Philippians 3:21

‘Who will fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things to himself.'

And in that day he will take our humble and earthly body, the body of our earthliness which limits us to earth and makes us ‘lower than the angels' (Psalms 8:4), and leaves us prone to sin, and will conform it to His ‘glorious' body, as a result of the mighty working by which He is able to subdue all things to Himself. The thought includes our whole selves, not just the outward shell, and this on top of the fact that our inner man has already experienced an amazing initial spiritual transformation (Romans 6:4; 2 Corinthians 5:17). For while, if we are His, we have to some extent already enjoyed the experience of His saving power (Romans 6:4; Ephesians 2:1; Colossians 1:13), then in that Day, to a far greater extent, we will share with Him in the fullness of His glory and exaltation, wholly transformed by His mighty power (Philippians 2:9), the power not only of His resurrection (Ephesians 1:19) but also of His sovereignty as Life-giver and LORD (Philippians 2:11; 1Co 15:24-25; 1 Corinthians 15:28; John 5:21; John 5:26). As so often each individual is in mind here, but as a part of the whole body of Christ (Ephesians 1:22 in context).

In Ephesians this transformation is pictured in terms of a wife being presented to her husband, ‘that He might present the church to Himself in splendour, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish' (Ephesians 5:27). 1 Corinthians 15:42 puts it this way, ‘So it is with the resurrection of the dead, what is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body.' While those who are alive and remain will be changed ‘in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye' (1 Corinthians 15:52), but in no way preceding those are ‘in Jesus' whose bodies sleep in the grave (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

There is a striking contrast here in Philippians between those who will receive a body of glory in respect of which they will have no need to be ashamed because their eyes are fixed on Heaven, and those whose glory was in their shameful actions and behaviour because their eyes are fixed on earth (Philippians 3:19). It was for the reception of this great blessing that Paul had his eyes fixed on the goal, the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus (compare Colossians 3:1). And it should be there also that we should fix all our attention, looking not at the things that are seen but the things that are unseen (2 Corinthians 4:17). For in that day all that will matter will be what we have accomplished in and through our Lord Jesus Christ.