There’s nothing more tragic than when Christians don’t live with a yearning for the hope of heaven.
Many Christians I think not only don’t live with a yearning for heaven but have an expectation of heaven that’s characterized at best by boredom and at worst by dread.
In the Bible and especially in the NT, the hope of heaven is a real, full, life-giving joy-producing endurance-strengthening hope.
In modern-day terms the word “hope” is kind of an empty wish – we use it to express an wish that we have no certainty of its coming about; or even feel certain that it won’t come about but we just really hope it will. But hope in the Bible isn’t that at all.
Hope in the bible is a sure and confident expectation, based not on my own powerless wish but on the certain unfailing unbreakable promise of God. it’s something sure; something certain; and in fact something so certain that even though it’s still future, it is nevertheless so real to us that it can change our outlook in the present.
We need hope in order to live this life on this earth. A life characterized by suffering, broken dreams and unfulfilled desires and expectations that ends in death – we need hope in order to live.
We all live as though there is hope, even if we don’t know what that hope is or where it’s found; but Christians should know what that hope is and where it’s found and their faith in those things should carry be able to carry them through whatever the encounter in this life – even death itself.
There’s nothing more tragic than when Christians don’t live with a yearning for the hope of heaven.
And the Apostles’ Creed here makes sure that Christians know their future eternal hope and proclaim it all their days with a yearning for it until the day when that future hope becomes reality.
- the Resurrection of the Body
- the Life Everlasting
The resurrection of the body:
The Christian faith is somewhat unique for having such a positive view of the body and the physical world – because we believe that not only were these things created by God; but they were created by God as good; and even when they became corrupted because of sin entering the world they still remained God’s good creation and still remained within the scope of God’s redeeming work.
God created humanity as a united body and soul –
such that you are your body, and your body is you, just as much as you are your soul, and your soul is you.
and just as he created humanity as a body and soul together, so the eternal state of humanity will be body and soul together.
In many other world-views especially at the time of early christianity, the body and physical world were not viewed so positively. For example, in many religions and world-views they believed that the “Body is a tomb for the soul”; and that salvation consists in the soul being freed from the body.
But in contrast to that, the NT teaches that the “Body is not a tomb for the soul but a temple of the holy Spirit” and that the final stage of our salvation consists not in the separation of the body and soul but in the perfecting and reuniting of the body and soul for all eternity.
This doctrine of the resurrection of the body has experienced somewhat of a resurgence in our day & age – which is a great thing, but sometimes what that good resurgence does then is deny or diminish what the bible does teach about the salvation of the human soul.
And at the same time that we rightly remember that the NT’s main emphasis for our future hope is the resurrection of the body which comes at Jesus’s return; we at the same time remember that our hope of heaven isn’t deferred until that time but that we enter into it at death.
This is what theologians call the “intermediate state” of our salvation. We talked about this a little bit on the section of “Christ’s descent into hell”; the intermediate state is the state of believers who have died in Christ are, and what will be our state if we die before Christ returns:
our bodies rest in their graves; but our souls are made perfect in holiness and immediately pass into glory to be with God.
That is hope. That is hope when we remember those we love who have died in Christ; that is hope when we face our own deaths; but that isn’t our final hope.
That’s why Paul in Philippians can say that to live is Christ, and to die is gain, and that to depart from the body in death is to be with Christ.”
Romans 14: “Whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord”
Romans 8: “Neither life nor death nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus.”
Because the intermediate state is characterized by two things: Blessedness, and Expectation.
And so the blessedness of that state though it is really and full, it is nevertheless provisional and incomplete because it is waiting and yearning for something still to come.
But that yearning – that incompleteness – comes to an end. The intermediate state comes to an end – and a complete, final, perfect blessedness comes in the resurrection of the body.
Right now, there is only one body in heaven – Jesus’ glorified body which was raised from death and unlike any other resurrection of anyone else in the bible was not again followed by death. But one day there will be an innumerable host of redeemed bodies inhabiting a new redeemed world.
But, heaven is not ultimately a place that will be inhabited by redeemed human spirits. Certainly not by humans who grow wings and halo’s and turn into angels.
Heaven right now is inhabited by our Triune God; his angels; and the spirits of those who have died in Christ.
But one day those human spirits will be reunited to their redeemed and renewed bodies; and “be made perfectly blessed in the full enjoying of God for all eternity”.
Death brings a temporary separation between body and soul but it’s only temporary – and the death in which our bodies lie will be defeated; and we will rise. Sin will have won no victory; it will not have robbed us or God – but he will have redeemed all of who he created us to be.
This resurrection of the body will happen to both believers and unbelievers – believers will rise into eternal glory; unbelievers will rise to eternal condemnation and shame.
This resurrection will happen on the last day – on the day of Christ’s return.
The dead in Christ will experience this bodily resurrection first, and then those in Christ who are still alive will be changed and transformed to their glorified resurrection bodies.
And we don’t know exactly what those resurrection bodies will be like. But the passage we read in 1 Corinthians is the fullest NT description of them.
And we see that our resurrection bodies have both continuity and discontinuity with our current bodies.
Continuity means – your resurrection body is truly really you – to such a degree that you will still know that you are you;
Discontinuity means that your resurrection body – though it’s truly really you – it’s a radically transformed you – almost beyond recognition – just as Jesus after his resurrection was sometimes unrecognizable to the disciples – but when he revealed himself to them they knew that it was truly really him.
Paul in vv35-42 the analogy of a seed and a mature plant. “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed, he gives its own body.”
In other words, the seed contains the whole plant within it that it will change into; nevertheless the seed looks very different from the plant and only becomes the plant through a radical transformation – through dying and springing forth into new life – through death and resurrection.
And he goes on to describe this radical transformation in vv42-44:
The body that is sown is perishable; it is raised imperishable;
It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory;
it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power;
it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.
Our present bodies are full of corruption. They break down. They are susceptible to disease and disorder; they they die.
Our resurrected bodies will be incorruptible – no longer susceptible to decay, disease, disorder, nor with the shadow of death looming over our existence. Death will be no more. Life as God intended it to be.
Our present bodies are dishonorable – not meaning they are bad, but that the effects of sin and death has robbed them of the glory for which God intended. Their beauty is veiled by the effects of sin and death.
Our resurrected bodies will be glorious – no dishonor but shining full of the unveiled radiant beauty and goodness of God.
Our present bodies are weak – do I need to convince you of this? We quickly and easily get tired and weary and need sleep and rest – in all we set our hand to in life we become quickly aware of our weakness.
Our resurrected bodies will have strength from God – strength sufficient to no longer be hindered in our service to and worship of God.
Our present bodies are natural – which I think in context of this contrast – means belonging to this present age – easily tempted and often sinful.
Our resurrected bodies are spiritual bodies – which doesn’t mean non-physical, but glorified by and in the Holy Spirit – ruled by the Spirit such that they are no longer susceptible to temptation and no longer characterized by indwelling sinfulness but forever done with sin.
Isn’t that good news?
A few applications:
1. How does this change how you face aging? Something that I think about more and more. When you get to the age where you ask the doctor about things, and they just say, “yeah that’s just a part of getting older”.
Some people believe & act as though they can fight off death, but:
Try as you will to be healthy and youthful, you are fighting a losing battle. Being healthy is good but disease and bodily decay and death aren’t hindered by it.
Christians embrace that not in despair but in the hope that one day that won’t character our existence. We will have bodies that will never decay, never suffer disease, never die.
Similarly, how does it give us hope when we experience physical suffering and physical disability in this life?
We know that those things don’t arise out of personal sin but are the results of living in a world broken by sin. And though God is sovereign over it and can bring great blessing in it and use it for great good, it is still a form of suffering – an example of how sin robs life of how it was meant to be.
But if we believe in the resurrection of the body, we have hope that the physical sufferings that plague us in this life are no more in the next life. That we all get to experience life as God created it to be for eternity with no limitation resulting from sin & brokenness. Those who can’t walk in this life will leap for joy in new bodies in the next; those who can’t remember in this life will have minds renewed that can remember for all of eternity; those who can’t talk will sing for joy in their worship of God; those who can’t hear will weep at the beautiful sound of God’s people’s praise.
2. How does this change how you face temptation?
We all face temptation throughout this life; and some brothers and sisters face consistent, persistent temptations that may not be taken away in this life; And that is a hard battle.
But it’s not an eternal battle. there will be a day when the battle is over. When the new creation which we are in Christ has won; where we are perfectly renewed; where sin is no more and where our bodies and souls are so perfectly renewed that temptation to sin no longer arises out of them – or from anywhere else.
And with that hope we can keep fighting the battle now – yearning for that day when the battle is won, and celebrating every little victory in the strength of the spirit now until eternal rest where only love for God and love for others reigns and flows forth in perfected holiness.
3. How does this affect what we do with our bodies at death?
As a pastor I get asked this a lot – does the resurrection of the body require that we bury the dead in some particular manner.
It certainly implies that our bodies should be treated with respect; and there is a biblical example of bodies being buried but I believe this is descriptive rather than prescriptive – and I believe that what we choose to have done with our bodies or those we love is a matter of personal choice in which many factors can come into play – and that this resurrection of the body is clearly a miraculous thing – God can raise up bodies that have decayed or disintegrated to dust because God is all-powerful; he doesn’t need bones to start with and isn’t hindered without them – and just as those martyrs who were burned at the stake or those saints who died so long ago that there’s not much left can have confident hope in their body being resurrected, so can any who were buried or cremated or whose bodies were lost such that they couldn’t receive any honorable treatment.
The resurrection of the body;
The Life Everlasting
In literature and movies, everlasting life is often considered to be a curse.
And the reason that everlasting life is considered to be a curse is for three reasons:
- everlasting life is conceived primarily and exclusively as quantity – or length – of life, rather than quality of life.
- everlasting life is conceived without the transformation of ourselves or our world that makes the quality of that life endurable and enjoyable
- everlasting life is conceived in worldly terms where God is absent.
When everlasting life is conceived primarily and exclusively as quality of life – without any requisite transformation of ourselves or our world – then it is a curse – the best you can hope for is boredom; but the reality is that that unending life would be utter tragedy, loss, and suffering;
But the bible – when it talks about life everlasting – isn’t talking primarily about quantity of life, but about quality of life –
life in renewed bodies, life in a renewed world.
A perfect world. A world of paradise. A world where if you feared that immortality in that world could be boring or cursed then you just don’t get it.
A world where there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
A world where God is at the center. A world where life exists in fullness and abundance.
Jesus said that he came that we might have life, and might have it to the full. Abundant life. Life as it was meant to be.
In the bible, true life, is fellowship & communion with God – our maker who we were made for – in him we find all that we look for and search for in this life but never find.
CS Lewis said that if we find ourselves with desires which this world can’t fulfill, then what it tells us is that we were made for a different world. “Heaven is that remote music we are born remembering.”
“The whole human race has a kind of deep memory of paradise lost, a faint but powerful awareness that there must be another, better world – home.”
Every human being is searching – for life – for God the only one who can fill the god-shaped hole in their heart – which nothing else in all this life can fill;
but in the life everlasting, that gap will never exist because we will be filled to capacity – overflowing – by the presence of God – by living in perfect fellowship with him.
Many modern conceptions of heaven and the new heavens and new earth have one fatal flaw: they leave God out of it.
But God is at the center of it: unhindered fellowship with him; lives that are centered around him in love and worship – is the central aspect of our lives in heaven – we’re with Jesus forever; and if that doesn’t warm your heart then you need to check your spiritual pulse!
Abundant life – everlasting.
If we believe that this life is all there is, we will life this life for ourselves.
We will live for this world, which is passing away.
But if we believe that this life isn’t all there is – and that something better is our destiny – and if we yearn for that and life in light of the hope of that reality – then we can endure suffering; then we can take up costly obedience; then we can live with patient endurance; then we can lay down our lives for Jesus.
Because we know that this life isn’t all there is and all we get; that it’s not the last chapter and that death isn’t the end but that this life is only the prelude to the greatest story ever told.
Edwards: “Heaven is the highest of all joys, the deepest of all pleasures, the greatest wonders the universe will ever know. And it will be the delight of the Christian to take it all in and glory in it forever.”
CS Lewis said that there are “no ordinary people.”
Humanity is not – neither body nor soul – inherently immortal. Only God is – but he has bestowed immortality upon us; and raises us to immortal life or immortal death;
and so while live we proclaim Jesus’ resurrection to those who are without hope, so that they can come to know life eternal and abundant – as it is only found in Jesus.