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QUESTION: 79
Will a Christian have the same body in the resurrection or the Rapture?
ANSWER: The  trend toward cremation among Christians is alarming. It reveals a lack of scriptural understand about the body.   
When God saves a sinner it is a total salvation; body–soul and spirit. The three parts of salvation is as follows:
1–Justification takes place in the spirit of man. He that was spiritually dead to God  is now alive, through justification and the new birth. It is permanent.
2– Sanctification is ongoing from day to day, and it is the life of a Christian being continually  transformed into the likeness of  Christ. This is the Spirit working in the soul (life) of a Christian.
3–Glorification is the perfecting of the Christian and basically has to do with the body. This will happen in the future. Rom 8:23, “ . . . even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.”
The body of a believer belongs to the Lord. It is a member of Christ (1 Cor 6:15).  It is the temple of the Spirit.  And it is not your own.  What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.  1 Cor 6:19,20
The biblical example of burial goes back to Abraham, who is the father of us all. (Gen. 23;1..)  The Lord’s burial and resurrection is an example of ours.  He said in John 2:19,  Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.  The same body in which He died was raised again. The difference was it was now glorified and immortalized.
Phil 2:21 Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
Our vile body will be changed, in a moment (1 Cor, 15:51),  and fashioned like unto His glorified body. Same body, but glorified and immortalized.
Our bodies are not destined to the flame of hell, but to be glorified. We should take care of them in life and in death.
Reader if you not yet saved, both body and soul will be cast into hell (Matt 10:32) Why wait, trust Christ now.

All comments and questions to: Harold Smith

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Updated July 2009, by Shelly Allen