My Heavenly Sim Body

A common characteristic of many interactive computer games is the ability to create and customize your own virtual character from a palette of body parts. In the classic SIMS, the click of a mouse allows you to go from sexy super model to rockstar or cool muscular dude. There is something appealing about being able to craft our own simulated identity in this way. Leaving behind the limitations of our real bodies in pursuit of a virtual one gives us a chance to imagine ourselves without the flaws or limitations we have in the real world.

As a thought experiment, imagine in the future that scientists invent the Reality SIMS (with the help of some near magical bio technology) that can now transform your body in the real world. How would you choose to change your body?
Many of us I suspect would build a youthful H&M body with a few outliers opting for the early thirties. The cynic in me also thinks the optional celebrity look alike package would also be very popular. Bad skin, crippled legs, blindness and all manner of human physical imperfection would not be high on the option list.

Creating a virtual body is in one sense a placeholder for our desire to transcend the limitations of mortality which we all must face. For no matter how lucky we were in the genetic lottery, all of us will ultimately age and die. Today it is poplar to put faith in sciences ability to eventually be able to whip up some replacement parts, or put a stop to the aging process. Two thousand years ago in the ancient world of Israel a demonstration of power over death was given when Jesus Christ resurrected. After resurrecting he appeared to many of his disciples, and even ate with some of them, demonstrating that he was more than just a ghost or a virtual figment of their imagination.

The resurrection is God’s sign that death and decay does not have to be the final word. Through Christ, God has demonstrated a heavenly version of SIMS with the power to transform our mortal bodies. But this transformation will not just be external it will also change our inner nature. For it was our lack of inner beauty, what the bible calls sin, that caused the death process to start. Fortunately Christ’s death begins the internal change process, giving us access to God’s kingdom as “we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” Why settle for a simulation when the real thing is coming?