Hope Beyond the Grave
Death comes to all of us (unless we are alive at the moment of Christ's return). All of us have lost loved ones in death. We are daily confronted with the grim reality of death. We see it as we pass cemeteries, see hearses, or switch on the television news. But even worse, we face it up close as we say our final goodbye to a friend or relative. Death is our archenemy, but it is one that will be defeated.
What is the glorious truth about the reality of death? 1 Cor. 15:20-26, 50-55, 1 Pet. 1:3.
How does the certainty of the resurrection divide humanity? 1 Thess. 4:14.
The apostle Paul, in his famous chapter about the resurrection (1 Corinthians 15), stresses that the hope of the resurrection is an essential component of our total faith experience (vss. 12-19). If there is no resurrection, our faith is empty.
Of course, there are many aspects of the physical resurrection that we do not understand. But of one thing we can be sure: Our "resurrection" does not depend on the safekeeping of the present material substances of our bodies. It depends on the power of our Creator to safeguard our identity and to re-create us at a given moment with a new (perfect) body that will never need any cosmetic surgery or antiaging pills.
We have no idea how God is going to perform this miracle. But the God who could create life here to begin with certainly has the power to re-create the earth and fill it with the people whose identities have been safeguarded in the divine memory. Our hope is not based on anything we can verify with our intellect or our senses. The resurrection involves a realm of existence far beyond anywhere science can take us. But it is based on the fact that Christ has conquered death. As a result, the death of the believer is but a temporary "sleep" from which he or she will be raised and given eternal life.
| Even with this great hope, the greatest any of us could have, we still hate death, we still fear it, and we still flee from it all that we can. This is only natural (for death is unnatural). At the same time, what can we do to nourish and strengthen our confidence in the great promise that we have regarding eternal life, a promise that alone can lessen our fear of death now? |
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