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What to Expect on Sunday |
We are at the second in our five week series on heaven, a topic that, while central to Christian faith, is one that seldom gets addressed but one we’ve taken on prompted, in part, by our coming across Randy Alcorn’s book which is simply entitled Heaven. To be sure, there is little we can say with absolute certainty about heaven—so great is heaven and so limited are our minds to understand. Nonetheless, it is a topic worth exploring and imagining—bringing greater excitement to our faith and a greater purpose and meaning to our lives on earth. C. S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity, says, “If you read history, you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were just those who thought most of the next. The Apostles themselves, who set on foot the conversion of the Roman Empire, the great men who built up the Middle Ages, the English Evangelicals who abolished the Slave Trade, all left their mark on Earth, precisely because their minds were occupied with Heaven. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this. Aim at Heaven and you will get earth ‘thrown in’: aim at earth and you will get neither.” So, Heaven is a topic worth exploring. We do so with all humility and as I mentioned last week, I covet your prayers for me as we pursue this topic and encourage you to be praying for yourselves and others as we explore the topic of Heaven. Today, our focus is on resurrection. Resurrection is essential to Christian faith. Certainly it is essential to the topic of heaven! However, resurrection and heaven is not all there is to Christian faith. A few months ago, I shared with you the words of a Christian song from the 70’s which had the lines, “If heaven never was promised to me, it’s been worth it all, just having the Lord in my life. Living in a world of darkness and he brought me the light.” The point being that living life in this world with Jesus as my Lord is how I would want to live whether heaven was promised or not—the “Judeo-Christian ethic” being the standard I want to base my life upon. But, in fact, heaven has been promised to us. It is a central doctrine of Christian faith. And it involves an understanding of resurrection. The Scripture passage for today is the most comprehensive teaching in the Bible about resurrection: 1 Corinthians 15. Reading verses one through eight, and twelve through twenty-three for today, but the entire 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians has much to teach us about the resurrection and we’ll be looking at other verses later. For now, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8, 12-23. (Read) The first thing to understand about the resurrection and begin to develop an understanding about heaven is to look at the resurrection of Jesus. Christ is the first to experience resurrection and his resurrection opens the way for those who follow him. It is our model to follow. And the first thing to be said about Christ’s resurrection is that it is a fact and not metaphorical or allegorical. Jesus Christ physically rose from the grave. Paul goes to great lengths in the first part of chapter 15 in his first letter to the church at Corinth to establish that fact by pointing out the number of eyewitnesses who personally experienced the risen Christ—beginning with Peter (Paul fails to mention Mary Magdalene and the other women perhaps because of women’s lowly status as eyewitnesses in that time and place), followed by the other disciples, then a crowd of 500, then James (the brother of Jesus) and “all the apostles,” and, finally, to Paul himself (perhaps the Damascus Road experience or some other experience where Paul clearly was in the presence of a resurrected Jesus). That’s a significant number of eyewitnesses to the resurrected Jesus. Add to that the significant impact of that experience in the lives of the disciples and others—their increased boldness for proclaiming the resurrection and their willingness to die for that proclamation—and one has strong evidence for the reality of Jesus’ resurrection. Did all those people make it up? More importantly, would they be willing to die for something that they knew to be a lie? I think not. Consequently, we have a strong foundation upon which we build our understanding of the resurrection. Any discussion about heaven begins there—with foundational belief in the resurrection of Jesus and, subsequently, the resurrection of his followers. What, then, can we say about our resurrection? What does the Bible, which is our source for images of heaven and understanding about resurrection, lead us to believe? First of all, there appears to be two resurrections we will experience! The first resurrection is what occurs when a believer in Christ dies. Randy Alcorn refers to this as the judgment of faith. For those who have accepted the gift of Jesus Christ as their Savior, their spirits are raised to be with Christ immediately. Their bodies await the second resurrection, a bodily resurrection that occurs when Christ returns to earth and establishes God’s Kingdom forever. It’s complicated, I know, but stay with me and let’s see how Scripture leads us to this understanding of two resurrections. There are several Scripture passages which speak of Christ’s return to earth. Christ himself spoke of his return. From our Scripture passage last week, John 14:1-6, Jesus says, “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.” The conclusion of the book of Revelation speaks of the coming of a new heaven and a new earth ushered in by the triumphant return of Jesus Christ. Most notably is this passage from 1 Thessalonians: “According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep (a euphemism for those who had died). For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever,” (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17; underline mine). This passage, of course, is the reference for the much misunderstood and maligned Rapture, about which the most we can say for our purposes today is that it is a mystery and best leave it at that. What is clear, however, is that at the return of Christ there is a resurrection, first of all, of those who have died in Christ. The conclusion drawn being that those who have died in Christ remain in their graves until the Lord returns. Yet, there are also Scripture passages which point to an immediate resurrection in the presence of Christ. For example, the book of Revelation is filled with images of resurrected saints (believers) who are in heaven and in the presence of Christ before his return and the establishment of a new heaven and a new earth. The apostle Paul, writer of the passage quoted above from 1 Thessalonians, also writes with an understanding of being in Christ’s presence at the moment of his death. In 2 Corinthians he writes, “We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord,” (2 Corinthians 5:8; underline mine). Also, in one of my favorite passages of Scripture (I want this read at my funeral service), Paul says, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain…I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far; but it is more necessary for you that I remain in the body,” (Philippians 1:21, 23b-24; underline mine). And Christ himself, while upon the cross between two thieves, says to the thief who acknowledged Jesus’ lordship and asked Jesus to “to remember me when you come into your kingdom,” “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise,” (Luke 23:43b; underline mine). Scripture leads us to conclude that there are two resurrections for those who trust in Jesus Christ as their Savior: one, an immediate resurrection of our spirits to be with Jesus on the occasion of our death on earth; and a second resurrection of our bodies to be reunited with our spirits at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ at which time he will restore God’s creation to the perfect condition it was when first created. That is what I believe and I invite you to ponder that in your own faith journey. Randy Alcorn certainly has more to say about that in his book Heaven. I don’t get any royalties so decide for yourself if that is a resource you want to consider! I do encourage you to join in the discussion taking place during the Sunday School forums at 9:00 each Sunday morning in Charter Hall. One question that probably surfaces in the contemplation of two resurrections is what are the implications of that for what we believe about heaven? And, indeed, the conclusion about two resurrections along with other passages of Scripture lead us to conclude there are two heavens—an “intermediate heaven” before Christ’s return and a New Heaven and New Earth ushered in by Christ’s return. That will be our topic next week. Let’s take a moment for prayerful, silent reflection on the power of the resurrection in our lives. |
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