The second coming of the Lord Jesus is an event that will change everything in this universe. The season of grace that has been long given by the Lord to the people (“the year of the Lord’s favor”) will end with a short season of the Lord’s judgment (“the day of the Lord’s vengeance”). For those who do not believe, this will bring them into eternal punishment in hell.
On the other hand, the believers who have repented and been faithful, they will be given eternal comfort. They will receive a crown as a reward; they will enter into the feast of the Lamb; they will praise and worship the Lord forever, and they will be God’s solid people as a sign of God’s glory and honor.
One of the things that the believers are waiting for is the day where the Lord will take us and give us our glorious bodies, 1 Corinthians 15:50-52. Apostle Paul wrote that the glorious body is a heavenly body that is blameless and imperishable because the heaven cannot receive natural bodies. But many people do not realize that those who are punished to hell must put on their imperishable bodies when they are thrown into the sea of fire. If not so, then the punishment in hell cannot be said as eternal punishment.
Eternal body is a reward for believers who live in discipline and put off their fleshly desires, and a consequence for those who do evil. Throughout the Bible, the authors repetitively teach believers to stay away from sin so that when the Lord comes to take us, we will be found blameless and we will be ready to receive the glorious bodies and experience the rapture of the holy people.
Ever since the Lord Jesus died on the cross to redeem all of our sins, “Shekinah Glory” or the glory of the Lord does not only come over the veil in the Most Holy place in Jerusalem, but it has come to the bodies of believers in a form of the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 1:13. And we are given the ability to live according to the Spirit and put off our fleshly desires, Galatians 5:16. To live in the Spirit means surrendering ourselves to be guided, taught, corrected, trained by the Holy Spirit so that we can guard our holiness. But, the choice still depends on us. Let us choose to live to prepare ourselves to be blameless approaching His second coming. God bless.
Taken from an article from GBI Gatot Subroto, Jakarta