Then He said to Thomas, “Reach here with your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand and put it into My side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing.

John 20:27

Jesus is embodied. Right now, and forever. Upon this truth our eternal salvation depends.

JESUS' EARTHLY BODY

Christians believe that a human baby born in Bethlehem is God (cf. Isaiah 7:14). To believe anything less is entirely unchristian (cf. John 8:24). J.C. Philpot wrote, “As all true Christians believe that the Lord Jesus Christ is God and man, this spiritual, saving knowledge of his Person and work, his love and grace, his blood and righteousness, divides itself into two branches: a gracious acquaintance with his Deity as the eternal Son of God, and gracious knowledge of his humanity as the Son of man.”[1] All Christians joyfully confess “The fullness of deity dwells in Him bodily” (cf. Col. 2:9). Indeed, “great is the mystery of godliness: He was revealed in the flesh…” (1 Timothy 3:16). 

The very one who created and sustains all things dwelt among us as man (cf. John 1:3, 14; Heb. 1:2-3). But it gets complex. We believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal God who flung the galaxies into existence (cf. Heb 1:10; Rev 4:11). While we’re at it, we might as well be as clear as possible; we believe he made his own mom (cf. John 1:3; Col 1:16-17). Isaac Ambrose pondered, “Is it not a wonder, a mystery, a great mystery, without all controversy, that the Son of God should be made of a woman, even made of that woman, which was made by Himself?” (cf. 1 Cor 8:6).[2] Digest that sentence again, slowly.

At the incarnation, God gave to Jesus—His eternal Son—a “flesh and blood” body…just like yours (cf. Hebrews 2:14). At His death, Jesus presented that same body to God to make you God’s child forever (cf. Hebrews 10:10). Beneath the shadow of the cross the Lord Jesus cried out, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, but a body You have prepared for Me” (Heb. 10:5). What vile men did to His body is stomach-churning. They covered His face and sucker punched Him (cf. Mark 14:65; Jn. 19:3). They spat on Him (Matt. 26:67). Others beat Him on the head with a reed (Matt. 27:30). Trained soldiers lacerated His exposed back with whips (cf. John 19:1). They peeled a robe from His back after it adhered to the wounds  (cf. Mark 15:20). With increasing mockery, they pressed a crown of thorns into His brow (Matt. 27:29). I assure you, those wicked men believed Jesus had a real human body.

After inflicting as much pain and mockery as possible without killing Him, godless men nailed His hands and feet to wooden beams in accord with God’s eternal plan for Him to endure our curse in His body (Gal. 3:13; 2 Cor. 5:21). After He died, and before His body was removed from the cross, a soldier speared Him in the side from which blood and water flowed (cf. John 19:34).

We believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the eternal God who flung the galaxies into existence. While we’re at it, we might as well be as clear as possible; we believe he made his own mom.

JESUS’ GLORIFIED BODY 

Three days after His crucifixion, Jesus was raised in His human body (cf. Rom 1:3-4). He “presented Himself alive.” Perhaps it was for the especially weak that Jesus demonstrated His resurrection “by many convincing proofs” (Acts 1:3). Among such “proofs,” Jesus ate in His risen body (Luke 24:42-43), cooked and served breakfast (John 21:12-13), and breathed on His disciples (John 20:21). Thomas touched Him (John 20:26-28). Overcome with joy and awe that “the gardener” was her God, Mary spontaneously “clung to Him” (John 20:17). On one occasion, five-hundred men saw Him at once (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:6). The Apostle John heard Jesus, saw Him, and touched Him with his own hands (cf. 1 John 1:1-3). The disciples met with the risen Jesus many times during the forty days following His bodily resurrection. Then, He gathered them together to instruct them one final time, and they watched as He ascended to heaven bodily. Then angels proclaimed to them He will return “in just the same way” (Acts 1:9-11).

JESUS’ ETERNAL BODY

When Stephen was being stoned to death for preaching the good news of salvation in Jesus, he saw “Jesus standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:55). Standing presupposes that Jesus retains His human body in glory. But we need not only speculate. The Scriptures are clear that Jesus is forever embodied. As we read the New Testament, we find that Jesus is even now “appearing before the face of God for us” (Heb. 9:24). When He returns “every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him” (Rev. 1:7). In glory, the saints will need no temple “for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple” (Rev. 19:22). 

On one occasion in His earthly ministry the body of Jesus was transfigured and shone like the sun (Matt. 17:2). In glory, there will be no nighttime, and yet, the sun itself will not exist. How will heaven be brightened? “The city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb” (v. 23).

The operative question is not whether the risen Jesus forever bears a human body but whether we have marinated in the blessings that are ours because He is human forever? Our Lord Jesus ever-lives as Man that men may live with God. Erase His enduring humanity, and we are doomed. As long as He remains “the Man, Christ Jesus” so long will we have an adequate “mediator between God and men” (1 Tim. 2:5). The nano-second the Spirit overshadowed the Virgin Mary, the Lord Jesus assumed humanity for the remainder of eternity. Since the incarnation one among the Triune is ever clothed with true humanity (cf. Micah 5:2). To deny the truth of Christ’s enduring humanity is to defect from Christianity entirely (1 John 4:2-3). The Athanasian Creed states this truth clearly.

…it is necessary for eternal salvation
that one also believe in the incarnation
of our Lord Jesus Christ faithfully.

Now this is the true faith:
That we believe and confess
that our Lord Jesus Christ, God's Son,
is both God and human, equally.

He is God from the essence of the Father,
begotten before time;
and he is human from the essence of his mother,
born in time;
completely God, completely human,
with a rational soul and human flesh;
equal to the Father as regards divinity,
less than the Father as regards humanity.

Although he is God and human,
yet Christ is not two, but one.
He is one, however,
not by his divinity being turned into flesh,
but by God's taking humanity to himself.
He is one,
certainly not by the blending of his essence,
but by the unity of his person.
For just as one human is both rational soul and flesh,
so too the one Christ is both God and human.

Allow Octavious Winslow’s meditation on Christ’s incarnation to catapult your heart into the third heaven:

…between two finite things there is always some relative proportion; thus a grain of sand bears some proportion to the Alps, and a drop of water bears some proportion to the ocean; but between the finite and the infinite there can be no possible proportion whatever. Now, in the person of the Son of God, the two extremes of being—the infinite and the finite—meet in strange and mysterious, but close and eternal, union. The Divine came down to the human,—Deity humbled itself to humanity. [3]

The operative question is not whether the risen Jesus forever bears a human body but whether we have marinated in the blessings that are ours because He is human forever?

GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY…FOREVER

The Bible minces no words about God’s will for your body. “For you have been bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:20). The only reasonable response to Jesus’ bodily sacrifice for us is to “offer our bodies as a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:2). 

Jesus “took the form of a bond-servant and was made in the likeness of men” (Phil 2:6). At the cross “God condemned sin in the flesh” of Jesus (Romans 8:3). Through Christ's bodily resurrection from the dead, God causes us to be born again (cf. 1 Peter 1:3). 

The Bible teaches that Jesus took on flesh and blood to save you from Satan’s grip (cf. Hebrews 2:14). Jesus is Immanuel and came to save us from our sins (cf. Matt. 1:21, 23). The primary reason His Father gave Him “a body” is so that He could give that same body to His Father as a sacrifice for you (cf. Hebrews 10:1-10). The evening before He was crucified Jesus explained His love would be demonstrated in giving His body for you (cf. 1 Cor. 11:24).

The day He rose from the dead, Jesus told His frightened followers, “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet.” If you struggle to believe that, you’re not alone. The people who were in the room that day were so overcome with elation they couldn’t believe it. So, the merciful Jesus took it a step further. “While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, ‘Have you anything here to eat?' They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; and He took it and ate it before them” (Luke 24:41-43). 

Don’t be jealous that you weren’t there. One day soon every believer will sit down in our glorified body with the same glorified Jesus for a better meal—“the marriage supper of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:9). And forever, we will join Jesus in the bliss of ‘glorifying God in our body’ (1 Cor. 6:20).

Jordan Thomas is a TCT pastor at Grace Church in Memphis, TN.