Our mortal body will be raised from the dead. Our body will be made alive in Christ. It will be renewed but it will be our body. It will not be a sphere, or an oblong from which protrude six arms and nine legs. It will be our body, now filled with the resurrection Life of Christ.

Is it a new body? Yes. Is it the body to which we have become accustomed? Yes, because God will raise our body from the dead. If we were going to have a different body, why would God bother to raise our body from the dead?

If God does not intend to raise our present body from the dead, the physical body of the Lord Jesus Christ remains in the cave of Joseph of Arimathea and only His Spirit was raised. Also, the Christian Gospel is false. The saints are the most miserable of people if God is not going to raise our body from the dead.

And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. (I Corinthians 15:17-19)

The form and purpose of things as they are, are eternal. The substance becomes eternal when it is filled with eternal resurrection Life. All will be made new and glorified in Christ, as were Christ's clothes on the Mount of Transfiguration.

The purpose of God in creating the physical universe is manifold: to provide an eternal habitation and resting place for Himself; to provide a wife, a complement, for His only begotten Son; to bring forth many sons to glory; to create brothers of Christ in Christ's image; to forge an instrument for the purpose of judging and destroying the works and workers of iniquity; to bring into being an ever-expanding universe peopled with righteous, peaceful, and joyous citizens who always bring pure delight to God, their Creator.

This manifold purpose originated in the mind of God before He created the heaven and earth that we know, a heaven and earth that from the beginning were viewed as expendable prototypes of the final creation. God always knows what He is doing, and His workmanship is perfect.

And as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail. (Hebrews 1:12)

God is not creating new things, different things. Rather He is making all things new. The things we have now are what God always has intended. He wants to fill them with eternal life in Christ.

If any man be in Christ there is a new creation. Is the new creation the same person? Yes, and no.

Is Paul still Paul or has he become Christ? Paul is still Paul, no one else. The old Paul has passed away but the new Paul still is Paul. Peter still is Peter although a new man in Christ. John still is John.

Christ is dwelling in Paul for eternity. Paul is new in Christ. He is a new person, but still Paul.

To be continued.