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For Part One and Part Two in this series, go to https://coryhcollins.blogspot.com/2026/06/heaven-on-earth-what-some-are-saying.html and https://coryhcollins.blogspot.com/2026/06/heaven-on-earth-what-some-are-saying_0308682380.html.
You may be wondering what the nature of Jesus’ body after his ascension has to do with the nature of heaven and our eternal existence. Actually, the study is crucial, and I’ll tell you why. Jesus’ resurrected body was later glorified, transformed for the heavenly realm and no longer suited for life on a physical earth. Our bodies will also be raised and transformed into his image.
Let’s start with the resurrection. Jesus came forth from the tomb in the same body that had gone into that tomb. To prove it to his disciples, he showed eleven of them both his hands and his feet (John 20:20). “Doubting Thomas” was absent that night. Afterwards he demanded direct evidence, and Jesus provided it.
Jn 20:24 But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples were saying to him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.” 26 After eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors having been shut, and stood in their midst and said, “Peace be with you.” 27 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.” 28 Thomas answered and said to Him, “My Lord and my God!”
Luke provides the following account.
Lk 24:36 While they were telling these things, He Himself stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be to you.” 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. 38 And He said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 “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.” 40 And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and His feet. 41 While they still could not believe it because of their joy and amazement, He said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” 42 They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; 43 and He took it and ate it before them.
Not a spirit. Not a ghost. After Jesus was raised, he was flesh and bones. He walked with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. He talked. He ate. He insisted, “It is I myself.” He showed his hands and his feet. He had risen -- in his real, human, physical, touchable body, with his original, authentic scars and wounds.
However, some heaven-on-earth proponents propose that Jesus exists today, in heaven, in this very same form. They say that he is still flesh-and-bones, still physical, and still scarred and wounded. From that point they reason that our own eternal nature will be the same. Our resurrected bodies will be like his.
They say that we will walk on a physical planet earth, as he did after his resurrection. We will sit at dinner tables, and we will eat. We will wear clothes and continue to experience an earthly life, but on the new physical planet earth, with God, the saints, and the angels all present.
But … does the Bible actually teach that Jesus lives today in a physical, flesh-and-blood body? Or that we will exist in such “earthly” bodies in heaven?
I think not. Here are some scriptures that lead me to this conclusion.
1. Jesus’ body was glorified in his ascension, after his resurrection. The scriptures say that he was “taken up in glory.” That phrase indicates a transformation in his status so that he was suited to return to the heavenly realm.
1 Tim 3:16 By common confession, great is the mystery of godliness: He who was revealed in the flesh, Was vindicated in the Spirit, Seen by angels, Proclaimed among the nations, Believed on in the world, Taken up in glory.
2. As a result of his ascension and glorification, Jesus entered into some kind of cosmic, universe-filling existence. He is the one who “fills all in all” (Eph 1:23). He “ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things” (Eph 4:10). Christ is over the universe, but he also somehow occupies the entire universe. It is all his; it is all full of him; he is in every inch of it.
Therefore, it is hard if not impossible to imagine this infinite, all-encompassing Lord limited to a physical body in heaven, with the circumstances that would accompany such an existence.
3. Paul did not compare our future eternal body to Jesus’ flesh-and-blood resurrected state. He never said that we would become what Jesus was when he first rose from the dead. If Jesus still existed in flesh-and-blood form after his ascension, Paul could have said that we would have that same state for all eternity. He could have answered the question, “What kind of body?” simply by describing Jesus when he come forth from the tomb. He did not. He said rather that we would be transformed to be like Jesus as he is now, in his heavenly existence. We will no longer bear an earthly image, but a heavenly one.
1 Cor 15:35 But someone will say, “How are the dead raised? And with what kind of body do they come?” 36 You fool! That which you sow does not come to life unless it dies; 37 and that which you sow, you do not sow the body which is to be, but a bare grain, perhaps of wheat or of something else.
42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. 46 However, the spiritual is not first, but the natural; then the spiritual. 47 The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven. 48 As is the earthy, so also are those who are earthy; and as is the heavenly, so also are those who are heavenly. 49 Just as we have borne the image of the earthy, we will also bear the image of the heavenly.
4. As that same scripture says in verse 45, Jesus became “a life-giving spirit.” That must have happened after his ascension. He is the “second Adam,” opposite to the “first man, Adam.” His glorified, heavenly, imperishable, immortal, incorruptible, spiritual body is suited for that heavenly place with the Father, the place that he said he would go to prepare (John 14:2-3).
5. If Jesus had remained flesh and blood, he could not have entered heaven. The same is true for us. The Word makes this clear.
1 Cor 15:50 Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. 51 Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, 52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. 53 For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
6. John the apostle certainly saw Jesus after his flesh-and-blood resurrection. Jesus appeared to John and the others in that state. However, John did not say, “It has appeared to us what we will be like when he comes.” Instead he said the just opposite: “It has not yet appeared what we shall be.”
1 Jn 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
Therefore, Jesus must exist today in a form or state that is different from what John had seen and known in his personal experience.
There is much that we do not know about our eternal existence with the Lord. One thing we do know. It will be out of this world!
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