Here are three things, in regard to our new bodies, that will be different in heaven.
There will be no marriage. There is only one Scripture passage that addresses marriage in heaven; it is in Matthew 22:30. There Jesus addresses the Sadducees, telling them that in the resurrection we will not marry, because we will be like the angels. Angels, as we know, do not die and do not propagate. Therefore, they have no need for marriage. This then will also be true of us. And if you are thinking that there are other reasons for marriage; yes, that is true. But in heaven we will all have perfect relationships, even better than our marriage relationship now. We will all love and encourage each other with a perfect fellowship. I guess we will just have to trust God on that.
As for our gender, the gender we have now is part of who we are—it is in our DNA, and so it will be transferred into our new body. We will remain that way. Also, if you remember all the occurrences of Jesus after His resurrection, we know that He remained as a male. When Mary saw Him shortly after He arose and supposed that He was the gardener—a man’s occupation—she spoke to Him as “Sir” (Jn. 2 0:15). Also, the two men who met Jesus on the road to Emmaus did not see Him as not being male (Lu. 24:13-27), nor did Peter see Him any differently (Jn. 21:15-23).
We will have perfect knowledge. In 1 Corinthians 13:12 Paul writes, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known.”
The Greek word here for knowledge, epiginosko, is used several times in the New Testament; but I think here in 1Corinthians 13:12, we really get the feel of what this full knowledge in heaven will be like. It will be perfect, or full. There will be no more confusion or ignorance about our understanding of things. When God speaks to us about something, we will understand Him. In fact, I will hear and understand Him (what He says to me) just as He understands me.
And I think we will also have this kind of knowledge/communication with angels. What great conversations we will have together. I have always been a slow reader. How great it will be to not only speed read with comprehension, but to very quickly hear and understand everything.
But we will never have absolute knowledge (omniscience) as God has. Yet it will be as complete as we need it to be or ever desire it to be for eternity.
We will have supernatural powers. I think the best way to look at this is to look at what Jesus did after His resurrection, because we will have the same kind of body and the same supernatural powers. So, I looked at three of the gospels, Mark, Luke, and John for this information. In Mark 16:12 it is recorded that “He appeared in a different form to two men walking.” I take it that they were going to a village named Emmaus, as Like 24:13 records. I also noticed that in Luke’s gospel it says that “their eyes were prevented from recognizing Him.” So, we have a bit of a difference in the way Mark and Luke heard of the occurrence. Either way, they were prevented from seeing who He was.
I’m not sure that we would have any occasion to have this kind of power in heaven, but maybe we will during the Millennial kingdom—if we didn’t want a mortal person to know who we were. This particular power may suggest that we will be much like the angels; for we know that they occasionally have appeared in a different form as mere men (Heb. 13:2). We will see.
In Luke’s gospel (Lu. 24:31), after the two men invited Jesus to their home, as they were about to eat, and after Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and passed it to them, they suddenly recognized Him and He vanished right before their eyes. So, this was the second power we see.
The third power is in John 20:19 and 26. On two different occasions, the disciples were in a room together with the door having been shut, and Jesus appeared to them and stood in their midst. Apparently, locked doors could not keep Him out. He simply walked right through the walls, or He just appeared! Hence, like Jesus we will be able to move through solid matter as if we were just a spirit—yet with a visible and supernatural body. And like in the earlier story, we will be able to also disappear at will.
In John MacArthur’s book, The Glory of Heaven, he brings up the fact that our home in the heavenly city will be 1500 miles cubed and we won’t be using an elevator to get to our residence—if it happens to be on the top floor. He said that we will either have the ability to fly or to simply be transported in an instant at will.2
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to explore the heavens. I wonder if it will be anything like our solar system today. I just wonder if we will actually be able to travel through the heavens by the speed of thought, millions of miles in a second. And what will we see?
2 John MacArthur, The Glory of Heaven (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway Books, 1996), pp. 133-134.
Stephen Nielsen 