Transcript

ANNOUNCER: Today on Grace in Focus, we’re going to be talking about believers and what it’s going to be like to be with the Lord after this current life is over. Resurrected bodies glorified bodies. We know that according to 1 John, we will be like him. But what does all this mean? A great discussion just ahead. Grace in Focus is a ministry of the Grace Evangelical Society and our website is faithalone.org. There you can find out more about our free online seminary, our free magazine also called Grace in Focus, and our national annual convention coming up next May 2026, May 18th through the 21st. Get all the information about us from faithalone.org. 

And now with the continuation of our series on eschatology, here is today’s discussion with Bob Wilkin and Philippe Sterling.

BOB: Well Philippe, one of the issues you’re going to be discussing in your course on eschatology in the GES Seminary next semester deals with the issue of what our glorified, resurrected bodies will be like. So this is something that is not commonly discussed in sermons or even in books, right? 

PHILIPPE: Not to any depth, other than just mentioning, but resurrection taking place. Of course, we talk about the Rapture and when the Lord comes, you know, those of us who are alive will be caught up, you know, to meet those who are resurrected, who have died, you know, previously the believers and will be with the Lord. And of course, what’s all that Jesus at his resurrection is the firstfruit of the resurrection. So that being the case, we’re told when we see Him, we shall be like Him, as John talks about, I think, the Rapture in his letter in 1 John. 

BOB: And we know His glorified body was physical, right? He said to Thomas, “Come here and touch My hands and see the marks and My side and see that it’s Me.” And He ate fish. 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, He asked him to give Him some fish—

BOB: In John 21. 

PHILIPPE: And he ingested fish. At the same time, the disciples were there in a closed room, locked room, possibly, and all of a sudden, He is there in their midst. 

BOB: Star Trek. The Lord teleported him in. But we even see that with the Philip the evangelist. 

PHILIPPE: Oh, yeah, he’s taken up out by  the Holy Spirit and taken, you know, to—

BOB: Azotus, I think it was. It was like 25 miles away. 

PHILIPPE: And then at the end, after talking to the Ethiopian, you know, there he’s taken up again and put back. So if we said that our bodies would be like that of Jesus’ resurrected body, glorified body, then what are some of the different components? We’re told also concerning the overcomers that they will have access to their tree of life that produces twelve different kinds of fruit, each in its season. So they’ll be ingesting. 

BOB: And by the way, the twelve fruits in its seasons, doesn’t that suggest there will be twelve months in a year? 

PHILIPPE: Yes. That suggests there’s some kind of perhaps a solar system, you know. 

BOB: And seasons.

PHILIPPE: And seasons and all. 

BOB: So these glorified bodies then, they will be physical, right? 

PHILIPPE: Yeah. Jesus says, you know, touch me. So we’ll be, there’ll be touch and sensations and taste. And yet at the same time, perhaps some unusual properties, like instantaneous movement throughout the new Jerusalem eventually and throughout the new earth and perhaps to the different solar systems and to the different galaxies and everything for those who are glorified and resurrected. 

BOB: Well, now Frank Carmical and his book, The Omega Reunion, and we did two articles in our journal, you can check out, just look up Frank Carmical. He did two articles on this. He suggests that only overcoming believers from the church age or maybe overcoming believers of all time are going to have these special abilities. 

PHILIPPE: Have to carry out perhaps their functions as rulers. 

BOB: So like the ability to fly, let’s say, or to teleport, that that would only be for the overcoming believers, but not for the non-overcoming. Let me throw out another thing. Isn’t it true that Jesus says in the resurrection, men won’t be given into marriage, but they’ll be like the angels? What does that mean? 

PHILIPPE: Yeah, again, those will be for the glorified resurrected believers. There’s no need of procreation for them. So there’s a static number and there’s no procreation occurring among the glorified and the resurrected. Even though there’s a small group that believe otherwise that procreation may continue for the glorified and resurrected in some ways, but I don’t hold to that view. But then there is the idea of a different mode of humanity. Those who go from the millennial period as natural-bodied people who may be transformed to continue on into the new heaven and the new earth. 

BOB: Okay, before we get there, let’s go through the traditional dispensational understanding, which is that during the Millennium, the number of people in the Church will not change. In fact, it won’t change forever. 

PHILIPPE: The believers of the Church, as you all resurrect, they’re just qualified, they’re static in terms of number. 

BOB: But in the Millennium, according to the traditional dispensational view, the number of people in Israel is going to skyrocket. And the number of Gentiles, the number of the people in what Revelation 21:24 calls the nations, they’re going to skyrocket. So that by the end of the Millennium, there will be hundreds of billions or trillions of people, hundreds of millions or hundreds of billions or trillions of Jews, right? Israel will be huge and all the nations will be… 

PHILIPPE: But the millennial period is a present earth transformed partly. So billions certainly, perhaps, you know, tens of billions, you know. Of course, there will be distinct nations, Assyria and Egypt, there will be a great road, you know, where they’ll both come for the Feast of Tabernacles. 

BOB: That’s all mentioned in Scriptures, the Old Testament. And so we have individual nations mentioned, the church won’t be growing, but the nations and Israel will be growing. Now, you raised another issue, there was a guy named Patterson wrote a book called The Greater Life and— 

PHILIPPE: Works of Christ. 

BOB: Works of Christ in like 1898, I think. And other people, Carmical, follow him and you and I do as well. and in this view, at the end of the Millennium, there will be some, either children born or at least parents who do not pass on a sin nature to their offspring. 

PHILIPPE: There is a transformation to a sinless nature that does occur, perhaps, and go on into the new earth and the other nations, that are talked about in Revelation 21 and 22, whose leaves of the tree of life are for the healing, the well-being, too of the nations.

BOB: Yeah, what verse is that? Isn’t that 22? And by the way, that puzzles most interpreters, because people say if we’re on the new earth, and everybody has glorified bodies, why would the nations need any healing? 

ANNOUNCER: You’re invited to subscribe to the Grace Evangelical Society’s YouTube channel. You will find our Monday, Wednesday and Friday videos there enlightening and encouraging, and even probably humorous at times if you like Bob Wilkin’s humor. Indeed you will get Biblical truth about Free Grace themes like faith alone for eternal salvation and why  the Grace Evangelical Society is zero point Calvinistic. We come your way three times a week at the Grace Evangelical YouTube channel. Check it out and tell a friend about the Grace Evangelical Society.

BOB: Do you have that verse? 

PHILIPPE: It says, talking about the tree of life, he says, “In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river,” that’s verse 2, Revelation 22, “was a tree of life, which bore twelve fruits, each tree yielding its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.” 

BOB: And so in this view, the reason they need healing for the nations is because these are people in natural bodies. And by the way, I have a theory, and kind of like my mentor, Zane Hodges, I’m kind of contrarian, so I’m going to hold views that not everybody holds. But let me throw this out. Don’t y’all love puppies? Don’t y’all love kittens? Don’t y’all love babies? 

PHILIPPE: I love children. I have two grandchildren. 

BOB: Right. Wouldn’t it be kind of boring if for all of eternity there were no puppies? For all of eternity there were no kittens? For all of eternity there were no babies? Remember Jesus said, “Permit the little children to come to Me for of such is the kingdom of heaven?” It seems to me that if there was an eternity with no procreation going on, then God’s original purpose in the Garden of Eden was thwarted. 

PHILIPPE: Right, and that’s one of the main arguments for seeing this mode of humanity in the natural mode, but yet immortal, that will continue on and propagating to continuously expand into the new heavens. 

BOB: Well, in this view, ultimately the new earth will eventually be full. We don’t know how many people this earth could accommodate. It looks like the new earth is going to be bigger, but whatever the number is, you know, you were talking about 10 billion, 100 billion. I was talking about trillions. Regardless, at some point, the earth is going to be full. And remember in the original creation, what is it, Genesis 1:28? Be fruitful— 

PHILIPPE: and multiply and fill the earth. 

BOB: So eventually they would have done it, right? One of the theories, by the way, why are all this redundancy in the universe? There may be trillions of planets, maybe even trillions of galaxies. Most scientists say that planets like earth that can sustain human life, there are probably hundreds of millions, if not billions of such planets. 

PHILIPPE: They talk about the Goldilocks environment where they have the planets that can sustain physical life. 

BOB: And part of the theory that scientists have is that the universe is expanding, so that the number of planets keeps growing. What if in eternity God plans for us to populate those planets? I heard an ETS, or Evangelical Theological Society presentation, where a man said the reason for the redundancy is the glory of God and the beauty of God. God loves beauty. I think the reason God put all these planets out there is God intended us to go out there and populate them. 

Now look, I know that Mormonism teaches that we’re eventually going to populate all the planets and Mormonism is heresy. But that doesn’t mean that they’re wrong that we’re eventually going to populate planets. It seems to me that God has given us this marvelous universe for us to explore it and develop it. If Adam and Eve had not sinned, eventually they would have filled the earth. I don’t believe God would have cut off procreation at that point. So eventually we would have started populating other planets.

PHILIPPE: And they would have developed the technology to bring that all about. In a perfect view of this Star Trek universe, we might say. 

BOB: Absolutely. And I think Adam and Eve get a bad rap, because in my view, they were probably the pinnacle of creation. They were geniuses. Minute one, Adam has a complete vocabulary. 

PHILIPPE: Fully developed language and capability to observe and name that. I was a biology major, like you. And I know how difficult it is to understand and categorize and develop a whole taxonomy. 

BOB: Adam and Eve were geniuses, and we don’t know how developed society was before the Flood, but it was probably highly developed. Of course, what they did with the pyramids is amazing. There’s all kinds of amazing things that have been done by humans, and what we will do in eternity future, we don’t know. 

PHILIPPE: We’re told that “His servants shall serve him.” Revelation 22—forever. 

BOB: Well, I hope we’ve given you something to think about. In the meantime, let’s keep grace in focus. 

ANNOUNCER: Read many from our library of thousands of free magazine and journal articles online at faithalone.org/resources. That’s faithalone.org. Did you miss an episode of Grace in Focus that you really wanted to hear? Just come to faithalone.org. That’s faithalone.org. We have all our past episodes right there on the site. Our team is really great about answering questions, comments, and feedback. If you’ve got some, we hope to hear from you. Let me give you our email address so you can do just that. It’s radio@faithalone.org. That’s radio@faithalone.org. 

Now, friend, we thank you for being with us Monday through Friday this week, and we’ll do it again next week. In the meantime, we hope you have a great weekend, and let’s keep grace in focus.