Questions abound about immortality. Is it the same as eternal or everlasting life? Is any one of us immortal now? If not, how will grace-saved believers hoping for resurrection become immortal? And just when in our experience will that happen?

And, if immortality means, once we attain it, that we cannot die, then what does that say about the life we would then have? Would it be just a continuation of the life we now live in the flesh? Or would it be something far better?

There are many differing teachings about immortality and eternal life but this essay, as that word implies, is an attempt to gain from scripture clear light on what it means practically for the believer. As such its conclusions are tentative.

For, at the end of the day, it is only God who can reveal to us the deeper truth of his word, and thankfully He has promised to do so. Thus, speaking of the “high calling in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3: 14-15) Paul urges those mature among Philippian believers to “be thus minded and, if anything ye be otherwise indeed, God shall reveal even this unto you”.

That said, this paper will attempt to set forth the light gained from what I believe is the revelation and guidance of God on this important subject by answering a few obvious questions all Bible students have. They are: Who among men is immortal now? when will we who believe become immortal? And how will that happen?

To start then, is there anyone today who has immortality? The answer is, yes. The Lord Jesus Christ is the glorified “man” who “only has immortality” (1 Timothy 6:16). The rest of us do not. The next question is just when we will “put on immortality” as 1 Corinthians 15: 53-54) says we “must”. And the answers to that question from even the most dedicated students and scholars of scripture are several and varied. For millions, or perhaps billions, the answer is “when we get to heaven where we will go immediately after death”.

The problem with that is there is no verse that unequivocally, in plain language, says that anybody goes to heaven as a place. However, scripture says that the “mystery” is that “Christ in you (is) the “hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27). It also declares that we have been made members of the “church”, (that is the now created “one new man”), which “is his body, the fulness of Him that filleth all in all” (Ephesians 1:2-23.

So, for me heaven is not a place as many seem to think. Rather, it is a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. This is so, since we know Christ has ascended “far above all heavens”. Thus, today He is the risen, ascended, Lord of all that is, and is Himself the “one true God”, in Whom “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). No wonder the Apostle Paul prayed, “that “I may be found in Him” (Philippians 3:9).

As to when we will receive immortality, that worthy pioneer of dispensational understanding, Dr E.W. Bullinger, answered, it will be “at the Second Coming”. And in their commentary Jamieson Fausset and Brown opine that “immortality”, or bodily “incorruption” will occur at the last resurrection (Revelation 20:14).

 However, I take a different view. I believe some of us will receive our immortality at the Lord’s appearing when He will judge the quick and the dead and bring in his government over the world. This applies to those called, according to the Lord’s purpose and grace (2 Timothy 1:9-12).

But importantly, the hope of immortality is now (since Paul’s announcement of it) “made manifest” by the “appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ who hath abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. Importantly, this is a truly new gospel revealed to and proclaimed by Paul. It had been “hid from ages and previous generations” Colossians 1:26). It could be called the “gospel of immortality”, meaning that we need never die.

Yes, through Paul, the Lord has appeared in a new gospel to all men requiring them to “live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world for one main purpose. That was, and is, to be that we should be:

Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for us that might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works (Titus 2: 12-14).

Verse seven in the same chapter tells us why. It is that:

…Being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

That ties up with the “hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began” (2 Thessalonians 1:2). So, we have the “hope” of eternal life. But I would submit, we cannot have eternal life unless also we also receive immortality, manifest to us through the Lord’s “bringing it to light through his appearing in this good news. And I truly believe that it is at his “second” appearing, not his “Second Coming “(compare Titus 2:11 And 13), that this promise will be fulfilled.

This glorious revelation of who Christ is will occur when He appears in his full glory as God Almighty which event, though imminent, we still look for (2 Timothy 4:1, Titus 2:13). As Colossians 3:4 declares, “When Christ who is our (eternal) life shall appear then shall ye also appear with Him”.

For, it is the Lord’s appearing, as presented in scripture, that supports the assertion that it is at this glorious event that we will receive immortality. Indeed, it might be said that for us to enter the glory God has promised the faithful, is to be made immortal. Let’s see why.

In 1 Timothy 6:11-16 Paul charges Timothy to “keep this commandment without spot unrebukeable until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ”. Timothy was to “follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness”.

The appearing, Paul then wrote, is when the exalted Lord Jesus shows forth his status as the only Potentate, i.e. the Supreme Ruler of heaven, earth and the universe (1 Timothy 6:15-16). Given the context it is also when He will display his immortality, hidden from men until unfolded in this glorious revelation of who Christ really is … God Almighty Himself. However, apart from Titus 2:13, it is in Philippians 3:20-21 that the apostle also confirms that we should be looking for his appearing.

For our conversation (citizenship, indeed our eternal home) is in heaven (that is the spiritual realm) from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body (i.e. the body of his glory), according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself.

Question: Is the Lord’s “glorious body” immortal? Yes, it is, as 1 Timothy 6:16 and Philippians 3:21 clearly assert. And, since our body is to be changed to be like his, then our new body must be immortal also, in order to be truly like his.

The new body we shall receive at our “change” will be “incorruptible” – that is it will not age or decay. What’s more it will be immortal, that is, it will never die. As the Apostle Paul so beautifully sums it up in 1 Corinthians 15:54:

So, when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

And this huge change will happen “in the twinkling of an eye” (1 Corinthians 15:54).

John Dudley Aldworth

Email: johndaldworth42@gmail.com.  Website: Day of Christ Ministries.