From dust we came, and to dust we will return (unless our Lord returns first). But this dust will be resurrected, reconstituted when Christ comes again in glory. On that day of reunion—of body and soul, earth and heaven, men and angels—when all things are at last visibly made subject to the second man, Jesus Christ, then believers will live forever in fully and finally sanctified bodies.
Holiness begins and ends with a crisis. In regeneration, we were definitively sanctified (past tense). Our whole Christian life involves progress in sanctification. But that process will be brought to perfection in two further critical moments: the moment of our death and the hour of the final resurrection (see Westminster Confession of Faith 32.1, 3).
Christians have already been sanctified; we have already “died to sin.” Sin’s dominion is broken (Rom. 6:2, 14). But we are not yet free from sin’s presence or its influence. The Christian life is a battle all the way home.
But one day—or more precisely, on two days—that will all change. When believers die, they are immediately “with Christ” (Phil. 1:23) and are, in William Cowper’s words, “saved to sin no more.” What a mixture of relief and joy that moment will bring.
Paul adds that it will be “far better” than anything we have known here. We have never known a moment when that has been true here. But then we will be free from the down-drag of sin, breathing in—and then breathing out again—the pure, perfectly sanctified air of glory. What must it be like when perfect holiness and total love for God the Father, Son, and Spirit—and for our fellow believers—are both natural and easy? Yes, actually easy—and as natural as breathing.
Yet there is more to come. Our bodies are not merely temporary housing for the soul. No, our bodies also are who and what God made us to be out of the dust of the earth. From dust we came, and to dust we will return (unless our Lord returns first). But this dust will be resurrected, reconstituted when Christ comes again in glory.