Digging Deeper: Are There Bald People in Heaven?

It’s been said that passages like Luke 7 show Jesus’ resurrection was nothing unique. The widow’s son sat up in his bier. Lazarus walked out of his tomb four days dead. Jairus’s daughter got up and ate a meal. Depending on how you count, seven or eight people in Scripture died and lived again. So why is Jesus coming back to life any more significant than theirs?

The answer is that theologians distinguish Jesus’ resurrection from revivification. Lazarus, Jairus’s daughter, and the widow’s son all came back to the same body they left. And all of them died again. Lazarus is in the ground somewhere.

Jesus isn’t. Moreover, the body He rose in was different. A glorious body, as Paul puts it (Phil. 3:21).

As you read the Gospels, do you notice that people tend not to recognize Jesus at first? Mary Magdalene takes Him for the gardener. The two on the road to Emmaus walk seven miles with Him and never place Him until He breaks the bread. The disciples fishing at daybreak don’t know who’s calling to them from the shore.

And yet it’s unmistakably Him. He tells Thomas to put a finger in the nail marks and a hand in His side. The wounds are still there. Whatever a resurrection body is, it carries a history—it isn’t a replacement.

And we’re promised the same sort of resurrected body. Paul says Christ will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body. Different, glorious, and physical. Not angels on clouds. Not minds uploaded to the Matrix. New resurrected bodies.

Which raises some deep theological questions. What age will we be? Will amputees have their limbs? Or the deeper question: Will I have hair in heaven or remain bald?

I suppose you could ask whether being bald is an infirmity to be cured. My wife says it’s a feature, not a defect. She also laughed at me in the mirror this morning, so I’m not sure she’s a reliable witness. I say all this in jest, as I’ve come to terms with it. Although my barber hasn’t. He still insists on charging full price for what I see as half the work.

But beneath the silly questions is a remarkable promise. Whatever is broken in us now will not remain broken forever. If Christianity is true, then death is something to be excited for. Disabilities, disease, and aging do not have the final say. God does.

Ask Yourself:

• What would you like restored in the resurrection, and what would you want kept?
• Jesus kept His scars. What does that suggest God might do with your history?