The Bible promises all who trust Jesus for salvation will be resurrected to life. The promise of the resurrection assures believers this life not is all there is and the sacrifices made for God in this life will be rewarded in the life to come. Because God promises a resurrection, the Christian expects eternal joy.

Many wonder what form people will have after the resurrection. Will everyone be spirits with no flesh? Will people look like they do now? Will people look like angels, wings and all, after the resurrection? First Corinthians 15:35 asks the question, “In what body are the dead raised back to life?” The next fifteen verses answer that question.

First Corinthians 15 says the resurrected body will not be like the body possessed before death. Paul compares the resurrection body to a seed and the plant it produces. A seed looks nothing like the plant which grows from it. Likewise, the resurrected body will be substantially different from that which preceded it.

The analogy of the seed also suggests a continuity between a person’s earthly body and the one he will possess in eternity. A seed has a discernible relationship to the plant it produces. Similarly, the resurrected body will maintain a discernible relationship with the natural body. What that relationship is the Bible does not say.

First Corinthians 15 calls the resurrected body a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:44) This does not mean that after the resurrection everyone will be disembodied spirits floating around in Heaven. Revelation 22 gives a brief description of the life of those in eternity. Those who are raised to life will eat from the fruit of the trees of life. (Revelation 22:2) Disembodied spirits do not eat, but those given a resurrected body do. (Luke 24:40-43)

The spiritual body is a perfect, physical body under the control of the Holy Spirit and not under the control of the sin nature. In Galatians 6:1 the Bible commands those who are “spiritual” to restore those who have fallen into sin. The spiritual ones in Galatia were not ethereal people who had cast off the confines of their physical form. They were people under the control of the Holy Spirit. The resurrected body will be spiritual in that same fashion. Those resurrected to life will live forever in perfect submission to the Holy Spirit.

The resurrected body will be completely free from sin and all its corruption. In First Corinthians 15:53 the Bible says this corruptible flesh will be replaced with a body which cannot be corrupted. This mortal flesh will be replaced with a body which cannot die. This weak body will be replaced with one possessing much greater ability. The resurrected body will be heavenly, spiritual and glorified.

In eternity humans will walk, talk, eat, drink, work and worship in a physical body. They will inhabit bodies of flesh and blood, but those bodies will not possess a sin nature. The resurrected body will be more glorious than can be imagined and will continue forever without fading in strength, health, ability, intellect, glory, or holiness.