“As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (I Corinthians 15:48).
In a wonderful sense, Christians are just passing through this world on their way to the permanent home awaiting them in heaven. “For our conversation [or ‘our citizenship’] is in heaven” (Philippians 3:20). Christ has prepared a “place” for us there (John 14:2), and it is there that we have “an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you” (I Peter 1:4).
In view of such a glorious future, we ought to live not as those who are “earthy” but, as our text says, as “they also that are heavenly.” We have, indeed, been made “partakers of the heavenly calling,” and so should always, in all we do, “consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus” (Hebrews 3:1), for He represents us even now in the heavenly places. He has gone “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24), and we have, in effect, already been made to “sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6).
We may not appear to be very heavenly now, in these poor bodies made of earth’s dust, but “as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (I Corinthians 15:49). As Paul vividly expresses it, the Lord Jesus Christ “shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). “The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (I Corinthians 15:52).
Christians, indeed, constitute a heavenly people with a heavenly calling, even while still on earth. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). HMM
