You Can’t Take It with You
Read Time: 2 min
How would you like to inherit $14.4 billion? That’s what Laurene Powell Jobs collected as the widow of Apple cofounder Steve Jobs. She inherited his wealth and assets, which included shares of Apple stock and a 7.3 percent stake in The Walt Disney Company—which tripled in value after Steve’s death in 2011, making up more than $12 billion of her net worth. But just like with her husband, when Laurene dies, as the saying goes, “You can’t take it with you.”
Some people have read 1 Corinthians 15:50 and concluded that the kingdom of heaven is a fanciful, ethereal place full of wispy clouds, ghosts, and illusory beings that float around all day. If “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God,” then how can the redeemed be flesh-and- bone people?
To understand what the apostle Paul means by “flesh and blood,” we need to look at the context of this passage. Just a few verses earlier, he explains how our resurrected bodies will be different from our present bodies. “So also is the resurrection of the dead. The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption” (verse 42). He later adds, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (verse 53).
Sin changed our bodies and our very natures. Therefore, when we enter the paradise of Eden restored, our bodies will be changed so that we can fully enjoy the perfection of heaven. “Flesh and blood” is a figure of speech referring to the human body on this earth (see Matthew 16:17). Christ, in His resurrected body, declared that He was truly “flesh and bones” (Luke 24:39).
Flesh and blood refers to our corruptible bodies on earth. When Jesus comes, He will “transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). When thinking of our old, earthly bodies, we’ll be glad to leave them behind.
Apply It:
What one thing do you look forward to leaving behind when you go to heaven?
Dig Deeper:
1 Corinthians 15:35–58; Galatians 1:16, 17; Ephesians 6:12
Key Bible Texts
Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. (1 Corinthians 15:50 KJV)