If the Scripture teaches (and it does) that our mortal bodies will be redeemed, then the mortal body is destined to become eternal. Having once been raised from the dead, it can die no more. Eating from the Tree of Life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God will finally bring eternal life to our death-doomed body.

Isn't it true that flesh and blood cannot enter the Kingdom of God? Yes, that is a fact. But flesh and bones that are filled with eternal, incorruptible resurrection life can and shall enter the Kingdom of God. The new Jerusalem is filled with glorified flesh and bones, just as the Lord Jesus today dwells in a temple of glorified flesh and bones. It may be true that the nail prints yet are in His hands although now gleaming with the beauty of priceless rubies.

Isn't it true that we are not sowing the body that we will have in the future? Yes, such is the case. The body we possess at this time will be raised from the dead when the Lord returns, and then will be clothed with our new body from Heaven, a body fashioned from eternal, incorruptible resurrection life—the Life of God.

Will we have a new body? Yes! Will our former body still be present? Yes! Would God raise our mortal body from the dead and then destroy it? No, He will not do that. God has promised to redeem our mortal body (Romans 8:11).

And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: (Job 19:26)

The Ark of the Covenant was constructed from acacia wood covered on the outside and the inside with gold. This is a type of the Glory of God covering the "wooden" physical body.

The Apostle Paul groaned for the "adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." (Romans 8:23)

We too ought to be groaning, not that we should be unclothed, that is, that we should lose our fleshly body, but rather that our fleshly frame should be clothed with eternal life.

The burden of the Spirit is not that we be removed to Heaven, to the spiritual paradise, but that the spiritual paradise be restored to the earth. The prayer is not that the Father should bring us to His eternal home in the heavens, but that His Kingdom, the performing of His will, should be brought down to the earth.

The saints, then revealed as sons of God by their resurrection from the dead, will deliver the material creation from corruption and futility and release it into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. This is the apostolic word concerning the eternal purpose of the Lord God of Heaven (Romans 8:18-23).

The coming of the Kingdom of God is the appearing of the Lord Jesus from Heaven and the union of the spiritual Heaven and the physical earth. When this takes place, the earth no longer will be merely physical. The earth itself will be the eternal blend of the physical and spiritual that is the Kingdom of God.

To be continued.