What Will Our Resurrected Bodies Be Like?

Michie said:

by Msgr. Charles Pope

St Paul writes to the Philippians of the glory that our currently lowly bodies will one day enjoy:

He 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 (Phil 3:19).

I once spoke with an older woman who wasn’t all that pleased to hear that her body was going to rise and be joined again to her soul. “Oh, Father, you don’t mean this old decrepit body, do you? If my body has to rise, I’m hoping for an improved model!”

I think most of us can relate to the desire that our current body be improved. And it surely will be. Notice that the passage above says that our lowly (weak, diseased, and often overweight) bodies will be changed and will reflect the glory of the resurrected body of Jesus. Yes, this old general issue clunker is going to be upgraded to a luxury model; I’m headed for first class.

When we recall the four last things (death, judgment, Heaven, and Hell), we ought to consider for a moment what Scripture and Tradition have to say about what our resurrected bodies will be like.

Now an important starting point in discussing this matter is a little humility. The fact is, a lot of what I am going to say here is speculation—but it is not wild speculation; it is rooted in Scripture. However, Scripture is describing things that are somewhat mysterious and difficult to reduce to words. Further, Scripture does not always provide as much detail as we might like. Sometimes we are left to infer qualities of the resurrected body based only on scriptural texts whose main purpose is something else (the resurrection of Jesus). For example, in one passage Jesus is described as appearing and disappearing at will in a room with locked doors. The point of the text is to tell us that He appeared, not necessarily to convey that the resurrected body has something we have come to call “agility” (see below). The text does not elaborate further, so we are left to note things about Jesus’ resurrected body and then apply them to our own. It is not wrong to do this, for Paul above says that our resurrected bodies will have qualities that conform to Jesus’ resurrected body. But the point is that the biblical texts do not elaborate on this or other qualities in a detailed manner and so we are left to speculate and make inferences.

Continued below.

What Will Our Resurrected Bodies Be Like? - Spiritual Direction

"When we recall the four last things, we ought to consider for a moment what Scripture and Tradition have to say about what our resurrected bodies will be like." - Monsignor Charles Pope

spiritualdirection.com

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I think it is pretty clear. It is not a tune up.
Flesh and blood cannot enter...
Exactly what a 'spiritual body' looks like, who knows. Any conjecture on the subject is just that.
We are a spirit living in a body of flesh.
Our spirit will remain and be raised in an eternal body, not of flesh, not with modifications. A new spiritual body suited for eternal life in heaven.

1 Cor:15
But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 Not all flesh is the same: People have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.

42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.

If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.

50 I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— 52 in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. 54 When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

I think we'll be given new bodies, based on the template of our soul. If our resurrected bodies require our earthly remains to be a part of it, then every single Christian grave logically should be empty. If we went around digging up all the Christian graves around the place I think we'd find the earthly remains, or what's left of them, would still be there. Some of the incorrupt Catholic saints lie in state in glass coffins around the Vatican while I assume their heavenly bodies are already alive and well, thank you. As my Protestant pastor said "They're doing something up there!"

There are those who are vaporised by an atomic bomb or other intense heat, lost to the sea with their component parts all over the place, or cremated so their component atoms could be anywhere.

But our souls continues to exist, and I think God will give us a new body based on that template but which will also depend on some other factors - how well we served God and other people being the foremost.

We didn't give ourselves our earthly bodies - they were a gift, for better or worse (as a five foot, four inch runt with a very, very smooth hairstyle - number one blade all over - and defective hearing, I expect a six foot herculean frame, locks like Andre Reu, and hearing with perfect pitch!).

We won't give ourselves our heavenly bodies either. They will be just as much a gift as our earthly bodies. But we will still have the same basic spirit which is indestructible, and it will take our personal history with us, as my father found out the night he died and appeared in my room.