Jesus Is the Bridge Ministries

Key Verses: Matthew 17:1 And after six days Jesus taketh Peter, James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up into an high mountain apart, 2 And was transfigured before them: and his face did shine as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light. 3 And, behold, there appeared unto them Moses and Elias talking with him.

Luke 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried; 23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

Our identity, what makes us who we are, is what the Bible calls our "soul". The soul consists of our mind, our thoughts, our memories, our emotions. There are some who teach that, once we die, we will lose all memory of our pasts, the idea being that our memories of this life are so full of pain and loss that we could never carry them into Heaven, where there is no suffering, and where all tears are dried from our eyes. Further, some say, we won't have real physical bodies in Heaven at all, but some kind of spiritual existence.

These notions are clearly contrary to the teaching of scripture. Jesus himself taught through the parable of the rich man and Lazarus that we will recognize those we knew in our lives in the world, not only in Heaven but even in Hell. Even in the Old Testament, Samuel appeared to Saul after Samuel's death, and was recognizable (Samuel 28:12-15). On the Mount of Transfiguration, the disciples recognized Moses and Elijah as they talked to Jesus. The knowledge we have of ourselves, one another, and the Lord is severely limited here; Paul likens it to looking through a piece of darkened glass. When we are with the Lord, we will know him and others completely; just as the Lord already knows us, we will know him, and one another.

As to what form our new bodies will take, the Bible is replete with references to the physical reality of our everlasting "temples". Paul writes that our bodies will take on a different form, necessarily since our present ones aren't designed to last forever (1 Corinthians 15:35-50). Some teachers insist that the reference here to a "spiritual body" is proof that we will not have bodies in the sense we do now, but only a spiritual existence. Jesus is our model; as he is the Firstborn from the Dead, those of us who follow after will be like him. That being the case, we will have a body that can be touched (John 20:27), that will consume food and drink (John 21:9-15), and that is recognizable as being a body, which had flesh and bone (Luke 24:30, 39, and others). The account in Revelation of life in the new Heaven and Earth says that we will shed tears that God will dry, and that we will both eat of the Tree of Life and drink of the river of the water of life. Eternal life is not just some spiritual metaphor of life in a mindless Nirvana, but even more real than the reality we know as life now.

Jesus Is the Bridge Ministries

What's New

Will We Know One Another in Heaven?

The Bible's Answers to Man's Questions