When we look back on our lives with the eyes and strength of redeemed bodies, weakness will likely be a faint and pleasant memory, like sleepless newborn nights. Pleasant, because we will be able to see just how much the pain and inconvenience of our weaknesses exalted his comfort, power, and love.

Some of the sweetest and deepest promises of God are also some of the most neglected, often because they either feel too great to grasp or because they don’t seem to immediately intersect with life today. For instance, is any promise more staggering and yet forgotten than what God says about our glory? The one worthy of all glory not only commands us to glorify him in whatever we do, but he also vows, almost unthinkably, to one day glorify us. Can you imagine it?

You probably can’t, and that’s likely why you gravitate to other, more concrete promises: the canceling of sin, the hearing of prayers, the drying of tears, the helping in weakness. And yet all of these precious and very great promises lead to a promise so surprising it sounds scandalous:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of him who called us to his own glory and excellence, by which he has granted to us his precious and very great promises, so that through them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. (2 Peter 1:3–4)

Those who believe in God will not only be set free from sinning, healed from sickness, and delivered from death, but will “partake of the divine nature.” We will not only spend eternity with God, but we will genuinely become like God.

What Will We Be Like?

Now, we must say that, though we will be like him, we will not be him. We will partake of the divine nature; we will never own a divine nature. “I am the Lord,” God says. “That is my name; my glory I give to no other” (Isaiah 42:8). The qualification is vital — the difference between worship and blasphemy — but don’t let what God has not promised silence what he has: if you are in Christ, then you, yes you, will be glorified.

When we are finally and fully glorified, the risen and glorified Lord Jesus “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself” (Philippians 3:21). Or, as the apostle John says, “Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

What will we be like? What do we know about glorified humans? What can we expect in the bodies to come? The apostle Paul anticipates that very question, knowing we would struggle to imagine our current bodies made glorious: “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’” (1 Corinthians 15:35). As part of his answer, he compares the bodies we have to the glory we will be, and in at least four ways.

Life Without Death

The first distinction may be the most obvious: “There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. . . . What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:40, 42). The body we have can and will perish, but the body we will have can never die. Paul goes on:

The dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” (1 Corinthians 15:52–54)

The dead — those who have already perished — will be raised imperishable. The dead will not only live, but be unable to die.

How different will life be when death is an impossibility? Because of sin, every minute of life on earth has been laced with brevity, fragility, and futility. The whole creation, including our bodies, have been enslaved to corruption (Romans 8:21). Even after we know we will live forever, we still know we may die tomorrow. Cars may collide, hearts may fail, cancer may emerge, surgeries may backfire, influenza may overpower. Death mercilessly cuts, robs, cheats, and grieves — for now. But God will give us a body that death cannot harm or threaten.

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