Word of Salvation – Vol.34 No.01 – January 1989
The Comfort Of Always Belonging To God And The Body Being Raised To Life
Sermon by Rev. M. P. Geluk on Lord’s Day 22
Reading: Matthew 22:23-33, 1Corinthians 15:35-58,
Heidelberg Catechism Lord’s Day 22
Singing: Ps.H.140; 356:3,4; BoW.H.701; Ps.H.469
Lord’s Day 22 deals with the last two articles of the Apostles’ Creed.
These are: I believe in the resurrection of the body; and,
I believe in the life everlasting.
The church in its Heidelberg Confession not only confesses these articles of our faith to be biblical but also asks if they comfort us. Does it give you comfort knowing that Scripture teaches a resurrection of the body and a life on the new heaven and earth?
We live among thousands of people who couldn’t care less about these things. They might even walk out of the cemetery where they buried a loved one and heard the minister say something about committing the body to the ground, earth to earth, dust to dust, until the day of the general resurrection of the dead at the coming of Christ, and not believe a word of what they heard. There may be those who are vaguely aware that Christians believe that they will be raised in the body, without realising that not only Christians but everyone will be raised from the dead. The Lord Jesus Himself said:
“Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out – those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.” (John 5:28).
But right now we do not want to talk about what will happen to the unbelievers but about believers being comforted by the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. Does it really interest you to know what will happen to you when you die and when Jesus comes back? Or are you more interested in girls, or boys, or cars? The fact is, of course, that all girls and boys grow old and die. Some even die when still young. Cars don’t last either.
In Lord’s Day I we have that beautiful statement of belonging to Christ in body and soul, in life in life and in death. Christians repeat these words and say that they derive comfort from the truth of what they confess. We now give our attention to what actually happens when we die and when Jesus raises the body.
Lord’s Day 22 speaks of: The Comfort of always Belonging to God, and of the Body being raised to life.
- What happens when we die?
- What happens when we are raised in the body?
1. In the first place then, what comfort do Christians have when they die?
Let us imagine that your believing father (or mother) has died. That’s not hard to do because for many of us that has happened already. The doctor has to come and testify that the body is lifeless. He will write out the death certificate which is an official pronouncement that your father, whose name is on the piece of paper, is now dead. Our father’s death saddens us and we mourn. But we are also comforted because we say that he has gone to be with Christ. The doctor tells the truth when he says that your father is dead. But the Scriptures do not lie either when they teach that your Christian father is living. Is he fully conscious, and, if so, of what is he conscious? We have to admit that we do not have many answers to these questions. Sometimes that can prove to be a worry for some and they are severely tested in their faith. They do not doubt that death is real for they went to the cemetery and saw the coffin with the body in it being buried in the ground. But they haven’t been to heaven where Christ is. No one living today has been there to tell us about it. Except Christ! He has been there with God from eternity, then came down to earth and lived for a while among us, the people of the world, and then returned to heaven.
There is no doubt that Christ has lived on earth. It is an historical fact. But did Christ rise from the dead and is He now in heaven again with the Father? Christians do believe that for they find such evidence in the Bible. Evidence that is historically reliable, for the Bible speaks of persons who saw Christ in His resurrected body. Christ is a real person and Christians who know Him from the Bible accept His Word as being true. He Himself has testified to being the eternal Son of God by His works and by the miracles He did.
And so when Christ said that He went to heaven to prepare a place for all those who believe in Him, Christians know what will happen to them when they die. They will go to be with Christ. And whilst we may not have many detailed answers about the circumstances of our Christian father who died and who is with Christ, we do know that only his body is dead and he is alive with Christ. We know that He lives because the Bible says so.
“I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise,” said Jesus on the cross to the criminal next to Him. (Luke 23:43). “Today!” Not only when Jesus comes again to raise the living and the dead, but “today”, “this very day”. The apostle Paul did not always find life in the world an easy thing. Hardships, persecution, troubles were upon him as he laboured for the church with the Word of God. And so he wrote to the church in Philippi: “I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far.” (1:23).
He is talking about no longer living in the world and to be with Christ. At another occasion the same Paul writes about this earthly life in the body being a struggle and longs to be in the heavenly dwelling. He said at that time, which may have been particularly difficult:
“We… prefer to be away from the body
and at home with the Lord.” (2Cor.5:8).
Now that kind of speaking does not suggest a prolonged state of unconsciousness or sleep between bodily death and the resurrection at Jesus second coming. On the contrary, it teaches very clearly what Lord’s Day 22 states “…my soul will be taken immediately after this life to Christ its head.”
Even the Old Testament which does not say much about the conditions and circumstances of life after death, does give assurances that God will take His own people to Himself (Ps.49:14,15). The Lord will guide us with His counsel through this life, and afterwards He will take us to glory (Ps.73:24). And elsewhere it speaks of filling His people with eternal pleasures at His right hand (Ps.16:10,11).
Now all such references from the Bible teach that the Christian believer will be with Christ as soon as life leaves our bodies. At death Christians do not cease to exist. No one does for that matter. Unbelievers will experience immediately at their physical death a never-ending separation from God in what we understand to be hell. Neither does anyone go into some kind of soul-sleep at death. There is no going down into “a dark and dreamless sleep without any awareness of time or place until the alarm clock goes off for the great getting-up morning.” (A. K. Kuyvenhoven).
But surely we derive most comfort and assurance about being with Christ after we die, from the covenant relationship we have with God. We see this clearly from a confrontation between Jesus and the Sadducees. The Sadducees were Jews who believed that the resurrection was an impossibility. They tried to trap Jesus by putting a hypothetical case before Him. A woman had seven husbands during her life, marrying another when the former husband died. The Sadducees wanted to know whose wife she would be at the resurrection. In His reply the Lord told them they were in error because they did not know the Scriptures. At the resurrection, Jesus said, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; but they will be like the angels (Matt. 22:23-30).
When we, later on, speak about the nature of the resurrection body, we’ll have to come back to these words from Jesus. But what is of importance now is what Jesus said to these Sadducees:
“But about the resurrection of the dead – have you not read what God said to you: ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not the God of the dead but of the living.” (Matt.22:31,32).
Now when God reminds us that He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, He is pointing to His covenant relationship with His people. God has promised never to let go of the covenant nor of His covenant partner. A marriage relationship only lasts as long as the life of one of the partners. If either one dies, the marriage has ceased. But God’s relationship with His covenant partner never ceases. Death breaks the union between husband and wife. Death will never break the union between God and His people. For neither partner will ever die. God is eternal, He always is and will be. And the believer never dies, for Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, has given him eternal life. So this talk about soul-sleep or a ceasing of existence after death in the body is nonsense. It comes, not from Scripture, but from not recognizing the covenant between God and His people.
That covenant relationship God has with believers, therefore, gives us great comfort and assurance when we realise that we must die. What the doctor says is true. When the person you loved has died, the body is lifeless. That fact slowly hits home. Your loved one is no longer there in that lifeless body. We respectfully bury the remains but we must believe that the Christian who physically died is with Christ. Your believing father or mother went to be with Him immediately when the body became lifeless.
As to the circumstances of how they are with Christ we must not press for too many answers. The Bible does not give us too many details about life with Christ in heaven before the second coming. Then there will be a new body but how exactly things will be before that great resurrection we do not precisely know. But we know this, the Lord was their God all the years of their life in the covenant, and He is still their God now that they have left this world, for God is not a God of the dead but of the living.
- In the second place, what comfort do Christians have by believing that they will be raised in the body? What will happen? You might recall that the believers in Corinth had some problems here. They had no difficulty in believing and accepting the resurrection of Christ but they did have difficulty with the bodily resurrection of the Christian. They asked, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” (1Cor.15:35).
We must admit that we too have our questions here. Think of all those whose bodies were drowned at sea, torn apart by explosions, burned to cinders by fire, eaten by wild animals. Or bodies that grew old and wrinkled, frail and weak, some ravaged by cancer, or bodies scarred maimed. The questions of the believers from Corinth do not seem out of place. Yes, how are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?
Scripture answers these kind of questions as follows: “How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.” (1Cor.15:36). And it then proceeds to speak of the law of the seed. The seed that you hold in the palm of your hand has a particular shape and size. It has a body all its own. But you put it into the ground and there it undergoes a radical transformation. That plant that comes up is quite different from the seed you sowed.
God uses this illustration to make us aware of the fact that the body that is raised is quite different from the body that died. The nature of the body that we have here is perishable, mortal, sometimes ugly, often weak. It is very much a body with physical limitations. But in contrast to that the nature of the heavenly body is quite different. It is imperishable, glorious, powerful and spiritual. The body that will be raised is not subject to decay. It cannot die; it is a spiritual body.
But what is meant by that, a spiritual body? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms? Well, think of your earthly existence. There is a physical but also a spiritual dimension to us, isn’t there? We can think, believe and trust. Those are all spiritual things. But here it is always in terms of our existence in the body. The spiritual part of us is subject to the body. But upon the new heaven and earth it would seem to be the other way round. There the resurrection body is fully subject to the spiritual part of man. Here everything is subject to time and space. There all things are eternal and unlimited.
We are helped in understanding the nature of the resurrection body when we look to Christ after He rose from the dead. Scripture says that our lowly bodies will be transformed to be like the glorious body of Christ (Phil.3:21). We know from the Gospels that Christ, after His resurrection, ate food, could be seen and touched. But He also could come and depart without having to go through the door. He could all of a sudden be present and then just as suddenly be gone. It is obvious that the resurrected Lord was no longer subject to the normal earthly limitations of the body.
Yet He was no ghost. He had a spiritual body. With that He ascended into heaven. The disciples saw Him go up in the body but He was no longer subject to the forces of gravity. And now Scripture says that believers will be made like Christ’s glorious body.
Here on earth we are like Adam, the Man of dust. On the new earth believers will be like Christ, the Man of heaven. The apostle John wrote in his first letter:
“What we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears we shall we shall be like Him for we shall see Him as He is.” (1Jn.3:2).
So we will recognise Christ.
But will we also recognise one another? In the Psalter Hymnal we find these words:
“When we are called to part,
it gives us inward pain;
But we shall still be joined in heart
And hope to meet again.” (447:4)
and:
“God be with you till we meet again… at Jesus feet.” (473).
The question is, of course, what do we read into these words? Will those who are married here recognise each other there? What if they have been married more than once? Will parents recognise their children and children their parents?
It would be unwise to be guided only by what hymn writers imagine the new heaven and earth to be. And certainly we should not be guided by what well-meaning people write about the departed in the death notices and on tombstones. I am not referring to texts quoted from Scripture but words people make up themselves.
Jesus said that …many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of heaven. (Mat.8:11). And on the mountain of transfiguration the disciples were given to see Jesus in His full heavenly splendour and they saw “Moses and Elijah talking with Jesus.” (Mat.17:3).
Now we have never seen Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Elijah, neither the Lord Jesus Christ for that matter. But we will see them on the new heaven and earth and we will know who they are. And if believers will know them, then they will know all of God’s people. All those, who were saved in Christ from the beginning of history to the end, will know each other. There will be, as Jesus said, “one flock and one shepherd.” (Jn.10:16) The great multitude of the redeemed will all be there. All will be one in Christ Jesus, there will be one bride, the church, and one bridegroom.
John must have had a most beautiful vision when he said:
“After this I looked and there was before me a great multitude that no-one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.” (Rev.7:9,10).
From this it must follow that the different nationalities that we now know of will no longer count. The differences in races, peoples, tribes and languages, from whom God has gathered His elect, will have vanished. The Son of God has made His saved people into one kingdom and speaking the one language.
It follows further that the ties of blood and family relations as we now have them will no longer exist anymore either. When Jesus was reminded one time of His earthly mother and brothers, He said:
“Who is my mother and who are my brothers? Pointing to His disciples, He said: Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of My father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” (Mat.12:48-50).
And to return to those Sadducees once more who tried to trap Jesus by asking Him which of her seven husbands the woman would be married to in heaven, the Lord said that at the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Marriage ties and family relations are for this life here on this earth and they fall away at death.
With regard then to our existence in our glorified bodies on the new heaven and earth, we are to put the emphasis not on a reunion of father, mother, children, husband and wife but on a union with all of God’s people and with Christ very much in the centre.
The ties of blood that bind us in our earthly existence will no longer be of importance in our heavenly existence. But the ties of faith that we now have with our spiritual brothers and sisters will be strengthened and made perfect. Not the family members of this life will await us, but the Lord and the saints already redeemed. And God will wipe away every tear from our eyes and He will dwell among us.
Yet, there will be individuality too. It will not be a nameless existence. There will be recognition and a knowing each other. For if we will know Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses and Elijah, then we will know other individual believers.
What we should do is not think so much of a family reunion but of a church reunion, which, in a way is a family too, of course. A spiritual family. As the people of God on earth we are one body and one flock. Yet we are not a unity without individuality. We are one congregation but it’s made up of different members who are not all the same but each has his own individuality. It will be the same in heaven but then but more glorious and perfect. Here we still have our differences, sometimes sinful. The unity now is often burdened with all kinds of tensions, pressures, difficulties and even divisions and brokenness. But then it will be all perfect and complete. It will then truly be one body, one spirit, one Lord, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.
Therefore, in our expectations of and longings for future glory we must always put Christ in the centre. It will be a perfect fellowship with each other but only so because Christ is in our midst. When we remember and believe what Christ means to us, what He did for us, what full redemption He gives, we will be able to see Him as being more precious to us than all our earthly ties. We will see the Lord of glory and even though we do not fully know what splendour awaits us, we have it revealed to us by God through His Spirit. It is a perfect blessedness which, as it says in Isaiah and quoted by Paul and repeated in Lord’s Day 22:
“No eye has seen,
No ear has heard,
No mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love Him.”
AMEN.