Today on my break at work I was reading from 1 Corinthians 15 and came across this marvelous passage -
35 But someone will ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. 39 All flesh is not the same: Human beings have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. 40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. 41 The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. 42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; 43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; 44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.
If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. 45 So it is written: "The first Adam became a living being" ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. 46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. 47 The first man was of the dust of the earth; the second man is of heaven. 48 As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man, so also are those who are of heaven. 49 And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man.
How cool is that? I love the poetry of the Bible. It is beautiful.
I was mulling over this concept of the comparison of earthly and heavenly bodies with fascination. I love the analogy that the scripture gives, that our bodies are like seeds that are planted.
So if we are like seeds, that means that we have yet to bloom, and our heavenly bodies will be like flowers compared to seeds. Flowers are the inmost part of the seed, the beauty that comes from maturity. So what would the truest, most beautiful part of ourselves? I think it would be our soul, our spirit.
I picture the soul, as magnified by the flower of a heavenly body, to be glorious and beautiful, like light shinning through a million diamonds. And isn't that fitting? Light is always a characteristic of ultimate beauty. Why? I think it is because God *is* light.
"1In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning.
3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. - John 1:1-5"
Anyway, yeah that was a really fun and exciting thought process for me. *smile*
What do you think Heaven will be like? What does a soul look like to you? How do you feel about being a seed?
