What will our bodies be like in heaven?
Philippians 3:20-21
20 But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ,
21 who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.
New International Version (NIV)
The answer
Our resurrection bodies will be transformed, real bodies — imperishable, glorious, powerful, and shaped like Christ's risen body (Philippians 3:21; 1 Corinthians 15:42-44).
This isn't a vague hope; Paul spells it out. "This perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality" (1 Corinthians 15:53). And Philippians 3:21 says Christ "will change the body of our humiliation to be conformed to the body of his glory."
Imperishable — no more decay, sickness, or death
- 1 Corinthians 15:42: "The body is sown perishable; it is raised imperishable."
- 1 Corinthians 15:54: "Death is swallowed up in victory."
- 1 Peter 1:4 calls our inheritance "incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away" — and we share in that inheritance body and soul.
Glorious — like Christ's risen body
- Philippians 3:21: shaped to "the body of his glory."
- 1 John 3:2: "we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him."
- Colossians 3:4: when Christ appears, "ye also shall appear with him in glory."
- Revelation 1:13-20 gives us a glimpse of the risen Christ himself — radiant, real, recognizable.
Powerful — no more weakness
- 1 Corinthians 15:43: "It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power."
Spiritual — fitted for the heavenly realm
- 1 Corinthians 15:44: "It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body."
- That doesn't mean ghostly or hollow; it means fully governed by the Spirit and suited to life in heaven. Paul uses the seed analogy: the kernel isn't the same thing as what grows from it, but it's genuinely a body all the same (1 Corinthians 15:36-38).
- 2 Corinthians 5:1: "we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens."
A real body, not a disembodied spirit
- Christianity doesn't teach escape from embodiment; it teaches the redemption of bodies.
- 1 Corinthians 15:50: "flesh and blood cannot inherit God's Kingdom" — meaning this mortal flesh must be changed, not that we become drifting souls.
- The risen Christ himself was physical after his resurrection — he ate (Luke 24:42-43), could be touched, walked, talked. Our bodies will be like his.
The contrast with our present bodies
- 2 Corinthians 4:18 frames it well: "the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal." What is sown is "the body of our humiliation" (Philippians 3:21) — fragile, dust-formed (Job 4:19: "them that dwell in houses of clay"); what is raised is the body of his glory.
When this happens
- 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: "We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet."
- Philippians 3:20: "we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ" — he is the one who does the changing at his return, and the one whose resurrection body is the pattern ours will follow.
A verse to carry
- Romans 8:29: "whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren." Our future body is not a new invention; it is conformity to the Son's own risen body.
In short: the same you — raised, remade, radiant, and never again to die, because Christ's resurrection is the guarantee yours will follow.
Answered from Scripture · reviewed November 7, 2026
Scripture cited
- 1 John 3:2
- Colossians 3:4
- Romans 8:29
- Revelation 1:13-20
- 1 Corinthians 15
- 2 Corinthians 5:1-8