Raised in Splendor

This article is excerpted from Raised in Splendor by Jason Alligood.

Jesus’ Glorified Nature

One of the reasons it is so difficult for us to conceive of glorification is that Scripture does not give us a wealth of information on our glorified state. However, we can look to Jesus’ glorified state and seek to glean as much as we can from Him.

Here we look to the resurrection of Jesus to begin understanding glorification. Paul states our relation to Christ—our union with Him—in His resurrection body in terms of image bearing (1 Cor 15:47-49). He uses the two Scriptural representatives of mankind as the grounding of our understanding. Paul states that we who are made in the image of Adam are made of dust, and that Jesus’ origins are from heaven, therefore He is the man of heaven whose image we will bear as resurrected believers. Paul submits that, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor can corruption inherit incorruption.” (1 Cor 15:50). Paul did not say that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God, but rather that our flesh and blood as it exists today cannot inherit the kingdom of God. There must be a transformation, that our corruptible and mortal bodies must be clothed with incorruptible and immortal qualities.

Paul’s basis for saying this is that Christ’s resurrection body has taken on these qualities (1 Cor 15:49). Just as in our old creation bodies in Adam we were created in dust, so in our new creation resurrected bodies we will bear the image of the Man of Heaven.

Free from Sin and Its Effects

Even though Christ never sinned, we still do. We are sinners. Indeed, this is why Christ had to come to redeem us from our sin, and yet we still deal with the effects of sin, though we are free from sin’s slavery.

Even as Paul talks about the justification, sanctification, and glorification of believers in Rom 6, he then is very transparent about the struggle of sin that is real for the believer in Rom 7. In short, Paul states that there are times when he is so frustrated because he does the things he doesn’t want to do, while also not doing the things he desires to do.

If we are believers in Christ, we get this struggle! Yet, at the end of this Paul says something very important. He asks a rhetorical question that give a framework for the hope of which we are speaking in this book. After all of this talk of desiring to do what God commands and yet still recognizing this principle of flesh that is waging war against the principle of God’s law which he as a Christian now desires to do in his heart he says, “Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Rom 7:24). Paul’s response is one of thanksgiving, hope, and joy: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” Paul is saying (as he writes this letter to the Romans under the inspiration of the Spirit) that there is coming a day when believers will no longer deal with sin, nor a body that is weighed down by sin.

Sin affects both the wear and tear of our bodies as well as the ability for us to resist it. Usually when I hear folks talk about their glorified bodies, they typically are referring to the first of these ailments. This is our own sort of passive affliction, though we can do damage to ourselves for sure. Most believers recognize that at our glorification we will no longer have to deal with the aches and pains brought about because of sin, but how often are we thinking about the active sin in our hearts and minds that will be eliminated at our glorification? This is what drives Paul’s exuberance. In one place he minimizes the aches and pains that are far outweighed by the glory that is to come (2 Cor 4:17), but here he emphasizes the full and final freedom from sin that we will experience, because we will share in the glorified life of Christ.