Preached · July 30, 2017
Finishing the Series
Today, we are finishing up our series, I'm Dead, Now What? We're in part four, week four: life after life after death.
We've been talking for a while about wanting to do some Q&A time. So here's what's going to happen: I don't have enough time today to do Q&A. A lot of great questions came in that I wouldn't do justice to if I tried to squeeze them in today, nor would I do justice to the topic that we're talking about today. So what I'm going to do is release a separate podcast. This sermon will come out tomorrow on our podcast, and I'm going to release a separate podcast that answers all those questions. So if you have more questions after today's sermon, feel free to email them to me, or if you want to ask them anonymously, head to gncconline.com/imdead and send your questions there.
What We Believe About the Future Changes the Present
Now, we are talking about life, death, the afterlife, resurrection, heaven, hell, all of that. And why are we doing this? Is this just head knowledge, just a thing to check the boxes, get the answers right on a quiz? No. The reason we're talking about this is that what we believe about the future changes how we live in the present.
A lot of you believe or hope or pray that you're going to retire one day, that you're going to stop working. You're going to hang up the lab coat, hang up the suit jacket, hang up the overalls, hang up whatever you wear to work, and you're going to stop working one day. And because of that belief in your future, that affects how you act in your present. Hopefully you've got somebody telling you how to save your money for retirement, putting in some investments, some mutual funds. You're putting that aside in light of what you hope for or are expecting for the future.
Another analogy: my wife, Emily, she's gone this weekend. She's away on a girls' weekend. And so I'm watching Audrey, our daughter. If you know me at all, don't you dare tell me I'm babysitting my daughter. I am parenting my daughter. Audrey is with me. Emily is away. Now, in a few hours, Emily's going to come back. So what should I do today? How should I spend my time? Should I spend my time while Audrey and I do some laundry and get the house clean and get a nice dinner prepared? Or should I say, ah, Emily can do all that, I'm just going to sit back, pop open a soda, and relax? I think you all know what the answer is. In light of my expectations of the future — Emily's coming back — I'm going to change my actions in the present.
What we believe about the future changes how we live in the present. That's why what we're talking about matters. If we get the future wrong, if we get what Scripture says about the future wrong, then we're going to get most everything else wrong, too.
Where We've Been
So where have we been? Well, I invite you to join me. We're back in our passage, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 and forward. If you've got your Bibles, iPads, iPhones, Android devices, Kindles, whatever, join me there. We're going to be reviewing what we've talked about, and then finishing up this series. 1 Thessalonians 4 says:
Brothers and sisters, we don't want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of humankind who have no hope.
So we've talked about how the church is waiting for the second coming of Jesus. Jesus came, he inaugurated his kingdom, and then he left for a long season of time, and we're in this in-between place waiting for him to return and consummate, finish, complete the work of his kingdom. And in the first-century church — and it still applies to us today — as we're waiting, people have died. And so the question is being asked, What happens to them? So Paul answers, We don't want you to be uninformed. And so, where are these folks who have died before Jesus' return? Well, we talked about last week, the intermediate heaven, or paradise, this waiting place where the souls of Christians, of believers, go as they wait for Christ's return. Two weeks ago, we talked about how to grieve — not like the rest of humankind who has no hope, but how to grieve as people with hope, believing that God can use any situation for good. And so we do need to grieve. Grieving is not anti-Christian. Grieving is a very Christian thing to do. But we grieve as people with hope.
Continuing on:
For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
So last week, we talked about how the basis for all of our beliefs — everything that we believe about life, death, the future — is the fact that Jesus died and rose again. John and the worship team did an excellent job of putting those words on our lips. That's the basis of everything that we believe: that Jesus died and was resurrected. And last week, we talked about how Jesus died. He descended into hell, he descended into the dead, and he made proclamation to the spirits of those imprisoned, and then brought the many captives with him into paradise, into intermediate heaven. If none of that sounds familiar to you, I encourage you to go check last week's podcast.
Now, we want to give you the rest of the story:
According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, we who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 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. And 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. Therefore, encourage one another with these words.
So again, everyone who dies in Christ, everyone who dies as a believer, they are in a place that theologians call intermediate heaven, or paradise. This idea that when we die, our souls are with Jesus. They are in the loving, restful, blissful embrace of God. 1 Thessalonians calls this being asleep in Christ. And not that we believe that they are literally asleep; we believe that they are consciously with Jesus.
The Resurrection: The Big Bang of New Creation
But then what happens? Well, in order to answer that question, we are going to look more closely at Jesus' resurrection. Jesus' resurrection is the big bang of the new creation. It's the historical event on which our faith stands. Without it, without Jesus' resurrection, our faith would be essentially meaningless.
So what did Jesus' resurrection do? Was it just a really cool display of God's power? Did it prove that Jesus was God? Well, it's at least those things. It at least shows God's power. It at least shows that Jesus is God. But it's more important than that. It's the big bang of the new creation. It's the beginning of God's project to redeem, restore, and reconcile the earth and the heavens.
Jesus' primary message, the thing that he preached about most often, was God's kingdom — that God was reclaiming all of creation for himself. Creation, Genesis 1, was created good, good, good, very good. And then it was defiled, marred by death and evil. And so God's mission — in Latin, it would be the missio Dei, the mission of God — is to reclaim, reconcile all of creation to God's good intent. To renew it, redeem it, and recreate it.
Here's how Scripture puts it. Colossians 1: through Christ, God is reconciling all things together, whether things on earth or things in heaven. And so ever since the fall or the curse, Genesis 3, creation has been de-reconciling. It's been falling apart. In scientific terms, it's in a state of entropy, moving into a state of further and further disorder and chaos. Until Jesus comes along. The resurrection of Jesus is God's giant reset button on creation. And so now the curse is in the middle of being reversed. Everything is being brought back to a state of reconciliation, of relational harmony, unity. In Hebrew, the word would be shalom. It's about wholeness and peace and health.
2 Corinthians puts it this way:
If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone and the new is here. And all of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ.
So how has God done this? He has done it in Christ. He has done it through the resurrection of Jesus. That Jesus died, his body was buried, and then that body was restored, renewed, resurrected, brought to life again.
If Christ Has Not Been Raised
So we're going to spend quite a bit of time in 1 Corinthians 15. If you want to, put a bookmark in 1 Thessalonians and go to 1 Corinthians 15. This is what Paul says about if we don't believe in the resurrection:
If Christ has not been raised — if this historical event did not happen — our preaching is useless, and so is your faith. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile. You're still in your sins. Those who have fallen asleep or died in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.
Christ's resurrection means that we're forgiven. Christ's resurrection means that those who have died in Christ have some form of hope. If Christ died and stayed dead, then what on earth are we doing here right now? There are a thousand better ways to spend your time on a Sunday morning. Better things to do than to open up your wallet and give money away to a church. Better things to do than to test out your karaoke skills in a large-group setting. There are better things to do if Jesus is still dead. We had better not be Christians because it's the cultural default. We had better not be Christians because it would disappoint our parents if we weren't. We had better not be Christians because it's a nice thing to be part of a club that offers you free childcare every once in a while, or a nice brisket barbecue, or some social connection.
We are Christians, we believe in Jesus, because Jesus is alive, is active in the world, and has rebooted creation so that the entire cosmos can be part of that new creation. That is why we claim the name Jesus.
The First Fruits and the Resurrection Body
Jesus' resurrection is a physical, bodily resurrection that happened at a certain point in history, and it's the cornerstone of what we believe. Paul calls Jesus the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep. Now what does that mean? It means that not just Jesus will experience this resurrection. He's the first fruits, he's the prototype, he's the one that the rest of the resurrection is going to be based on. He's the model on which all of us are going to be built. Therefore, everyone who puts their faith in this Jesus will experience a physical, bodily resurrection just like Jesus did.
I want to take a brief look at what is true about Jesus' body after his resurrection. Scripture says that Jesus walks around on roads — he's ambulatory. He has conversations, he talks with people, he appears and disappears, so he seems to have some built-in Star Trek technology, I don't know. He has the scars of the cross, which I think is interesting. When we think of perfect bodies, we like to think of bodies without flaws, without scars, and yet I think it's beautiful that the scars that redeemed the world are on this body. And I think it's true that probably the scars that we have, that were received maybe on behalf of others, we might still have. Jesus' resurrected body eats. He asks for food and for drink and he eats it. I had somebody on Facebook ask if there are going to be restrooms in heaven or in the new creation. I will leave that answer to God. Jesus gives hugs, he gives fishing advice to all you backseat fishermen — get excited. He serves breakfast. Jesus had a resurrected body — eats, drinks, walks around. It's not a ghost, not an apparition, it wasn't group hypnosis. It was a real body that Jesus had. He performs miracles, he can walk, he passed through locked doors. There's something very tangible, very physical about Jesus, yet at the same time supernatural. Beyond nature, and yet very much a part of nature.
Paul talks about resurrection kind of like farming. He says our bodies, the ones that we have right now, they're going to be laid to rest in the ground, and it's like a seed that you put in the ground. And it's going to go in as one thing and come out as another. Now if you put an acorn in the ground, if you plant the acorn, what grows out of it? Like a massive 40-foot acorn? No. Something that's more than an acorn. It's not less than an acorn. It's more acorn than the acorn was. It's a tree. Beautiful, gorgeous tree. And so Paul writes that the body that is sown is decaying — these bodies put to rest in the ground, they're decaying — and they're going to be raised undecaying. They are sown in shame — we all feel a certain amount of shame about our physical bodies; that's why we all put so much money into our clothing — and they're going to be raised into glory. Our bodies are sown in weakness — you know, this guy who doesn't go to the gym, in particular, in weakness — and raised in power. It is sown as the embodiment of ordinary nature and raised as the embodiment of the Spirit. And so our bodies are going to be changed, transformed, resurrected, to be the same yet different. No more decay, no more shame, no more weakness. It's going to be an embodiment, a physical material embodiment, of God's Spirit within us.
The Timeline
Okay, so let's talk timeline. Why we're all here, right? How and when and in what order does this all happen? 1 Thessalonians gives us some clues. 1 Corinthians 15 tells us a bit more.
First, the primary emphasis of Paul's second-coming theology, and the New Testament's second-coming theology, is that it is a coming. It is a royal arrival. Remember our word from three weeks ago: parousia. It's a royal arrival. King Jesus is coming to claim his land. The way things are done in the capital in heaven are now going to be the way that things are done on earth. This is our great hope and reward. Listen to how Paul talks about it throughout 1 Thessalonians. He says we wait for God's Son from heaven. He talks about the presence of Jesus when he comes. Jesus arrives with all of his saints. God will bring with Jesus. He talks about the arrival of the Lord. The Lord will come down from heaven. The Lord will arrive, and we're going to be kept blameless at the arrival of Jesus. There is no language of us being taken. Not a Liam Neeson situation. Not that we leave earth and go to heaven. No, Jesus takes heaven and brings it here.
Now, Jesus is going to be bringing some folks with him. Those who have fallen asleep in him. In other words, those who have passed away and their souls are currently in paradise with God. And there are two geographic perspectives from which you have to look at this. If you've died and your soul is in heaven, in God's presence right now, then from your soul's perspective, Jesus is bringing you from heaven to earth. But from the perspective of the body in the ground — whether it's been buried or cremated or lost at sea or decomposing for a thousand years — it's being raised up to meet your soul, which is coming from heaven. The soul and the body, they are going to be reunited. And so that's how Scripture can simultaneously talk about Jesus bringing those with him, the saints, as well as there being a rising up of the saints. You being reunited, soul and body.
And Scripture is very clear that those dead in Christ are going to be the first to experience resurrection. 1 Thessalonians: we will not precede those who have fallen asleep. The dead in Christ will rise first. So in other words, we don't need to have any worries about those who have died before us. They are in fact going to be the first citizens of the new creation, of heaven and earth united.
But let's say Jesus came back today. Those who've died, they're going to get new bodies. But what happens to us? Our bodies are still filled with decay. Our bodies fight against our redeemed souls. Even though our souls have been redeemed and justified and sanctified in Jesus, our bodies as they are aren't fit for the new creation. They aren't ready for a place with no death or decay. So what happens to these bodies that we have right now? Paul puts it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:
We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed.
Which happens to be a great motto for a church nursery. Rolling in awareness through the congregation — I literally put in my notes, parentheses, pause for laughter. In other words, we will not all die, Paul's saying. Somebody's going to be alive when Jesus comes back. And in order for us to enter into God's kingdom, Jesus' new kingdom on earth, our bodies are going to have to be recreated, changed, transformed. So the dead in Christ, their bodies are recreated, reunited with their souls. And then those of us who are still alive — and it may be us, it may be generations after us, but whoever is still alive at the coming of Jesus — our bodies are going to be transformed, remade into new-creation kind of bodies.
Paul continues in 1 Thessalonians:
We will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so be with the Lord forever.
And so the souls of those who have died and gone with Christ are being reunited with their bodies, and then our bodies are going to be transformed and brought up into the clouds with Jesus. And I'm sure that's going to be a moment very bewildering. You're mowing your yard one day, and then boom, you have a new perfect body, and you're up in the clouds with Jesus and everybody who died before you.
Not a Seven-Year Fake-Out
Now I don't want you to get confused about something. Just because we meet Jesus in the air doesn't mean that we then go back up to heaven and wait for seven years until Jesus actually returns. In the early 19th century, there are some people who began to think that once we met the Lord in the air, there was going to be a seven-year waiting period before Jesus actually did his second coming. It was like a fake-out the first time, seven-year waiting period, and then the actual second coming. This is a drastic misreading of Scripture. Because remember what 1 Thessalonians says — we're waiting for Jesus' what? His arrival. We aren't waiting to be taken. That's not our hope. It's nowhere said in Scripture that our hope is waiting to be taken to heaven. We aren't waiting for people to be left behind. We aren't waiting to go to heaven. We're waiting for Jesus' return. His parousia.
Remember how parousias worked in Rome. Roman emperors didn't leave Rome, didn't leave their throne, and then go to their colony, to all the other towns, and then take everybody back to Rome with them. That was not how parousias worked. Parousias were all about establishing the town as an extension of Rome itself. And so Jesus' return is in the same way. He is coming with his saints, with our dearly departed loved ones, reuniting souls and bodies, transforming our bodies into new-creation kind of bodies, and coming to reunite heaven and earth. So yes, we are going to meet him in the clouds, and then we're going to keep on coming with him when he establishes his kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven, that will have no end.
What Happens to Hades?
Now, I'm going to turn to one last issue before I come to our conclusion. What happens to Hades? Last week, we talked about the fact that those who are in heaven right now, the intermediate heaven — it's an intermediate state. It's not a permanent state. They are waiting for Jesus' return, just like we are. And I also alluded to the fact that the same is true of Hades, this resting place for the souls who have not accepted Jesus. So what happens to it?
Well, in the book of Revelation, we're told that after the resurrection of those in Christ, there's going to be a second resurrection of everybody else. Everyone who has not accepted Jesus. And any place that could hold the dead is going to be empty. Revelation 20 says, "The sea gave up the dead that were in it." And so the sea was kind of seen as a version of Hades. You were lost at sea, you were essentially in a version of Hades. "And death and Hades will give up the dead that were in them." Early in Revelation, we're told that there's this lake of fire where the devil and Babylon and a beast and a false prophet are thrown in. And it's a place of complete and total punishment. And so this is what verse 14 says:
Then death and Hades themselves were thrown into the lake of fire. And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.
And so here we're met with this fascinating image — I would dare say a slightly beautiful image — the idea that death and Hades themselves are destroyed, are themselves thrown into this lake. We're also met with this tantalizing image, and here we're way out into speculation: that there are those who haven't accepted Jesus, they're before the judgment throne of God, and those who are not found written in the book of life are thrown into the lake of fire. Does that mean that there are those who will be found in the book of life? I don't know. John puts it a weird way. But we have to recognize that there are going to be those who will not spend eternity with Jesus, who are not going to be able to enjoy God's new creation. And these are the people who are going to end up in this lake of fire.
And brothers and sisters, I think that's as it should be. God would not be entirely a God of love if there was no punishment, if there was no consequences for those who reject Jesus. And to tell you why I think that is, I'm going to actually give you a quote from pastor and author Rob Bell. And Rob Bell, you may have heard, is a universalist and doesn't believe in hell. But you've been told wrongly. This is actually a quote from his book, Love Wins, about the consequences of not following Jesus:
In speaking of the expansive, extraordinary, infinite love of God, there is always the danger of neglecting the very real consequences of God's love. Namely, God's desire and intention to see things become everything they were always intended to be. And for this to unfold, God must say about a number of acts, and to the people who would continue to do them, "Not here you won't."
In other words, for God's love to be, in fact, loving, there has to be boundaries, and guidelines, and things that are right, and things that are most absolutely wrong. And to those people who perpetuate the wrong, who refuse to repent, to turn to accept the God of love and grace and joy and peace — well, of course, heaven would be pretty miserable with those people around, wouldn't it?
And so if hell is the logical conclusion of God's love — of God's creation and of a new world without sin or death or pain, and therefore placing those who would perpetuate such things into that hell — and if I know that the number one way to avoid that hell is by knowing Jesus, then I have an absolute moral imperative to tell people about Jesus.
Listen, do I hope that there is more than one way to God? Do I hope that God will let all nice people in? I do. I really do. I don't want to see anybody go to hell. I don't want to see anybody perish. I trust that God's definition of justice and mercy and grace is better and deeper and bigger than mine. But I also know that Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me." I know that Jesus said, "For wide is the gate, and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many — too many — enter through it. But small is the gate, and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it." Maybe there are other paths to God. Maybe other religions could possibly lead to citizenship in the new heaven and new earth. But it's not what Jesus said, and it's too great of a gamble to test out that theory.
Beautiful Are the Feet
Paul puts it this way in Romans:
Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. How then can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone telling them? And how can anyone preach or tell them unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news."
Which is, of course, why this church is called Good News. We — not the one guy on the platform — we are all called, sent, to share the gospel. To tell people the name of Jesus, so that they may call on him as Lord and be saved.
I recently asked our elders and our deacons, our leadership team, for their big why. Why do they care about the church? Why do they care about church leadership? Why do they care about being part of what the church entails? And Bill Boer — I love you, brother — one of our deacons, his response was this. He said, "I want heaven to be crowded with my neighbors." Which brings us back to the beginning point: what we believe about the future changes how we live in the present. I believe that my wife, Emily, is coming back today. You better believe I'm going to get the house clean and make a nice dinner and welcome her home like a royal princess. It's the parousia of Emily, and I'm getting ready.
What we believe matters. So, do you believe that the entire point of this religion of Christianity is to go to heaven when you die? Well, then I'm not surprised if you don't care about things like pollution and poverty and climate change. Do you believe that all nice people go to heaven? Well, then I'm not surprised that you haven't shared the gospel with anyone. In every case, when the New Testament writers talk about the return of Jesus, they connect it with how we live today.
Offering and Closing
So I'm going to invite the worship team forward, our ushers are going to come forward and take an offering, and I just want to conclude this series with a few of those passages and then get off the platform.
Peter writes:
We are looking forward to the new heavens and the new earth he has promised, a world filled with God's righteousness. Therefore, dear friends, since you are waiting for these things to happen, make every effort to be found living peaceful lives that are pure and blameless in his sight. Remember that our Lord's patience gives people time to be saved.
Paul writes:
Death swallowed up by triumphant life. Who got the last word, death? Death, who's afraid of you now? Therefore, with all this going for us, my dear friends, stand your ground. Don't hold back. Throw yourselves into the work of the Lord, confident that nothing you do for him is a waste of time or effort.
And finally, 1 Thessalonians:
Therefore, let our allegiance to Jesus and the Father's unconditional love protect our hearts, and the hope of salvation protect our heads. Jesus died for us so that whether we are alive or dead, we will live together with him. Therefore, encourage one another and build up each other's households of faith.
God, we thank you for your good word and the promises contained therein. By the power of your Holy Spirit, may we be the kinds of people who know you are coming, who know your parousia is coming, Jesus, and therefore live like it.
