In inspired Scripture, St. Paul tells us:
“[The Lord Jesus Christ] will change our lowly body to conform with his glorified body by the power that enables him also to bring all things into subjection to himself.” 1
This means that we can glimpse what our own resurrected bodies will be like someday by studying the resurrected body of Jesus Christ.
• Jesus’ Resurrected Body is the Same Body He Died In
The tomb is empty on Easter morning because Jesus’ body is raised.2 On Easter evening, Jesus shows his disciples the wounds of his hands, feet, and side, which he received on the cross.3 His body retains its “flesh and bones” and can be touched and held.4 Our own dead bodies will similarly be reclaimed and resurrected, from the tomb, the sea, or the dust of the earth.5 St. Paul is so insistent on our own future resurrection he says, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then neither has Christ been raised.” 6
• Jesus Resurrected can do the Ordinary Things He did Before
On Easter Sunday, Jesus walks and talks.7 He can breathe and eat.8 He knows who he is and he remembers his friends.9 (There is no reason to think that the dead will forget the lives they lived or their loved ones.)
• Jesus’ Resurrected Body can also do Extraordinary Things
Though he is no ghost, Jesus can appear suddenly within a locked room or vanish from another.10 He can make himself unrecognizable to those who know him.11 His body can ascend into heaven.12 And now, resurrected to life, he dies no more, for “death no longer has power over him.” 13
The spiritual gifts granted to some saints on earth (such as bi-location, levitation, incorruptibility, etc.) suggest powers belonging to our future glorified bodies. For her various apparitions, the Blessed Virgin Mary may be modifying her glorified body’s physical appearance (for example, to be as a dark-haired native at Guadalupe in Mexico, but fair and blond-haired at Champion, Wisconsin.)
• Our Conclusion
The bodies in which we live and die will be same ones in which we rise. Our glorified bodies will be able to do the familiar things we know, yet we shall also possess new abilities which seem extraordinary to us now. St. Paul describes our future glorified bodies in this way:
“Someone may say, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come back?’
It is sown corruptible; it is raised incorruptible. It is sown dishonorable; it is raised glorious. It is sown weak; it is raised powerful. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
That which is corruptible must clothe itself with incorruptibility, and that which is mortal must clothe itself with immortality.” 14
Endnotes:
- Philippians 3:21
- Matthew 28:6
- Luke 24:40, John 20:20
- Luke 24:39, John 20:17, Matthew 28:9
- John 5:28-29, Revelation 20:13
- 1 Corinthians 15:13
- Luke 24:15
- John 20:22, Luke 24:42-43
- Luke 24:39, John 20:16-17
- John 20:19 & 26, Luke 24:31
- Luke 24:16, John 21:12
- Acts 1:9, Mark 16:19; Luke 24:51
- Romans 6:9
- 1 Corinthians 15:35, 42-44 & 53
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