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Bhall ' change,' he shall not abolish our vile bodies. This is the action that our blessed Saviour will exercise upon these vile bodies ; they shall be changed. Man is the most changeable creature in the world, for soul and for body too.
Take him in his soTil, how many states is he in ? There is first the state of nature in perfection ; and then the state of corruption in original sin ; and then the state of grace in the new creature ; and then the state of glory. So likewise he is changeable in his body. He was first taken out of the dust. Out of the dust God made this glorious creature of man's body. He is a painful creature, in labour, in sickness ; and then from strength he is changed to old age ; and from thence to death, and dust ; and from dust then he is changed again to a more glorious estate than ever he was in. The body is made like the glorious body of Christ. He is changeable in soul and in body.
But this is our comfort, we shall change for the best. All the changes of our body serve for the last change ; after which, there shall never be any more change. When they are changed once to be glorious, they shall be for ever glorious. A blessed change, a blessed estate of a Christian ; all his changes tend to a state that shall never change. For after these bodies are once changed from base to be glorious, they shall be for ever glorious.
' AYho.' The person that shall change them is Christ : * who shall change our vile bodies.' In the person, we may consider the object and the action. Christ shall change our vile bodies. He that made us will make us again. He that is the image of God will refine us. He will renew us in body and soul to be like God, to be like himself ; and he that changeth our souls in this world, will change our bodies in the world to come. His first coming was to change our souls, to deliver them from the bondage of Satan. His second coming shall be to deliver our bodies from the bondage of corruption, that is, the day of ' the redemption of our bodies,' as the apostle calls it, Rom. viii. 23. So it is he that shall change. But of this I shall speak more afterward.
What is the pattern according to which this body shall be changed, by this author of it, Christ Jesus ? His own body. ' He shall change our vile bodies,
' That it may be made like, or fashioned like, his glorious body.'
He is both the cause and the pattern ; the efficient and the exemplary cause. He is the pattern. Our bodies shall be like his glorious body, even as our souls are like Christ's soul. For this is certain. _We are renewed in grace, not to the image of the first Adam, but to the image of the second Adam. We are conformed in soul to the image of Christ in holiness and righteousness. So likewise in the body, we shall be conform- able to the body of Christ, ' the second Adam.' As we bare the image of the first Adam in our first creation, so we must bear the image of the second in our restoration, at the day of the resurrection. The glorious body of Christ is the pattern of this transmutation and change.
But we must understand this, as I said, in regard of quality, and not in regard of equality : our body shall be like his glorious body, not equal to his glorious body. There must be a reservation therefore of difierence in heaven, betw-een the head and the members, the husband and the spouse. Our bodies shall be like his glorious body, not equal to it. To our capacity we shall have full satisfaction and contentment for body and soul too ; and they shall have security to be in that estate for ever. Therefore, though there be a difference of glory, yet that difference is no prejudice to the glory
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wc shall have. We shall have that that is fit for us. ' Our body shall be made like unto his glorious body.' Christ is our pattcru. Whence we see this point of divinity clear to us, that Whatsoecer is in us, both for soul and boJij (hut hereu-es2Jealc of thebody), whatsoever excellency is in us, it is at the secotul hand.
' It is first in our head, first in Christ, and then in us. He is first the Son of God by nature. We are the sons of God by adoption. He is the predestinated Son of God to save us, to be our head. We are predestinate to be his members. He is the Sou of God's love ; we are beloved in him. He is full of grace : ' Of his fulness we receive grace for grace,' John i. 16. He rose and we shall rise, because he rose fii'st. He ascended into heaven ; by virtue of his ascension we shall ascend into heaven too. He sits at the right hand of God in glory, and by virtue of his sitting we sit there together with him in heavenly places. Whatsoever is graciously or gloriously good that is in us, it is first in our blessed and glorious Saviour.