ARE WE GOING TO BE CHANGED TO SPIRITS AFTER WE HAVE DIED?
The popular teaching of going to be with God in heaven after we die have often conjured in the minds of Christians the idea that we will be changed from physical human beings to spirit beings like God, Jesus Christ and the angels. Indeed if we will live with God in heaven, we must be changed to spirit beings. But is there any explicit biblical support for this common belief of Christians? Let us reason from the Bible and see if this belief is correct or not.
Which Heaven Are We Talking About?
Many of us would have known that everything from the sky (firmament) to the highest realm where God dwells is called heaven in the Bible. In this article, “heaven” means the glorious, invisible, highest realm which God uses as His dwelling place. The Bible calls this realm the throne of God. This realm is what comes to our minds whenever we are told of going to heaven to live with God forever “after we have been changed from physical, earthly beings to spirit beings like the angels.”
We Shall Be changed
There are a number of passages in the epistles which tell us that our bodies will undergo supernatural change, in a flash or “twinkling of an eye,” before we enter into God’s kingdom. This change will take place on the day of the first resurrection, when Christ returns to the earth to establish the kingdom of God on the earth.
Apostle Paul wrote, “What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that flesh and blood [or our physical, earthly bodies] cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These mortal [or dying] bodies cannot inherit immortality [that which will last forever]. But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed [or changed]. It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying [or mortal] bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies” (1 Cor. 15:50-53, NLT; words in square brackets and bold emphases are mine throughout).
Here, the apostle made it known that on the day of Christ’s second coming, both the resurrected and living saints will have their bodies changed to be those that will never again age and die. But he did not say that we will be changed to spirits. It will become the same type of physical body Adam and Eve had in the Paradise of Eden before they sinned and death came on them.
About thirty to forty years after Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, Apostle John had this to say, “Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but He has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears [or returns]. But we do know that we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He really is. And all who have this eager expectation keep themselves pure, just as He is pure” (1 John 3:2, NLT).
It was certain as at then that those who will inherit the Kingdom of God will be given bodies that will be like that of Jesus Christ who will be the king of the Kingdom. Once again, it must be said that the Bible does not explicitly say what we will be like in the kingdom. But we can deduce from available scriptures the fact that we will not be changed to spirits. We will be given physical, immortal bodies. Follow me as we reason from some Bible verses.
Christ’s Resurrected Body
Originally before His incarnation, our Lord Jesus Christ was a Spirit Being like the Father. This is so because, as the monogenes, a Greek word meaning the only begotten, He possessed the same “Spirit” or “God” nature as the Father (John 4:24) who begot Him. See Heb. 1:3; 1 Cor. 15:45; Phil. 2:6; Col. 1:15-19.
When the time came for the Messiah to come to the earth the first time to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins, God gave Him a human body to be offered as a sacrifice in fulfilment of God’s righteous standard for the forgiveness of our sins, an act of the loftiest height of love by God and Christ for humanity. See John. 1:1, 14; Heb. 10: 5-7; 2:14-17; John 15:13.
At the appointed time, God allowed evil men to nail the only begotten Son of God to the cross where He suffered terrible pain and died. He was laid in a borrowed tomb where His body stayed for three days and nights. God raised Him up after the three days and nights. With what body was Christ raised from the dead? The passages quoted below are accounts of what took place after Christ’s resurrection.
“One of the twelve disciples, Thomas (nicknamed the Twin), was not with the others when Jesus came. They told him, ‘We have seen the Lord!’ But he replied, ‘I won’t believe it unless I see the nail wounds in His hands, put my fingers into them, and place my hand into the wound in His side.’ Eight days later the disciples were together again, and this time Thomas was with them. The doors were locked; but suddenly, as before, Jesus was standing among them. ‘Peace be with you,’ He said. Then He said to Thomas, ‘Put your fingers here, and look at my hands. Put your hands into the wound in my side. Don’t be faithless any longer. Believe!’” (John 20: 24-27, NLT).
Luke wrote of another time when He appeared to His disciples:
“And they [the two disciples to whom Christ showed Himself on the way to Emmaus] rose that same hour and returned to Jerusalem. And they found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, ‘The Lord has risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!’ Then they told what had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of the bread [verses 13-31]. As they were talking about these things, Jesus Himself stood among them, and said to them, ‘Peace to you!’. But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit [or ghost]. And He said to them, ‘Why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. Touch Me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have! And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.” (Luke 24:33-40, ESV).
After His resurrection, He could pass through walls or physical objects, appear and disappear; He nevertheless had a physical body. But it was not the same as the physical body He had before His resurrection. That one could not go through walls or disappear. The resurrected body is a physical, glorified, powerful one. We know it is physical because it has flesh and bones which spirits don’t have (Luke 24:39).
His Body Did Not Decay In The Grave
As part of his Pentecostal message, Apostle Peter quoted from Psalm 16:8-11 (Septuagint version), a prophecy about what would happen to Christ at death. Verse 10 says His body would not rot in the grave. Peter made mention of this twice in his message (Acts 2:27,31). This further affirms what has been written in the Gospels by Luke and John that our Lord was having a physical body after His resurrection. The body which was buried after His death did not decay in the grave. This means that He rose with the same body. But a change took place in that body. It became an immortal one. John said we shall be like Him when He comes again. The type of immortal, physical body He had after His resurrection, and with which He ascended to heaven (Acts 1:9-11) is the type of body we will have after our bodies have been changed by God.
Did Christ Say We Will Be Chnaged To Spirits?
When the Sadducees posed a tricky and fantastic story to prove their erroneous belief that there is no resurrection after death, the Lord disproved them by saying, “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God. At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels of heaven.” (Matt. 22:29-30, NIV).
What Christ said here is that there is no marriage after the resurrection because there will be no more death occurring. Therefore, procreation of new babies to replace dying ones, which is the primary purpose of marriage, will become a foregone thing. Everyone in the Kingdom, male and female, will not marry or be given in marriage. They will become like angels who do not marry. Luke gave another sense in which we will become like angels in the kingdom of God. It is in the sense that will be like angels who don’t die (Luke 20:36; see Heb. 2:7,9). The Lord did not here mean that the people will become spirit beings like angels.
Apostle Paul devoted 1 Corinthians 15 to the subject of resurrection. Starting with the resurrection of Christ (vv. 1-11), he moved on to talk on the resurrection of the dead (vv. 12-34). He ended the chapter by talking on how the dead will be raised and the kind of body the resurrected person will have (vv. 35-58).
In verse 44 Paul wrote, “It [the body] is sown [buried] a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.” (ESV).
Here, the apostle said the dead will be raised with spiritual bodies. There is a difference between being “a spirit” and being “spiritual”. While a “spirit” is a non-physical, living being , having no physical substance which can be held or felt. But to be “spiritual” often means to be non-carnal or relating to, consisting of, or affecting the spirit.
The word “spiritual” (Greek: pneumatikos) is used 26 times in the New Testament almost exclusively by Paul. Apostle Peter was the other writer who used it twice in 1 Peter 2:5. The word is defined in Strong’s Greek Lexicon #4152 as non-carnal or supernatural, regenerate, religious.
In the places where the word “spiritual” is used, it does not mean “spirit”. For example, the law is said to be spiritual (Rom. 7:14) but the law is obviously not a spirit being. Paul also talked of “spiritual food” and “spiritual water” (1 Cor. 10:3,4) but these are not spirits. In Galatians 6:1, the apostle said, “if anyone is caught in any wrongdoing, you who are spiritual are to restore such a person in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you are not tempted as well.”
In 1 Cor. 9:11, Paul asked the Corinthians, “If we have sown spiritual things among you, is it too much if we reap material things from you?”
The word “spiritual” therefore means non-material things which affect our spirits. It also means to be non-carnal in our thoughts, words, motives and actions.
Now, what do the words “spiritual body” mean? Do they mean that we will be turned to spirit beings as many Christians suppose? The pulpit commentary defines it as “a body which is not under the sway of corporeal desires or of intellectual and passionate impulses, but is wholly dominated by the spirit, and therefore has no desire or capacity to fulfil the lust of the flesh.”
Paul said that “Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep [died]” (1 Cor. 15:20). He also wrote, “But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Saviour from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body” (Phil. 3:20-21, NIV).
How was the body of Jesus Christ after He was raised from the dead? It was physical – He could be seen, heard and touched (John 20: 24-29). He ate food in their presence (Luke 24:40-43). Yet He could pass through walls or physical barriers and could suddenly appear and disappear at any time (John 20:19, 26; Luke 24: 31). The body He possessed after His resurrection was indeed imperishable, glorious, powerful (1 Cor. 15: 42-43). Although it was a physical body, it had supernatural qualities which are not found in a natural body. The weaknesses and limitations of a natural body were no more in Him. Nevertheless, the possession of a “spiritual body” did not make Jesus Christ a disembodied spirit or ghost after His resurrection. This fact came out of the month of the Lord Himself (Luke 24:39). Spirits do not have physical bodies which can be touched.
It is evident from the Scriptures that we will undergo supernatural bodily change before we enter into the kingdom of God on the day of Christ’s return to the earth. But it is equally clear from the Bible that we will not be changed to spirit beings as is erroneously believed by many people. We will be given physical, powerful, immortal, supernatural and glorious bodies. There will be no sicknesses, diseases, pain, death. But we will not be left to be idle. Our lifestyle in the Kingdom will be similar to that of Adam and Eve in the Paradise of Eden before sin and death came upon them as a result of their disobedience.
Finally, a spiritual body will be that which is totally and perfectly under the control of God’s Spirit. The carnal, human nature will be non-existent in the body. No single person in the Kingdom, having been given the spiritual body, will have any problem doing the will of God.
