The Glory of the Righteous

That the righteous will always remain with Christ our Lord we have proved above, where we showed that the apostle says, “Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet Christ in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.” And do not be surprised that the flesh of the saints is to be changed at the resurrection into so glorious a condition that it is caught up to meet God, held up in the clouds and carried through the air. For the same apostle, setting out the great things God gives to those who love him, says, “He will change our lowly body, so that it may be made like his glorious body.” It is not at all absurd, then, if the bodies of the saints are said to be raised up into the air, since they are said to be renewed after the image of Christ’s body, which is seated at God’s right hand. And the holy apostle adds this as well, speaking either of himself or of others of his own rank or merit: “He will raise us up together with Christ and make us sit together in the heavenly places.” [a]

Since God’s saints have these promises, then, and countless others like them about the resurrection of the righteous, it will no longer be hard to believe those also which the prophets have foretold, namely that “the righteous will shine like the sun and like the brightness of the firmament in the kingdom of God.” For who will think it hard that they should have the brightness of the sun and be adorned with the splendor of the stars and of this firmament, when the life and the manner of living of God’s angels are being prepared for them in heaven, and when they are described as one day to be made like the glory of Christ’s body? It is with reference to this glory, promised by the Savior’s own mouth, that the holy apostle says, “It is sown a natural body; it will rise a spiritual body.” For if it is true, as it certainly is, that God will grant every one of the righteous and the saints a place in the company of the angels, it is certain that he will also change their bodies into the glory of a spiritual body.