Recently, I’ve been thinking on what happens to our bodies, soul, and spirit when we die. We know the body goes to the grave and decays or is cremated and ashes scattered. But what should we think about the rest? Who will we be in heaven? And how does that relate to who we are now?
I confess that my early view of heaven was heavily shaped by popular media. The whole idea of ghosts walking around or being changed from humans to Angels, the bit about the fluffy white clouds and harps, the pearly gates was all I knew. Most of it came from wishful thinking. There’s a lot of things I wish were true. But wishful thinking doesn’t make them true. When it comes to our understanding of heaven or who we are now, we need to turn to the author and creator of both. It’s God’s view that matters, not our wishful ideas.
We learn from God’s Word that our soul and spirit go immediately to heaven (to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord). We read also that we will have resurrected bodies that are wonderful in every way. (Look in the mirror and imagine that!)
But in reading what the bible has to say about heaven, what piece of it we can know now, it occurs to me that I need to better understand who I am now. Like you, I was created and born into this world with mind, body, emotions! and soul. They’ve all grown and matured since those baby days, and continue to change in response to aging. I used to think that we all were spiritual beings living in a temporary earthly body, like hermit crabs, having a living organism inside a temporary shell- like body. But God’s Word persuades me to see myself as body, soul, mind, and spirit all completely intertwined, and that it will be this way not only from birth to death, but in heaven too. It is what defines me both now and forever, except for the miserably corrupt parts from which will be removed when I die. But in the middle of this process…
Something changed!
As a teenager, I recognized my inability to conquer sin on my own and asked Jesus to save me and be my Lord. At once and over time, I became, as Paul describes in 1 Corinthians 5:17, a “new creation.” “The old has gone and the new has come.” But even though I was now a “new creation” people still recognized me, and looking in the mirror, I seemed quite the same. As Randy Alcorn describes his own conversion experience, “I was a new person, and yet I was the same person I’d always been.”
Becoming a Christian doesn’t eliminate who we once were, it transforms us.
What was new was my way of perceiving myself and the world around me, along with my response to that new view. Seeing things through God’s eyes renews my minds and transforms my mind. But still, we continue through birth, salvation, life on earth, death, and resurrection as the mind-body-soul God uniquely created in us. We live one continuous life, destined toward God.
Thankfully, our minds and bodies will be perfectly redeemed in ways we long for but can’t understand. Joni Eareckson Tada explains: “Somewhere in my broken paralyzed body is the seed of what I will become. The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendor out resurrected legs. I’m convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?) the image I’ll see will be in mistakenly “Joni,” although a much better, brighter Joni.” Randy Alcorn, in his book Heaven, concludes: “Inside your body, even if it is failing, is the blueprint for your resurrection body. You may not be satisfied with your current body or mind but you’ll be thrilled with your resurrection upgrades. With them you’ll be better able to serve and glorify God and enjoy an eternity of wonders he has prepared for you.”
Think on that for a moment. In heaven you will become who you were always meant to be. God created you in a specific way and for a specific for a purpose, to enjoy and serve him now and forever in heaven. Who I am is not a compartmentalized collection of work, family, leisure interests, and spirit. We have just one life to live that connects who we are now to who we will be forever in heaven. I want to live with that in mind. How about you?