Sermon Tone Analysis

Will We Be Ourselves?

Unless we grasp the resurrection, we won’t believe that we’ll continue to be ourselves in the afterlife.

Listen to how Job describes what He will be like on the New Earth after the resurrection.

Job 19:

Or listen to what Jesus says after His resurrection:

What we see here is that we will have distinct identity as individuals.

We will not be weird phantoms and we will not transcend ourselves.

We will be the same people as we are now - without all the bad parts, forever.

If you know Jesus, you will be you - without all the sin and bad parts - forever.

Isn’t that great?

Will We Become Angels?

How many times have you heard that children become angels when they die?

The short answer to this question is no.

Death is much like a relocation - a move - of the same person from one place - the present Earth - to the present Heaven - to the eternal Heaven called the New Earth.

It’s the same person who leaves their earthly body to be with the Lord.

Angels are angels.

Humans are humans.

But here is a cool thought - outside of God Himself - angels know more about us than anyone else.

Then

Here Jesus seems to indicate that there are angels that watch over us from childhood.

That we have protector angels if you would.

Think about this: what type of stories will angels tell us on the New Earth?

Think of all the times they’ve guarded us, gone to fierce battle for us in the spiritual realm?

Isn’t that a great thought?

So, no we don’t become angels, but we will get to be with the angels in Heaven and interact with them.

Will We Have Desires On The New Earth?

Yes, we will have many desires on the New Earth, the just won’t be unholy desires.

Colorado Illustration: Micky’s fajitas eagerly desire them.

On the New Earth when we desire something and enjoy it, we’ll be enjoying Him - because remember there will be nothing that is in competition with His glory and goodness - everything will serve to help us see and love Him.

Think about it: on the New Earth when we finish a delicious meal - soon we will be eagerly awaiting the next and that will be good.

When we go on a ride in a theme park and have a blast we will look forward to the next - no motion sickness just pure joy.

See Christianity is unique students when it comes to its perspective on emotions and desires, the bible teaches that they will be sanctified and full-filled on the New Earth.

So for instance, Buddhists believe that our desires will one day be eliminated - how radically different is that from Christianity.

The Bible teaches that Jesus takes our sins while redeeming our desires.

Or think about what CS Lewis writes in his Narnia story “The Last Battle” which pictures people on the New Earth - Lucy says “I’ve got this feeling we’ve got to the country where everything is allowed.”

You know why?

Because we will perfectly love God and be able to do what we please.

It will all be good and sanctified.

On The New Earth Will We All Have Beautiful Bodies?

Well we know that our resurrection bodies will be free of the curse of sin, redeemed, and restored to their original beauty and purpose that goes all the way back to the garden of Eden.

But will our bodies be beautiful?

Like will I have a chiseled six pack, The Rock type pecks that can do the “Peck Pop of Love” and send berries flying.

Will I be six-ten and have lion mane hair?

Well, I expect that yes we will be good-looking on the New Earth, but not in a jacked weight room, artificial implant, skin-tuck, tanning both sort of way.

I think we should expect that God will decide what our perfected bodies will look like and they most certainly will not look alike.

Different heights and weights seem as likely as different skin colors.

Racial identities will continue:

Listen to what Augustine says in “The City of God”:

[The body] shall be of that size which it either had attained or should have attained in the flower of its youth, and shall enjoy the beauty that arises from preserving symmetry and proportion in all its members…overgrown and emaciated persons need not fear that they shall be on the New Earth of such a figure as they would not be even in this world if they could help it.”

Augustine seems to think - I believe rightly so - we will be better than our best on Earth.

In fact, I think the beauty we experience now on this Earth is only a shadow of the beauty we once had in the garden.

If Adam and Eve, in their perfected state could see us now I think they would be filled with shock and pity at how the curse has affected our bodies - including our beauty.

So yes, we will likely be beautiful, but with a natural type of beauty.

Will Our New Bodies Have New Abilities?

So, if you could have any super power what would it be?

So, in the garden of gethsemane remember what happened?

What happened to the disciples?

They fell asleep - they couldn’t stay awake.

But in Heaven our bodies will never fail us.

Remember how I tried to do my Parkour at the lock-in - my mind wrote a check that my body could not cash.

But on the new earth they’ll work in perfect concert with our resurrected minds.

So here’s the deal Christ’s resurrected body had an ability to appear suddenly, apparently coming through a locked door:

And he seemed to be able to disappear:

Also, what did Christ do when He left earth?

He defied gravity and ascended into the air - he flew.

It’s possible that the resurrected Christ has certain physical abilities that we will not have on the New Earth.

However, we are told in many passages that our resurrection bodies will be like Christ’s - remember His is the prototype for ours.

So maybe, we will be able to dive deep in the ocean like a Dolphin or fly like an eagle, run like a cheetah or climb a mountain like those crazy mountain goats.

But I don’t think we need to get crazy with this one - because we know that the eternal city will have streets and gates - that’s from - and that implies normal ground traffic.

Think about it - it could be that our physical limitations like not being able to fly - has caused us to take dominion over the earth and create airplanes - will also be used like this on the New Earth.

Perhaps, like we talked about weeks ago what has been envision in sci-fi, like Star Wars or Star Trek, awaits us on the New Earth.

Will We Be Male or Female on The New Earth?

Now this may sound like a silly question, but if you read literature on Heaven and the New Earth people say something like this a lot:

“There will be no male and female human beings.

We shall all be children of God and sex will be no part of our nature.”

Or, “They have reached that androgynous condition in which sex distinctions are transcended, or rather, in which the qualities of both sees are blended together.”

People try to use to prove this assumption:

But the problem with this is that this verse is actually referring to something that has taken place in the here and now.

What this verse means is that in Christ all have an equal value regardless of gender.

It’s about equality.

Let me ask you this: Was Jesus genderless after the resurrection?

No, in fact numerous times he is given a masculine pronoun in the gospels.

Students on the New Earth we will never be genderless because humans aren’t genderless.

Our bodies are not genderless.

We will be male and female - like we are now - on the New Earth.

This falls under the principle of “sameness” or “continuity”.

What Age Will We Appear On the New Earth?

So, for babies who’ve been aborted or children who’ve died young, what age will they appear on the New Earth?

What about people who die wrinkled in their 80-90s, what age will they appear?

During the Medieval Period of the church, thousands of pages were written, they came to two close conclusions: we will appear 30 or 33 the age of Christ when He was crucified.

Present theologians tend to lean somewhere between 20’s-30s due to the process of how our DNA replicates.

But listen to this passage that deals with the New Earth:

Isaiah 11:6-9

It seems that these children will presumable grow up on the New Earth.

That parents who had to experience the pain of not getting to see a child grow up will get to experience that perfectly on the New Earth.

This isn’t directly stated, but it seems like an appropriate conclusion based on this passage.

Here’s what I’m convinced of - likely, people will be somewhere in their 20’s-30’s but we will appear as we know them.

So, for instance your mom will appear to you as older (not old and wrinkled) but just older than you, no particular age.

Yet they will appear young to their parents.

And your children will appear young to you, but of a similar age to their siblings.