Articles

"When I am raptured or resurrected from the dead, won't I appear in His likeness of joy and gladness?"

It is the believer's hope that we will morph into glorified bodies incapable of sin, sickness or death. Will our bad attitudes, carnal choices, and deliberate sinful behavior be instantly replaced by Christ's own righteous character? When God sees us, will He see His Son in us if we have lived as saved rebels?

This question is easily answered by verses illustrating a master's treatment of his own at his return.

And the second [servant] came, saying, "Master, your mina has earned five minas." Likewise [his master] said to him, "You also be over five cities."

Then another came, saying, "Master, here is your mina, which I have kept put away in a handkerchief. For I feared you, because you are an austere man. You collect what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow."

And he said to him, "Out of your own mouth I will judge you, you wicked servant." (Luke 19:20-22).

The attitude or state in which we die or are raptured is the state we will appear before the Lord. The wicked servant, representing the lazy Christians in the Church, appeared before his master, representing the Lord Jesus, in his wicked state. The lazy Christian will not appear in the image of Christ, but in the state in which he or she died or was raptured.

We will be transformed into His image as we consent to a sanctified life. Christ's image is not one that loves sin and selfishness. If we persist in known sin, we refuse the grace of God which delivers us from sin. The grace of God is enough to present us before His presence with exceeding joy. Rejecting that life-changing work to transform us into His image, we risk appearing to Him in guilt and a bad conscience.