Why Is The Resurrection of Christ Important?

I am going to try and write a few reasons why the resurrection of Christ is important this week. Why? For obvious reasons, but also because I think we tend to dismiss its importance existentially. Death is easy to see and feel and know--we see it all the time--but not resurrection. So...

#1: The resurrection of Christ is important because it means that we, too, will someday be resurrected.

It is hard not to think of Heaven as puffy. You know what I mean. When we get to heaven we will walk bound on clouds, play harps (they play banjos in hell) and sing endlessly to God. Now included in this is a pretty common belief that we will reflect the puffiness also. That is, we will be all soul. No, not like James Brown, like Plato. At some level we don't like the body. We believe that it is really evil, but that soul is really good. And so when we get to heaven, we will be all soul; we will be ethereal. We will have no matter, no weight. Now it should be said that there is going to be a temporal state for those who die before Jesus comes back. They will be with God, but they will be without bodies. But we must remember that this is not the end goal. Listen to Piper:

It seems to me that the hope of resurrection does not have the same place of power and centrality for us today that it had for the early Christians. And I think one of the reasons for that is that we have a wrong view of the age to come. When we talk about the future and the eternal state we tend to talk about heaven, and heaven tends to imply a place far away characterized by non-material, ethereal, disembodied spirits.

In other words, we tend to assume that the condition that the departed saints are in now without their bodies is the way it will always be. And we have encouraged ourselves so much with how good it is for them now, we tend to forget that it is an imperfect state and not the way it will be, nor the way Paul wanted it to be for himself. Yes to die is gain, and yes, to be absent from the body is to be at home with the Lord, but no this is not our ultimate hope. This is not the final state of our joy. This is not our final or main comfort when we have lost loved ones who believe.

Now the point of this is not to determine if I will be 185lbs. or 160 (we'll get to that later). The point is that what the resurrection of Christ secures for us is our own resurrection. Had he not conquered death, we would not conquer it either. The only reason for our hope is that when Christ returns, we will then be made into glory and be rushed into the presence of God and the new world where we will be happy forever. Those whose are dying (and we all are dying) must rest and rejoice that Christ has been resurrected, for now we know we will be resurrected too.
But what will we actually look like in heaven? We will look a lot like Jesus did after his resurrection. We will be glorified, yes, but we will have weight.

John 20:26-28:

Eight days later, his disciples were inside again, and Thomas was with them. Although the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, 'Peace be with you.' Then he said to Thomas, 'Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side. Do not disbelieve, but believe.' Thomas answered him, 'My Lord and my God!'

Luke 24:38-39:

And he said to them, 'Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? 39 See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.'

1 Corinthians 15:51-54:

Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and 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 John 3:2 (emphasis mine):

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.

Yes, because he has been raised from the dead, we shall be like him in every way. To the praise of his glorious grace!