YOU ARE CHILDREN OF THE RESURRECTION.
In the name + of Jesus.
In a series of challenges against Jesus,
the Sadducees took their turn. The
Sadducees were the temple priests, but they were more politicians that priests. They craved power and wealth. Being worldly, they rejected the existence of
angels and the resurrection of the body.
So, when the Sadducees came to Jesus, they were not curious about the resurrection. Rather, they came to mock the very idea of
one.
It
would be nice if we could bypass their rejection of the resurrection as some trivial
oddity. But we hear less and less about
the resurrection of the dead even in Christian churches. Funerals should be the one place where the
hope of the resurrection is proclaimed.
Instead, funerals have turned into a celebration of the person and the
life which was lived rather than delivering the comfort of the life of the
world to come.
Some
Christians talk about reincarnation more than resurrection even though reincarnation
is a Hindu teaching. Reincarnation is
appealing because people love this world and want to keep it. People assume that they have lived a good
enough life that they will return to this world in a higher place, in other
words, attaining greater earthly glory.
In truth, if our rewards came through reincarnation, we should all come
back as slugs; for our sins are many. None
of us has overcome jealousy, anger, impatience, or selfishness. Reincarnation denies the resurrection of the body. It rejects the fact that God created you to uniquely
be the human you are for this time and in this place and that you will be you
for all eternity. But—God be praised!—you
are not trapped in a cycle of death and reincarnation. You are children of the resurrection.
The Sadducees assumed that any eternal
life would be just like this life. So, they
presented a worldly scenario in which a woman, through the course of time, was
married to seven brothers. God’s Law had
called for every married man to have his name and his line preserved through his
children. So, if a man died without a
child, his brother was to father a child through his wife, and that child would
be regarded as the dead brother’s child.
As the Sadducees told their story, seven brothers all had taken this
woman as a wife, but none of them ever fathered a child. Finally, the woman died, too. So, as if they were actually seeking an
honest answer, the Sadducees concluded, “In the
resurrection, … whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife” (Luke 20:33).
Jesus explained that life in time and life
in eternity will be different. Life in
this world is full of sorrow and pain. Even
the Sadducees’ story acknowledged that.
Can you imagine the strife, stress, and sorrow that woman would have gone
through to have seven husbands die? She
also never had a child to help her in her old age. In this life, we endure loss of friends, loss
of family, loss of property, loss of health, loss of hearing and eyesight and
memory, and finally, we lose our life.
Such things may be common, but they are painful.
Everything God had made was very good—and there
is still good in much of it—but all of it was corrupted when sin entered the
world. Our bodies are good, but sin has
corrupted them so they age, break down, and die. Marriage was established and blessed by God,
but every marriage takes work as two sinners fight off their selfish desires to
serve one another. Sometimes the sinful desires
win and the marriage fails. God created
people to have a loving relationship with him, but sin has ruined that,
too. Sin causes us to be insulted that
God thinks he should have anything to say about how we live our lives—even though
God is the source of life. Sin causes us
to defy God with our actions and attitudes.
Sin causes us to fear his judgment.
Finally, sin produces death.
Everyone wants a better life than
that. Dear Christians, you have such a
future! Jesus came to restore everything
ruined by sin. He removed your sin from
you. The Lord took on a human body so
that he could deliver our human bodies from the corruption of sin and the
chains of death. Jesus bore our sin and gave himself into death. Jesus was not only put to death at the cross,
he was put under God’s judgment at the cross.
And the full curse for all sin was emptied out there.
Jesus gave his life into death so that he would
overcome death. Then he rose from the
grave, never to die again. Jesus died in
shame and weakness, only to rise with a body that lives in a glory that will
never pass away. Jesus submitted to
beatings and bruises and bleeding, only to rise from the dead with a body that
will never suffer any harm, any pain, or any affliction again. Death does not own Jesus; Jesus is the master
over death. Jesus lives and forgives all
your sins. He has reconciled you to God
and restored that relationship. Jesus is
the resurrection and the life, and all who believe in Jesus will be delivered
out of death and raised up to life everlasting.
The Sadducees assumed that the next life
would be just like this life. Dear Christians,
you have been delivered from being raised from the dead only to return to a
corrupt life and wicked world. Jesus
will deliver you to a new life that is superior to everything in this world. He will restore all things back to
perfection. Jesus will deliver you to a Paradise
that is free from any problem you encounter now. You will have a perfected body which can
never die and will never get sick. Your mind
will be in complete harmony with God’s will, and your heart will have a perfect
love for the Lord and for others. Joy
will never be interrupted with sadness.
Glory will never marred by shame.
Peace will never be lost to conflict or anxiety. You will be with your risen Lord forever, for
you are children of the resurrection.
That’s not to say we are ungrateful the
blessings God gives in this life. But
some are just for this life. Jesus explained
to the Sadducees, “The sons of this age marry
and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to
attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither
marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because
they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the
resurrection” (Luke 20:34-36). God established
marriage for this life because it is not good for the man to be alone. He binds the man to his wife. Then he blesses them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” (Genesis
9:1).
That blessing still stands. It drives
our desire to procreate to assure that the world will have people living on it
for generations to come. That blessing and
that drive to procreate are properly fulfilled within marriage, which is why
God established marriage for this life.
You are children
of the resurrection. Once you and I have
been raised, we will be like the angels.
We will be perfected in glory, and we will have no need to procreate to
add to the numbers in heaven. Just as
the number of angels is set, so will be the number of the redeemed. Therefore, there is no need for people to be
married off in the glories of heaven. But
that is not to say that there is no wedding.
As children of the
resurrection, you will be brought to the wedding banquet of the Lamb. You will recline with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob
and the whole company of heaven to feast with your Lord for all eternity. The Bride of Christ, which is the Church, is
clothed in beautiful garments, which is baptism. Through baptism into Jesus’ name, you have
been clothed with garments of salvation.
The heavenly Groom, Jesus, will come again to receive his holy Bride,
and there will be joy for Christ and his Church forevermore. Of course, we already get to partake in that
feast already. We kneel at the altar where
we receive the heavenly food. It is the
same feast that is shared by all the saints who have gone before us. While our celebrations are interrupted by our
labors in this sinful world, their celebration goes on in unending joy. That joy will be yours soon enough, for you
are children of the resurrection.
Jesus’ final
statement to the Sadducees is intriguing.
He said, “That
the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the
bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and
the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of
the dead, but of the living, for all live to him” (Luke 20:37-38). Of course, the point
is that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, though long gone from this life, still live
with God in glory. Now, I suppose you
could argue that this does not prove the resurrection. Their souls have gone to be with the Lord,
but their bodies are still dust.
Jesus, however,
says that this proves the resurrection of the dead. Could it be that once we pass out of this time,
we are immediately transported to eternity with bodies and souls already
restored? It is possible. If they feast, they must have bodies; for
spirits can’t eat. But we don’t know how
things work when we pass from time into eternity. We only know this world and the time that passes
in it. From what we see, people die and their
bodies turn to dust. After a period of
time, those bodies will be raised on the Last Day. That is what we experience. But what did Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the
saints of the past experience when they closed their eyes in death? We can say that they are with the Lord because
the Bible says so. They live forever and
they will never again know sorrow, pain, or death. The Bible tells us that, too. But whether death fast-forwards us to the day of resurrection or not,
we can’t say.
What we can say for sure is what the Scriptures
reveal. We are safe when we take our
stand there. The Scriptures state that when
we die, “the dust returns to the earth as it
was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it” (Ecclesiastes 12:7). But God did not
design us to have our soul separate from our bodies. Death rips those apart. Since Jesus has come to restore all things to
perfection, he will reunite bodies and souls so that we will be whole as God
designed us to be. Jesus became a man to
be the way for mankind to escape death.
He rose a body and soul man to show us that we will live as body and soul
people in the glories of heaven.
You are children of the resurrection. Jesus Christ has come to secure a life for you which is far better than any life you can imagine here. Jesus Christ will come again to deliver you to that beautiful life. And—God be praised!—those who have passed out of this life trusting in Jesus already have it. What they are celebrating now, you and I pray for each day. And Jesus Christ will guard and keep you to bring you there.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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