“Today you will be with me in Paradise”

We no longer know Christ in a physical body, “according to the flesh” (2 Cor 5:16).

When we finally come to “see” him, it is as he passes out of this world.

As such, we do not now live by sight, but by faith (2 Cor 5:7),

faith in the one who has conquered death

and is seated at the right hand of the God and Father.

We wait in anticipation of his coming, striving forwards to meet the coming one.

And we do this knowing that in his coming,

we will be conformed to his image,

with our bodies transformed to the stature of his glorious body (Phil 3:20–1).

And, furthermore, this is already happening in those

who confess their faith in baptism and take up the cross,