5. In the fifth place (and closely connected with 3 and 4), _our resurrection bodies will be incorruptible_. We read in I Cor. 15:42: +"So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption."+ The thought of this word "incorruption" is that the body is not subject to decay, it is imperishable. Our present bodies are decaying all the time. We are perishing every day and every minute. My present body is disintegrating while I talk to you. But the bodies that we shall receive in the resurrection will be absolutely free from the liability to corruption or decay. They _cannot_ disintegrate or suffer decay or deterioration of any kind.
6. The next thing that we are taught about _the resurrection body_ is that it _is a glorious body_. This comes out in the first part of the following verse, I Cor. 15:43, +"It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory."+ Some idea of the glory, the glorious beauty, of that body is suggested by the representation of our glorified Lord that we have in Rev. 1:13-17: +"And in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the breasts with a golden girdle. And his head and his hair were white as white wool, white as snow, and his eyes were as a flame of fire and his feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace, and his voice as the voice of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead, and he laid his right hand upon me saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last."+ Our resurrection bodies will be like that.
7. Furthermore, _our resurrection bodies will be powerful_, or as we read in the last half of this same verse (1 Cor. 15:43), +"It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power."+ Then all our weariness and weakness will be forever at an end. In our present bodies our bodies are oftentimes a hindrance to our highest aspirations, they thwart the carrying out of our loftiest purposes, we cannot put into execution our loftiest purposes, +"the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak."+ But in our resurrection bodies the body will be able to accomplish all that the spirit purposes. The redeemed body will be a perfect counterpart of the redeemed spirit that inhabits it. No deafness, dimsightedness nor blindness, no tired hands and feet, no maimed soldier boys coming home from the war.
8. _It will be a heavenly body._ This appears from the 47th to the 49th verses of this same chapter. +"The first man is of+ (literally, _out of_) +the earth, earthy: the second man is of+ (literally, _out of_) +heaven: as is the earth, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly."+ The thought plainly is that our present bodies are of an earthly origin and an earthly character, but that the transformed body will be of a heavenly character. Paul explains it at length in 2 Cor. 5:1-4 where he says, +"For we know that if the earthly house of our tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For verily in this+ (i.e., in this present earthly house, earthy body) +we groan, longing to be clothed upon with our habitation which is from heaven+ (i.e., our heavenly body): +if so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For indeed we that are in this tabernacle+ (i.e., in the present earthy body) +groan, being burdened; not for that we would be unclothed, but that we would be clothed upon+ (i.e., with our heavenly body), +that what is mortal may be swallowed up of life."+