AT A BURIAL
(i) THE SPIRITUAL BODY
Roland Brown
I wanted to draw attention, dear brethren, to this reference to the “spiritual body”; the only reference, I think, in the Scriptures to it. Not much is said about it, but sufficient to promote our interest and enquiry. The expression itself is perhaps to us mysterious, the thought that what is spiritual should take bodily form, but the apostle says there is a spiritual one, “if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual one”. What a contemplation for us, dear brethren, in the presence of death, that just as assuredly our brother has had a natural body, a body in which we have known him, in which what he is has been expressed, just as assuredly as that he will have a spiritual one. Not much is said about it, but there is sufficient to be said about it to quicken our affections. It will be in power, it will be in incorruptibility, it will be glorious. Those things are said of it in contrast to the natural body. The figure of a seed sown is applied by the apostle to the burial of the body of a saint, that it is sown in weakness, it is sown in dishonour, it is sown in corruption. That is what nature of itself ends in. What a solemn consideration for us who are living, is it not, as to what our energies are devoted to, whether they are devoted to what ends in corruption and dishonour and weakness, or whether our hearts have been drawn to what is incorruptible, powerful and glorious. What a prospect, dear brethren! May the comfort of it come home to us all, and particularly to our dear sister and the family, that the work of God in itself indestructible, and a new creation, must be clothed with a body that is suited to it. If we think of a spiritual body, it must mean that what is spiritual should come into expression and it must also convey to our hearts the substantiality of what is spiritual, what may seem to us, particularly when we are young in faith, to be ethereal or unreal. The scripture says there is a spiritual body. Each saint will have that, that the work of God in new creation may come into expression for His glory and for the praise of the glory of His grace eternally. So that we get some indication of it, I think, in the Lord’s own movements in resurrection. It is very striking that on the many times in which He appeared in the forty days He was not recognised by His physical appearance. All that had come to an end in His death, but He was discerned, in affection, by those that loved Him. He was discerned by His voice and what He said; it was unmistakably the Lord. One beloved apostle said, “It is the Lord”, John 21: 7. No, ‘ifs’ or buts’ or ‘maybes’ about it, as there is none of that in this passage, the apostle says there is a spiritual body. How it reflects, dear brethren, on the greatness of Christ as a quickening Spirit. The first man, he became a living soul; it was granted to him, but he was out of the earth and made of dust; but the second Man is out of heaven and He is a making-alive spirit, “a quickening spirit”. How wonderful to be attached to Him, the One who, as we have been reminded in this place, has been into death in order to destroy it eternally and to bring to light out of it life and incorruptibility. What a portion He has won for us. How full is the salvation that we have in Him, that we shall be with Him and like Him eternally, body, soul and spirit. Nothing less than that. He is able to save to the uttermost. What a Saviour He is, not only to save us from our sins and remove the power of death and the threat of judgment, but to translate our bodies of humiliation into conformity to His own body of glory. The natural body for our brother became that in a very real way, a body of humiliation, but what a deliverance death becomes, dear brethren, as we see the great end in view. “He that has begun in you a good work”; that has been completed, but not only has it been completed, it will be clothed with a tabernacle house from heaven. It will be clothed, God will be pleased to do it. The passage speaks of Him giving bodies to the various forms of creature on the earth as it pleases Him, and you think of it pleasing God, to clothe what has been wrought out in humiliation and in suffering, with a body of glory distinctive to that work, but nevertheless a body of glory like unto His. The great purpose of God, dear brethren, in taking us up and in taking up our beloved brother was that we should be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He might be the Firstborn among many brethren. May our hearts be comforted in the assurance, and the certainty of these things to which no element of doubt applies, and may we who remain to the coming of the Lord be more concerned to devote ourselves to what is incorruptible and glorious and eternal, and may we increasingly be delivered from what goes to corruption and dishonour and weakness, for His glory.