men who have their minds set on earthly things, whose God is their appetite, and whose glory is in their worldly or earthly shame.

In other words, these are men of this world. They don't belong to Christ. They're bound to this creation, and so all of their priorities and their affections, their goals, their aims do not transcend this world at all.

Instead, they're all wrapped up in this world and not in the world that is to come. And Paul says, these are the men that you want to shun or to avoid, have nothing to do with them. These are men who are of this world and they will perish with this world.

Their end is destruction, but our end is not destruction. So verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven. Our citizenship isn't in this world. I mean, after a fashion, you do have a citizenship here, right?

Most of you?

You do have a citizenship here. But your real citizenship, the citizenship that matters, the citizenship that is eternally significant is not here. It's not in any country on this planet. Your citizenship is in heaven.

Verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory by the exertion of the power that He has, even to subject all things to Himself.

In contrast to the unbelieving worldly whose mind and heart is set on earthly things is the believer whose citizenship is in heaven and therefore their mind and their heart and their affections are driven by heaven and set upon heaven.

From which, that is, from heaven, we eagerly await a Savior. The single truth, and notice the reference to bodily resurrection in verse 21, He will transform the body of this humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.

That's resurrection. That's resurrection. The single truth that will most effectively fix your heart and your mind and your affections upon heaven, our eternal home and our reward is the truth of your future bodily resurrection.

The single truth that will fix your heart and affections upon heaven is the truth of your future bodily resurrection. You grasp this, you understand this, you cherish this, you work out the implications of this in your heart and in your mind, and it will drive your affections toward heaven.

It will set your mind on the things that are to come. So verses 20 and 21 is our text this morning. We're going to look at three important things that He says here about future bodily resurrection. First, the person by whom we will be raised, that's verse 20, Lord Jesus Christ.

The pattern after which we will be raised, which is the body of His glory, and third, the power with which we will be raised, the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. Verse 20, our citizenship is in heaven from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is just a reminder that our true citizenship is not found here on earth, it is found in.

Heaven.

In chapter 4, verse 3, the Apostle Paul says that there are those whose names are enrolled.

In heaven.

There's a book, there's a book of citizens in heaven, and our name is there in that book. Our fellow saints are there, Old Testament saints, they're there, New Testament saints who have died, they're there, all the church history saints that have lived and died up to this point, they're all there in heaven.

Our reward is there, our inheritance is there, our fellow citizens are there, our hope is ultimately there, this is where we are going to spend eternity, and the best part of it is that that's where our Savior is at too.

It's not just that all the people that have gone before us are there, and all the people that we love and cherish who have died in the Lord have gone to heaven, but even more than that and greater than that and better than all of those things is the fact that our Savior is in heaven, and for that, we eagerly wait for Him, eagerly wait.

That is a strong word that describes a definite expectation, it is an eager anticipation. Chances are good that it's possible for you to go through an entire day or maybe even several days without really longing for the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, until something horrible hits you, until something horrible happens, then you're like, oh, Lord, please.

Come.

Or you see a news story and you think, I don't know how this world can keep spinning the way it is, Lord, please return. But without those type of things that direct or drive our affections to heaven, it's very easy for us to lose sight of this and to really be caught in the middle of a day or a week without any eager anticipation or expectation of the Lord.

Titus 2, verse 13, Paul says, we're looking for the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. We're looking, we're anticipating, we're expecting it. 2 Timothy 4, 8, Paul says, in the future there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness.

Now listen to his eager anticipation, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day and not only to me, but also to all who have loved His appearing. Beloved, 1 John 3 says, now we are the children of God and it has not appeared as yet what we will be.

We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is. Colossians 3, 4, when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. The one whom we long to see, when we see Him, He is going to transform us.

He is going to change us. He is going to raise our mortal and perishable bodies into bodies fit and conformed with the body of His glory. This is what Jesus promised in John 5, I say to you, an hour is coming and now is when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.

For just as the Father has life in Himself, so also He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself and He gave Him authority to execute judgment because He is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, an hour is coming in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice and will come forth.

Those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life and those who committed evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment. Notice two resurrections, a resurrection to life and a resurrection to judgment.

All who are in the tombs will hear His voice and come forth, raised to life or raised to eternal damnation. 1 Corinthians 15, verse 51 and following says, I tell you a mystery, we will not all sleep but we will be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable and we will be changed for this perishable must put on the imperishable and this mortal must put on immortality.

But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. Oh death, where is your sting?

Oh death, where is your victory? Jesus will raise all men, all the redeemed and all the unredeemed, the redeemed to eternal life and the unredeemed to eternal judgment, but all will be raised. The Savior who gave you spiritual life through repentance and faith and died on a cross to pay the price for your sin so that He might forgive your sin, rose from the dead so that He might justify you and declare you righteous and give you His righteousness so that you can stand in His presence, not clothed with the tattered robes of your own self-righteousness but clothed with the perfect righteousness of the Son of God Himself.

That is the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith that Paul talks about earlier in Philippians chapter 3. If you want to stand before God in the tattered robes of your own self-righteousness and offer to Him all of your works and all of your merits and all of your good deeds and the things that you have done and your justifications and your excuses while the book of the law is read aloud in your presence and guilty, guilty, guilty is pronounced over your head, good luck with that.

There is only one thing that will avail for you on the day of judgment and that is to stand clothed in the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ and Him alone, pleading no other cause, pleading no other case, pleading no other righteousness but Christ and Christ alone.

So the answer to the question, how can you be accepted in the sight of God, is not well I have done this and I have done that and I have merited this and I have earned that. No, the only answer, the only appropriate answer that will avail for you on judgment day is this, another stood in my place and bore the wrath for my sin and He rose again and He justified me and now He says come and He has promised that if I come He will not cast me out and I have come and He promised me forgiveness and He promised me righteousness and it is on the merits of Him and Him alone that I am able to stand before a holy God.

That is the only answer to that question. Who is it that will raise you? It is the one who died on a cross to pay the price for your sin and rose again so that you can be justified. And now He sits at the Father's right hand and He intercedes for you, dear child of God, to ensure that you will never be lost and that you will never perish.

And He promises that on that day you will hear His voice and you will come out of the tomb to a resurrection of life. Notice the pattern after which we will be raised, verse 21, the Lord Jesus Christ will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory.

Notice the contrast between humble state and glory. This is like 1 Corinthians 15, the contrast between the perishable and the imperishable, the mortal and the immortal. It's the same kind of contrast.

The body in which we currently exist is the body of our humble state and we wait for the body that is conformed to the image of His glory. Look around you. You will see a bunch of bodies in humble estates, in humble states.

These are all very humble bodies. As much as we doll them up on a nice resurrection Sunday like this and we dress them up and we put makeup on it to make it look really good, these are bodies that are in very humble states.

1 Corinthians 15 .50 says, "'Brethren, flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.'". Now see, that presents me with a conundrum, doesn't it? My citizenship is in heaven and flesh and blood cannot inherit the imperishable.

That's a problem. My citizenship is there, but I can't go there. I can't hop on a bus. I can't hop on a plane. I can't take a trip and visit the place where my citizenship is. I can't vacation there.

Why?

Because this body is a body that is destined to perish. It's perishable and it's mortal, and flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. And therefore, you and I have a very serious problem. Something has to happen, namely, I need a new body.

You need a new body.

That wasn't supposed to be a laugh. Let me speak in the second person. You need a body that belongs to you that is transformed for a life in paradise that never ends. You need a body that is fit for worship and work and service and rejoicing and rest and creating and recreating and fellowship and eating and drinking and playing in a new creation forever.

The body that you currently have cannot do that. It's not capable of that. It's perishable and it must perish. And no advances in transhumanism will stop that. No advances in medical technology will alter that.

We may be able to extend our life on the margin for a little bit, but there is no way that we are ever going to suspend the laws of the curse and the laws of nature and nature's God and get out of this thing alive.

All of us are going to die. So I need, in order to enjoy the citizenship that I have, which is in heaven, by virtue of my faith in Jesus Christ and what He has done, I need a new body that is fit to enjoy.

That.

In verse 21, the King James translates that humble state, the body of our humble state, as who will change our vile body that may be fashioned into His glorious body. That word vile kind of suggests something that is repulsive or vulgar, disgusting, stomach-turning, but that's not what the word meant in the 1600s, it simply meant of low estate.

This is the difference between the body that you now have and the body that you will have someday, child of God. It is now in a humble state and eventually it will be conformed to the state of His glory.

In your current humble state, you get weak and you get tired, you get hungry, you get famished, you get sick, you get diseased, and you will eventually die. In fact, even right now, a third of your day is spent resting and rejuvenating and recuperating because 16 hours awake is just too much for us, isn't it?

Just 16 hours awake taxes us, let alone the working and striving and everything that we do during those 16 hours. So we have to spend fully a quarter or a third of our day just recovering from the fact that we are awake for the other three quarters or two-thirds of our day.

Sickness and disease and death plague us. Your cells are dying even right now. You are weaker now than you were when you walked into this building. It may be imperceptibly weaker, but it is weaker nonetheless.

From the moment that you are conceived, your body begins to decay and you are on a trajectory that will end in death 100 of the time. In fact, these bodies in which we now live, from the moment that they were conceived, we have been fighting against the natural tendency of everything, against all odds, just to stay alive.