Your eternal reward after this life is not for your soul to leave your body and go to heaven.

Neither is it, if you die in mortal sin, for your soul to descend into the fiery pits of hell.

That’s not to say your ultimate destination isn’t heaven or hell—it is—but not without your body: the same body in which you are reading this. At the resurrection, upon the return of Jesus to this earth, you will forever possess your current body, but not without some drastic changes.

What are you?

First, consider who and what you are. You are not a spirit trapped inside a temporary shell, just waiting to escape this evil body of flesh in order to become a pure spirit, like an angel. Neither are you a mere animal body without a spiritual soul, running on instinct like a dog.

Rather, you are a body-soul composite. You are not a body, you are not a soul—the real you is both body and soul together. Without one or the other, you’re “not all there.”

What is death?

Death, then, occurs when your soul and body are separated (James 2:26). Without the animating function of your soul, your body is no longer a body that lives, but a corpse that decays.

Your spiritual soul, on the other hand, continues after death. The body needs the soul for sustenance, but the soul does not need the body in the same way. The soul may not be complete without it, but its existence does not rely on it.

When you die

You will be judged immediately after death. Your soul will either be damned to hell along with the many who take the wide path to destruction (Matthew 7:13), or you will join the few who find the narrow way to heaven (verse 14)—whether directly or after God finishes his healing work on your soul in purgatory (1 Corinthians 3:12–15).

But that’s not the end of the story. Our works, both good and evil, were done here in the body, so it is right and just that we reap our rewards in the body as well.

Resurrection

God promises to raise us all from the dead. Which is to say, we’ll be put back together again, our soul and body reunited. This is how we will forever experience the joys of heaven and the pains of hell.

With what bodies?

“How are the dead raised?” asked first-century resurrection deniers. “With what kind of body do they come?” (1 Corinthians 15:35).

St. Paul’s initial response was, “You foolish man!” before addressing the question (read it!). But just because foolish unbelievers ask it, that doesn’t mean it’s off-limits to ponder with faith and hope.

The bodies of the just

Our bodies will be the same bodies we have now, but renewed and glorified, healed and perfected. To say our changed bodies will be “spiritual” (verse 44) is not to say they will be non-physical, but supernatural.

The Church speaks of at least four qualities of the resurrection body:

1. Impassibility—We will no longer experience pain or death or physical evils. Good-bye, aches and pains; so long, death. Hello, eternal life!

2. Brightness—We will literally radiate with glory. We will be shiny, happy people.

3. Agility—We will be able to go anywhere in the universe at the speed of thought, moving with sheer ease and swiftness.

4. Subtility—Our souls will rule our bodies absolutely. Nothing—including walls, gravity, or any other force—will hinder us.

These are the traits that the resurrected, glorified Jesus had (see, e.g., Luke 24:31; John 19:20,26). Even though we can’t fully grasp all this, we can catch a glimpse: “[I]t does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2).

The alternative is not worth the “fleeting pleasures of sin” (Hebrews 11:25). Remember: damned souls will also be reunited with their bodies, which, while lacking all the other traits of glorified bodies, will never die. Their torment will be even worse than before. They will learn from experience why it’s called hell.

Knowing these things, let us “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature be thus minded” (Philippians 3:14–15).