The materialism of the Bible constantly startles people. I was talking several years ago with a lapsed Methodist about the resurrection. She said that Christianity taught that we would be pure spirits in the life to come. I insisted on the bodily resurrection.

Getting nowhere, I finally asked her, “Can you recite the Apostles’ Creed?” She began from the beginning, finishing slowly, “I believe in the…forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting. Amen.” The Spirit who dwells in us will “also give life to [our] mortal bodies” (Rom. 8:11).

The resurrected Jesus ate food. “Have you any food here?” He asked His wondering disciples. “So they gave Him a piece of a broiled fish and some honeycomb. And He took it and ate in their presence” (Luke 24:41-43 ). He invited His doubting disciples to touch Him to confirm that He was not a spirit (Luke 24:39; John 20:27).

The Bible portrays us, too, eating in the world to come. Jesus promised that His followers would eat and drink at His table in the kingdom, and those who “overcome” will “eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God” (Luke 22:30; Rev. 2:7). The meek will inherit the earth (Matt. 5:5).

The material creation—sun, moon, stars, plants, and animals—came good from the hand of God at the Creation. “And God saw that it was good” (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31). It is an insult to God to locate sin and evil in material things by “commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving….For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving” (1 Tim. 4:3-4). Even animals once counted unclean are good for food (Mark 7:14-23; Acts 10:15).

Right now, the creation is subject to futility because of sin; it is in bondage to corruption (Rom. 8:20-21). All is vanity under the sun in a world apart from God (Eccl. 1:14). But in the new heavens and earth, where righteousness dwells, the glory of the material creation will shine clearly, cleansed of sin and honoring the Lord.

My six-year-old granddaughters have a favorite music composer—J. S. Bach. We’ve been digging up old records (before iPods, before CDs, even before tapes) of Bach’s music for them. “To the greater glory of God,” he wrote on his music, bringing the world to come into his life now.

All that we do is rightly done to the glory of God. When we think of that privilege, we may think of great works of art, like Bach’s music, or the honor of kings, or some other great thing. Such great accomplishments will be present in the new creation (Rev. 21:26).

Satan did indeed tempt Jesus with all the glories of the kingdoms of the world. But his first temptation of Jesus concerned food (Matt. 4:3). When Paul wishes to instruct us in living to God’s glory, he turns first to food. “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God (1 Cor. 10:31). When I think of what Pastor Chellis calls the “comforting continuity between the life of this age and the age to come,” what I think of first is food.