Just like God used His hands to form Adam out of the dust of the ground and “fashion” him with an intricate cardiovascular system, respiratory system, muscular system, nervous system, etc., He’ll do the very same thing with our resurrection body.

But, as Jordan says, “That body you now have has is literally gonna be beyond comprehension then . . . If you think you’re fearfully and wonderfully made now, wait ’til you see what’s coming—the systems of the new body will be so far in advance beyond.”

As journalist Joe Kovacs points out in his newly released book Shocked By the Bible, the Old and New testaments are sprinkled with references to God’s own body features—His head with hair, His face, His eyes, His mouth, His lips, His voice, His nose and nostrils, His hands, His fingers and His feet.

*****

The Apostle Paul tells us in II Corinthians 5 that “we know if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Jordan explains, “That’s where you’re gonna be for eternity and that’s why your body is important. Your earthly body is not just some cloth you exist in—some hapless prison, some meaningless abode that you live in—it has an integral purpose in the plan of God because it’s the vehicle in which He put you without which you’re not complete.

“It’s a required part of your humanity and we’ll be a required part of your glorification in order for you to function in the purpose God has for you. It’s the vehicle of your inner man; the home for your soul and it’s necessary to your soul’s full action and function.

“And that’s why in the intermediate state between death and the resurrection you’re found naked. That is, you’re not ready to go to work yet.”

*****

Paul says it was the knowledge that the Lord will “change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body” that gave him a new perspective on what life was to be in his current body.

He continues in II Corinthians 5, “For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
[4] For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
[5] Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
[6] Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord:
[7] (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)
[8] We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
[9] Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
[10] For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.”

Jordan explains, “Paul’s saying, ‘This hope I have out here, it’s not making me have suicide kinds of ideas and it’s not making me where I’m just discontent with down here and can’t stand to be here. I’ve got a new perspective on what life here is all about. And my living here— I live with eternity in view. I live with the perspective of what’s real, lasting and never-ending.’

“If this body is what you lived in and thought was all there was going to be, or that maybe after this body died you’d come back as a cow or a roach or whatever—you know, the reincarnation routine—you wouldn’t have much of a hope because even when you hope to do better . . . I mean, (believers in reincarnation) don’t hope to get much higher on the ladder than what they are now and Paul’s talking about sharing God’s glory.”

*****

A favorite story inside my church about soul-winning efforts has to do with an aunt who approached her niece while she was working the checkout counter at a Dominick’s and said to her, in part, “We’re going to get new bodies and we’re getting out of here!”

The spur-of-the-moment encounter happened shortly after the 1997 Heaven’s Gate suicide scandal (in which cult followers planned their departure in conjunction with the appearance of Comet Hale-Bopp), and the niece, who later got saved, admitted thinking to herself, “My aunt’s gone off her rocker! What’s happened to her!”

*****

Similarly, Jordan tells the story of how when he was 19 and doing handyman work with a friend at a lady’s home, the friend began witnessing to her in the front yard about how he longed to go to heaven and be with the Lord.

“This friend of mine began to wax eloquent and, as I’ve told you before, when you hear Christians talk about, ‘Boy, I just wish the Lord would come today,’ that’s sort of a quasi-Christian suicide. They know you shouldn’t take a .38 and blow your brains out, so the way to practice escapism is, ‘Oh, Lord, please come today,’ and that’s the way this lady took it and she pulled me aside and said, ‘How well do you know him? He needs some help; he’s contemplating suicide.’

“She was just absolutely confident this guy was having mental problems and I said, ‘No, no, no, no.” and she said, ‘Oh, yes he is! He’s only 19 and talking about going NOW—that he hopes to be there today!’

“I got to thinking about that and I thought, ‘You know, lost people could get that idea about you.’ Sometimes we can come across that way.”

*****

When Paul talks about being “absent from the Lord,” and then about being “present with the Lord,” he’s making reference to the sight absence and sight presence.

Jordan explains, “You are not in the presence of God as far as sight is concerned today. Peter talks about ‘whom having not seen yet have ye loved.’ When Thomas in John 20 said, ‘I have to put my hand in the place in His side and in the palms of His hand,’ Jesus responded, ‘Here touch me, see me and believe. Blessed are thee that don’t see me and believe.’

“So there’s an issue of ‘walking by faith and not by sight.’ You’ve never seen God, never felt Him, never touched Him, and yet you believe in Him. What kind of a kook is that? Well, you’re not kooky. You’ve got evidence; you’ve got a Book and you believe Him and you bring into your experience by faith the reality of His truth, His Word.

“But you still haven’t seen Him. Now, whatever it is you thought you saw that was Him, wasn’t Him. I know how people are. They say, ‘Well, if God just stood right here and I had this vision,’ and everything today is based upon experience.

“Your faith is to be founded on what God says. The best definition for faith in the Bible is Romans 4:21. That’s my personal, subjective, highly opinionated viewpoint. Paul’s talking about ‘Abraham being fully persuaded that what God had promised He was able also to perform.’

“Faith is just believing that God can do what He says. That’s what it was when Abraham was strong in faith. He just absolutely trusted what God said. ‘You receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater.’ ”