Job on the Resurrection of the Body

25 I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. 26 And after my
skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; 27 I myself will see him with my own
eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27 NIV)

Peace and Hope close to death

One of the greatest honors I have in serving as a pastor is spending time with those who are
close to death. For those who have faith in Christ, it is nothing short of miraculous how peace
and hope prevail with each finite breath taken. Sometimes I’ll ask those under my spiritual care
“where do you want to go in your new body?” Or “where will you take me in the new heavens
and new earth?”. I’ve gotten to hear some incredible responses to those questions. One dear
brother said “I want to go wherever Jesus is”. Others have mentioned visiting childhood
hometowns from decades past. Still others speak of other people they would like to visit with in
eternity such as family, friends, and people mentioned in the Scriptures.

Bodily Resurrection

For some whom I’ve visited with they have had a more incorporeal hope. An idea of existing as
a disembodied ghost-like figure in the life after. In these cases, there can be great
encouragement and cause for joy as they consider the promise of the bodily resurrection. The
great future hope we have for the next life, is life. Not an ethereal floaty disembodied intangible
existence. New bodies, experiencing forever a new life never again to be corrupted through sin
or under the curse. Anthony Hoekema has a terrific few paragraphs about this bodily hope and
it’s paramount significance for the Christian future hope in his book “The Bible and the Future”

“The central message of scripture about the future of man is that of the resurrection of
the body. At this point we see a radical divergence between the Christian view of man
and the view common to Greek philosophy, particularly that of Plato. As we have seen,
the Greeks had no room in their thinking for the resurrection of the body. The body was
viewed as a tomb for the soul, and death was looked upon as a liberation from
imprisonment.
This understanding of man, however, is quite different from Scriptural teaching.
According to the Scriptures, the body is no less real than the soul; God created man in
his totality, as both body and soul. Nor is the body inferior to the soul, or nonessential to
man’s true existence; if this were so, the Second Person of the Trinity could never have
assumed a genuine human nature with a genuine human body. Therefore the future
blessedness of the believer is not merely the continued existence of his soul, but
includes as its richest aspect of the resurrection of his body. That resurrection will be for
believers a transition to glory, in which our bodies shall become like the glorious body of
Christ (Phil. 3:21).
We conclude that the concept of the immortality of the soul is not a distinctively Christian
doctrine. Rather, what is central in biblical eschatology is the doctrine of the resurrection
of the body. If we wish to use the word immortality with reference to man, let us say that
man, rather than his soul, is immortal. But man’s body must undergo a transformation by
means of resurrection before he can fully enjoy that immortality.” (1)

He would see God

For the man Job, his hope was not in an existence in some spiritual sense. With his own eyes
he would see God. The faith once delivered for all the saints has been one with a future hope of
bodily resurrection.
Citations –
(1) Hoekema, Anthony A.. The Bible and the Future. United States: Wm. B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1994.