The Riches of Bunyan: Selected from His Works

by John Bunyan

As to the manner of the change of the body in its rising, this similitude also doth fitly suit: as, 1. It is sown a dead corn, it is raised a living one. 2. It is sown dry, and without comeliness; it riseth green and beautiful. 3. It is sown a single corn, it riseth a full ear. 4. It is sown in the husk, but in its rising it leaveth that husk behind it.

Further, though the kernel thus die, be buried, and meet with all this change in these things, yet none of them can cause the nature of the kernel to cease; it is wheat still. Wheat was sown, and wheat arises; only it was sown dead, dry, and barren wheat, and riseth living, beautiful, and fruitful wheat. "God giveth it a body as it pleaseth him; but to every seed his own body."

All the glory that a glorified soul can help this body to, it at this day shall enjoy. That soul that has been these hundreds or thousands of years in the heavens, in the bosom of Christ, it shall in a moment come spangling into the body again, and inhabit every member and vein of the body, as it did before its departure. That Spirit of God also, that took its leave of the body when it went to the grave, shall now in all perfection dwell in the body again. I tell you, the body at this day will shine brighter than the face of Moses or Stephen, even as bright as the sun, the stars and angels. "When Christ who is our life shall appear, we shall appear with him in glory."

Christ has showed us what our body at the resurrection shall be, by showing us in his word what his body was at and after his resurrection. We read that his body after he was risen from the dead, though it yet retained the very same flesh and bones that did hang upon the cross, yet how angelical was it at all times, upon all occasions! He could come in to his disciples with that very body, when the doors were shut upon them. He could at pleasure, to their amazement, appear in the twinkling of an eye in the midst of them. He could be visible and invisible, as he pleased, when he sat at meat with them. In a word, he could pass and repass, ascend and descend in that body with far more pleasure and ease than the bird by the art of her wing.

Now I say, as we have in this world borne the image of our first father; so at that day we shall have the image of Jesus Christ, and be as he is. 1 Cor. 15:49.

To mount up to heaven, and to descend again with pleasure, shall with us in that day be ordinary. If there were ten thousand bars of iron, or walls of brass, to separate between us and our pleasure and desire at that day, they should as easily be pierced by us as is the cobweb, or as air by the beams of the sun. And the reason is, because to the Spirit, wherewith we shall be inconceivably filled at that day, nothing is impossible; and the working of it at that day shall be in such nature and measure as to swallow up all impossibilities. "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body"—now mark—"according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself."

Nay further, we do not only see what operation the Spirit will have in our body by the carriage of Christ after his resurrection, but even by many a saint before his death. The Spirit used to catch Elijah away, no man could tell whither. It carried Ezekiel hither and thither. It carried Christ from the top of the pinnacle of the temple into Galilee; through it he walked on the sea. The Spirit caught away Philip from the eunuch, and carried him as far as Azotus.

Thus the great God has given us a taste of the power and glory that are in himself, and how easily they will help us, by possessing us at the resurrection, to act and to do like angels; as Christ saith, "They that shall be counted worthy of that world and of the resurrection from the dead, they shall not die, but be equal to the angels."

SALVATION COMPLETE AT THE RESURRECTION.

"Now we shall see him," to wit, Christ in his glory. Not by revelation only, as we do now, but then face to face; and he will have us with him to this very end. Though John was in the Spirit when he had the vision of Christ, yet it made him fall at his feet as dead; and also turned Daniel's beauty into corruption, it was so glorious and so overweighing a glory that he appeared in. But we shall at the day of our resurrection be so furnished, that we shall with the eagle be able to look upon the sun in his strength. We shall then "see Him as he is," who now is in the light that no eye hath seen, nor any man can see till that day.