Week #12:
God’s Final Victory:
God is at
Work in History
The Bible presents human history as moving toward a divinely
directed goal. History is not cyclical, with events recurring
in an eternal cycle; nor is it evolutionary, progressing
under its own power. Rather, it is moving in a direction
determined by God. It will reach the goal that He has ordained.
Everyone is interested
in the future. As Christians, we can be absolutely certain
that God has a plan for the future that cannot be defeated.
Although in these lessons we cannot study in depth these
important truths that relate to what God has planned, our
study of Last Things will lead us to consider in brief fashion
several important truths that relate to God’s purposes
for the future.
Death
Death, rather than the second coming of Christ, is the time
when most people will meet God face to face. Often its reality
is ignored, but those who accept its certainty may reorder
their lives.
Christians should think through biblical teachings about
death, for its meaning is quite different than for the unredeemed.
Death for the Christian has been compared to birth. Christians
may dread the experience of death, for it is painful and
the world beyond is unknown. The womb of this world is comfortable,
and it is the world he knows. Yet when Christians pass through
the womb of death, they are born into a new world that is
much greater than earthly life—just as earthly life
proved to be greater than life in the mother’s womb.
Eternal life with the Master, absence of sin and sorrow,
love and joy, and thousands of other experiences await those
who die in the Lord.
Intermediate
State
The Christian believes that the body will be resurrected
(1 Corinthians 15). The question that troubles many is what
happens to the Christian between the time of his death and
the resurrection of his body at the end of time? There are
two non biblical views that some people believe, they are
“soul sleeping” and “purgatory”
The New Testament does not support belief in either of these
views.
The Christian
spends the time between death and the resurrection of his
body in the presence of the Lord. The apostle Paul affirmed
this truth to the Corinthians: “Therefore we are always
confident and know that as long as we are at home in the
body we are away from the Lord. We are confident, I say,
and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with
the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:6-8). When one who puts
their trust in Jesus Christ dies, that person is “at
home” with the Lord. The body has been laid aside,
and a new, resurrected body is promised; but in the meantime,
the believer is with the Lord.
But what of those
who die outside faith in Jesus Christ? What is their condition
between the time of their death and their final judgment?
When unbelievers die, their bodies go back to the earth,
but what of their spirits? The Bible teaches that everyone
who dies, believers and unbelievers, their bodies go into
a place called “hades”. There is a final hell
for unbelievers, just as there is a final heaven for those
who believe.
And so, the believer’s spirit is with the Lord, the
unbeliever’s spirit is not with the Lord.
Luke 16:19-31
gives us the well-known story of the rich man and Lazarus.
Both men died. Lazarus was carried to Abraham’s side
where he was comforted. Obviously, Lazarus was conscious
in a state of rest, comfort, and joy. His condition was
that of a saved person.
The very opposite was true for the rich man. He went to
hades; but for him, it was torment and agony. He was conscious
of his suffering and cried out for just a drop of water
to ease that suffering. Even this prayer could not be answered.
The barrier between his suffering and Lazarus’ peace
was insurmountable. Abraham responded to his request by
saying: “Between us and you a great chasm has been
fixed, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot,
nor can anyone cross over from there to us” (Luke
16:26).
The intermediate or disembodied state, then, is a time of
conscious joy for the saved and conscious punishment for
the lost. When we die, we experience one or the other.
Resurrection
of the Body
John 5:25 records these words of Jesus: “I tell you
the truth, a time is coming and has now come when the dead
will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear
will live”. In John 5:28-29 we read “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”. The believer’s
resurrection is based on the reality of the resurrection
of Christ; His resurrection is the basis of the believer’s
hope to be raised from the dead.
Those who rightly
understand the resurrection are able to face persecution
even to death, for they know that death is no more than
a painful experience and not the end. This knowledge provides
us with a new dimension of life. We march to a different
drummer, we can resist the pressures of this world to force
us into its mold; we can think thoughts and take actions
on the basis of God’s eternal economy rather than
that of this world.
Nature of
the Resurrected Body
The form of the resurrected body troubled the Corinthians,
and it troubles some believer’s today. If the body
decays and is recycled in nature, how can it be raised?
Paul’s answer is that bodily resurrection does not
mean that we will have the same flesh-and blood body that
we now have. The natural body is not to be compared to the
resurrection body. Somehow, God will shape for each person
a body suited to the resurrection. The form of the body
is not important; what is important is that we will not
be disembodied spirits or absorbed into some ethereal idea.
We will be real persons, with real identities and real personalities.
The body God provides will not be subject to aging, decay,
and death. The bible is clear as to the nature of the resurrected
body. (1 Corinthians 15:53-54 and Revelation 21:4). John
said that we would be like Jesus. (1 John 3:2). Jesus had
a body, and it was one in which the disciples recognized
Him. (Luke 24:36-43).
Time of the
Resurrection
When will the resurrection of the body take place? Paul
addresses this question in 1 Corinthians 15:51-52: “Listen,
I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will
all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an
eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the
dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed”.
When the believers who have died are resurrected and those
who are alive when Jesus returns are transformed, all of
God’s people will have imperishable and immortal bodies.
Death will be forever defeated. Victory will belong to God’s
people. (1 Corinthians 15:53-56).
Judgment and
Eternal Destiny
The end time will be a time of judgments, after God has
sought again and again to bring people to redemption. The
fact that God is Judge has already been discussed in this
study, but the point must be reinforced that eternal judgment
is sure (Revelation 20:12-13). No one—believer or
non believer—will escape it. The Christian is safe
in the blood of Christ, but even so, both joy and sorrow
will abound when each of us stands before God’s judgment
and answers to God for our faithfulness (Romans 14:19-21)
and 2 Corinthians 5:10). The feeble excuses we give for
not putting God first, that seem reasonable to us today,
will stand in stark contrast to what God reveals as truly
important. The unredeemed will quake before God as He states
with amazing detail the number of times they had opportunities
to repent and did not. And it will be obvious that their
sentences of condemnation are righteous.
Reality of
Hell
In Scripture hell is made perfectly clear “Multitudes
who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting
life, others to shame and everlasting contempt” (Daniel
12:2). The foundational principle of justice demands a heaven
and a hell. People who live outside the will and mercy of
God are rebellious people who are unfit for the righteousness
and purity of heaven. It is not a matter of how much God
loves people; it is the rejection of His love that condemns.
New Heaven
and Earth
The consummation of history will take place when the world
as it is passes away and a new heaven and earth are created
(Revelation 21:1). Heaven is a real place and there will
be rewards for believer’s there.
We will worship God there. But…Being part of “God’s
Great Commission” is our calling here on earth.
