Metamorphosis
Definition: A change of the form or nature of a thing or person into a completely different one, by natural or supernatural means.
The Butterfly: Master of Metamorphosis
By Wallace G. Smith, February 2018 (from Tomorrow’s World)
There are virtual miracles that surround us in God’s created world—wonders we take for granted too easily. In the life cycles of even the lowliest of creatures, the One who is their Creator and ours has placed lessons and examples for us to consider.
It is easy to think of the well-known transformation of caterpillar to butterfly and fail to consider the everyday miracle it represents. It is truly one of the great wonders of the living world.
Let’s take some time to muse on the caterpillar and the butterfly, nature’s masters of metamorphosis, and then let’s consider just one important lesson it represents for us.
A Startling Metamorphosis
There’s truly nothing about a caterpillar that would suggest it is a butterfly in disguise. In fact, some look at caterpillars and see nothing but pests that threaten to destroy their plants and crops—and, indeed, caterpillars have a voracious appetite! Often looking like a fat worm with stumpy legs, caterpillars spend their days eating leaf after leaf, constantly growing and becoming larger and larger, shedding skin several times as they bulk up.
Yet they aren’t driven by greed or gluttony. They are on a dedicated mission, preparing for one of the most astonishing transformations in all of God’s creation!
Eventually the caterpillar will find its way to a secure location and create a silken anchor of sorts that it uses to attach itself to a twig or branch, often on the underside. Then, within its own body, just under its skin, a chrysalis begins to form—a hard surface that will enclose the caterpillar as it begins to change. As the chrysalis begins to reach completion, the caterpillar will completely let go of the branch, dangling by its anchor, and it will shed the outermost layer of its body. Eventually, all that is left hanging is the chrysalis, with the body of the caterpillar hidden within.
It would be easy to conclude that the caterpillar has simply died after creating its own dangling tomb, but the very opposite is true. While the chrysalis hangs there, quiet and immobile as a coffin, what’s going on inside the casket is a flurry of activity! Many of the old structures of the caterpillar’s body are destroyed—tissues are dissolved by enzymes into their protein components, and muscles are broken down into small building blocks of cells, all to be reorganized into new structures with different purposes. Some of the caterpillar’s organs are rearranged, such as the breathing tube that will now be used to power the muscles of wings.
After a time of deceptively quiet inactivity on the outside, the chrysalis suddenly bursts open to reveal a completely different life form to the world! The caterpillar that had disappeared from sight within what seemed to be a tiny coffin emerges to life once again, but in the form of a beautiful butterfly. Its set of 16 stubby legs and “prolegs” have become six thin, spindly butterfly legs, that will allow it to crawl on the petals of the most delicate flowers. Its large, bulbous body has been replaced by the smaller, graceful thorax and abdomen of the butterfly. Similarly, the creature’s head—once possessing six small, simple eyes and leaf chewing mouth parts—now boasts two large, complex eyes, capable of feats of vision beyond our own, and a gentle, curved proboscis, a straw-like structure the butterfly will use to suck sweet nectar from flowers and fruit.
And, of course, there are the beautiful wings. Structures of intricate design and often artistically stunning coloration, the wings of the butterfly are perhaps the starkest indication of the complete and utter metamorphosis that the creature has experienced. The portly, grubby, leaf eating caterpillar is gone, though not truly gone. Rather, it has been transformed into the beautiful, delicate butterfly—a creature seemingly as far removed from the caterpillar as one could imagine.
From the very first moment that the caterpillar came into existence as a tiny egg, its Designer—the great Creator of all things—had placed the blueprint of this exquisite butterfly right there in its genetic code, just waiting for the right time and opportunity to express itself and transform this humble “worm” into a wondrous creature of flight and fancy. What a tribute to God’s intelligence and ingenuity!
Destined for Transformation
But the astonishing transformation of the lowly, worm-like caterpillar into the radically different creature we call the butterfly provides a beautiful analogy for an even more astonishing transformation God is accomplishing within mankind.
The people we see as we look in the mirror may disappoint us. Too fat. Too skinny. Too short. Too tall. Filled with good intentions, perhaps, but, as Jesus Himself said, “The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (Matthew 26:41).
Yet God plans a future transformation for human beings of such vast, even cosmic significance, that the remarkable metamorphosis from base caterpillar to beautiful butterfly pales in comparison!
The Bible reveals that all true Christians—those living and those long dead—will be utterly changed at the resurrection to come at the return of Jesus Christ, “who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself” (Philippians 3:21). Yes, a future body and glorified existence awaits humanity, as children of God for all eternity—an existence radically different from what we experience now!
Like the caterpillar, which “dies” (in a sense) in its chrysalis only to emerge as a glorious new creature, utterly different from what it was before, God intends such a transformation for us, as well: “The body is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power” (1 Corinthians 15:42–43). This glorification of the children of God is an event of such beautiful majesty that God’s word says the entirety of creation awaits the moment with anticipation, knowing that the transformation of humanity and the birth of God’s children represents the liberation of the universe from the bondage of its current corruption (Romans 8:20–22).
Our Change Is Coming, Too
As the patriarch Job once said during his time of trial and testing, “All the days of my hard service I will wait, till my change comes” (Job 14:14). It is easy to imagine such words coming from the caterpillar, itself! And like our leaf-eating friends, we, too, have a transformation ahead of us—but one of far greater significance and wonder.
Let us praise our Creator, who has created us with a purpose and is, right now, working toward our transformation. We may live the life of the caterpillar now, but the butterfly is our destiny! And we can pray to that Creator in hope, alongside Job, with an eye toward our metamorphosis to come: “You will call and I will answer you; you will long for the creature your hands have made.” (Job 14:15).
Relevant Scripture Regarding Transformation
Ezekiel 36:26 . . . I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
Job 19:25-27 . . . For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
2 Corinthians 3:18 . . . We, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
2 Corinthians 5:17 . . . Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Romans 8:22-24 . . . We know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.
Romans 12:2 . . . Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
John 3:1-5 . . . Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?” Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
Acts 2:38 . . . And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Philippians 1:6 . . . And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.
Philippians 3:20-21 . . . But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.
1 Corinthians 15:35-55 (NLT) . . . But someone may ask, “How will the dead be raised? What kind of bodies will they have?” What a foolish question! When you put a seed into the ground, it doesn’t grow into a plant unless it dies first. And what you put in the ground is not the plant that will grow, but only a bare seed of wheat or whatever you are planting. Then God gives it the new body he wants it to have. A different plant grows from each kind of seed. Similarly there are different kinds of flesh—one kind for humans, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish.
There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies. The sun has one kind of glory, while the moon and stars each have another kind. And even the stars differ from each other in their glory.
It is the same way with the resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies are planted in the ground when we die, but they will be raised to live forever. Our bodies are buried in brokenness, but they will be raised in glory. They are buried in weakness, but they will be raised in strength. They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.
The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.” But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit. What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later. Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. Earthly people are like the earthly man, and heavenly people are like the heavenly man. Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.
What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.
But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.
Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die, this Scripture will be fulfilled:
“Death is swallowed up in victory.
O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?
John 14:1-4 . . . “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. ”