GOD IS ABLE - 22. Transformation

~ For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. -Philippians 3:20-21

Recently I watched the video of a funeral service for a man who died at age 34 after a year of treatments for stomach cancer. As a teenager he had studied the reasons why it was foolish to believe that Jesus is God. Then, in college, he became friends with a follower of Jesus who asked him to consider the reasons why people do believe He is God.

After about five years of examination, his beliefs came to rest in Jesus too; and for the next 12 years he talked and wrote about why it makes sense to follow Jesus as the Savior and the Lord. But recently his body went into a grave, and now his family is without him.

As today’s text says, our bodies are indeed lowly. (Some Bible translations even use the word "vile," not because our bodies are disgusting but because that word originally meant "of little account.") Tiny bacteria may ravage them, and suddenly we are engulfed by infection; normal cells may be ruined by disease, and soon we are overrun with uncontrollable cancers or other abnormalities. The bodies that function so beautifully can be felled by microscopic enemies.

These are bleak prospects if nature is all we have. Paul writes of this here in the third chapter of his letter to Christians in the Roman city of Philippi. He said that many people focused their thoughts only on earthly things (3:19). Philippi was known for gold mines and prosperity, so there must have been plenty of attractions, just as there are for us today. But what's the point of earthly things when our lowly bodies fail?

Paul saw the alternative! Followers of Jesus the Lord can set their thoughts on heavenly things instead. Paul himself reached passionately towards the prize of God's heavenly calling. "We eagerly wait for the Savior!" he wrote. The Bible view is that, upon His return, Jesus will transform the bodies of His followers, both living and dead, into undying, permanent bodies of glory.

This passage also mentions a time when He will take charge of all things, even death itself. His immeasurable energy then is the same force He will apply to the transformation of our bodies. The effects of sin and sorrow will ultimately be erased not just from those bodies but from the entire universe. He is able! No wonder Paul's very next declaration is, "Therefore, stand firm in the Lord" (4:1).