Who shall change our humble body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working by which he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
Through the resurrection of the dead and their transformation into glory the power of the Lord will be manifestly apparent, subduing all the principalities and powers so that he may be manifestly the God and Lord of all.
What he obviously means is that those who no longer desire sins are immortal, since they enjoy divine delights. That is the rule ordained for the blessed, of whom it is said, “They shall be as angels.” .
All that deformity, detestable and foul to Gentiles, with what splendour shall it be recompensed! This temporal and brief suffering, how shall it be exchanged for the reward of a bright and eternal honour, when, according to the word of the blessed apostle, "the Lord shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like to the body of His brightness!"
Into the likeness of Christ, and to arrive more quickly to the dignity of heavenly glory, since Paul the apostle announces and says, "For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change the body of our humiliation, and conform it to the body of His glory?"
In this place of worship dwells the mystery of the resurrection. For what was fulfilled in Christ in the flesh was this: that he should save souls and also cause immortality to be given to the flesh through resurrection. This he accomplished by the power of his cross.
When we rise and are changed and are made spiritual in soul, body and spirit (for all these three make up one man and are one spirit), the body in which we have been humbled will be raised. It will be of the same and an equal form to the body of Christ’s own glory. So too we shall be spirits as he himself is a spirit.
“The power that enables him to subject all things to himself” consists in the transition from one nature to another nature. Insofar as it ceases to be its previous nature, it becomes subject to its new nature. It does not stop existing but advances in existing. It ceases to be the old nature and becomes the new nature. It is subdued by transformation as it passes into the fashion of the new kind that it has assumed.
He says, the body of our humiliation, because it is now humbled, subject to destruction, to pain, because it seems to be worthless, and to have nothing beyond that of other animals. That it may be conformed to the body of his glory. What? Shall this our body be fashioned like Him, who sits at the right hand of the Father, to Him who is worshipped by the Angels, before whom do stand the incorporeal Powers, to Him who is above all rule and power, and might? If then the whole world were to take up weeping and lament for those who have fallen from this hope, could it worthily lament? Because, when a promise is given us of our body being made like to Him, it still departs with the demons. I care not for hell henceforth; whatever can be said, having fallen from so great glory, now and henceforth consider hell to be nothing to this falling away. What do you say, O Paul? To be made like Him? Yes, he answers; then, lest you should disbelieve, he adds a reason; According to the working whereby H...
If Christ coming from heaven will “transform the body of our humiliation into conformity with the body of his glory,” then this body of ours, which is humbled by sufferings and cast down into the earth by the very law of death, is the very body that will rise. For how will it be transformed if there is nothing? Against Marcion.
If, again, Christ in His advent from heaven "shall change the body of our humiliation, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body".
It was as full of this splendid example that Paul said: "Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body."
