Introductory Comments (01/20/23)

I have been somewhat taken aback by the extent of commentary on these verses, although I probably ought not to be surprised at it.  There is not a great deal that is new in what Paul teaches here, nor should there be.  But there is new information, at least as we consider the chronology of scriptural revelation.  There are also things here in this earliest of Paul’s letters which we see resurfacing later and with fuller explanation.  But the sum of this is that just as it has taken far more days than usual to arrive at this first bit of comment, it’s going to take me a while to get through what comments I have.  I am also expecting, at this point, that I shall spend a good deal of time considering matters of the Last Day.  That is a topic I’ve not devoted a great deal of effort towards in the past, preferring to allow its shroud of mystery to remain.  But I am feeling something of an urging to consider what is actually said about that day, its events and its order.  However, as the Wycliffe Translators Commentary observes in regard to the passage before us, it is not a systematic teaching on that day, nor does Paul enter into discussion as to how the Rapture and the Tribulation relate. 

His purpose is to address an immediate issue in the growth and experience of a young church.  That church has not had as much benefit of  immediate Apostolic teaching as he would have preferred, but we can say that in the Providence of God, such as they have had was sufficient.  That Paul is now occupied with a new church in a new city does not preclude him, however, from enquiring after the health of this earlier church, nor of supplying them with such teaching as will answer their present concerns and prevent, it is to be hoped, their falling into heretical error.  The point may be made again as I proceed, but I’ll say it here.  That the Holy Spirit has seen fit to preserve this first epistle for the ages gives indication that what Paul has to say to the church in Thessalonica on this matter of death and resurrection is needful for us to understand in our own day.

To that end, I am going to attempt to keep my comments prior to the sidebar exploration of the Last Day more focused on what is actually being taught in this passage, and why.  One first thing we can observe, before I begin to dive in, is that Paul quite clearly kept the coming of the kingdom of God front and center in his preaching.  It is evident in the questions and concerns he finds cause to address here, as to how it can be that any among the elect have died, and what it means for them, and for us.  This wasn’t expected.  But we need to understand that it wasn’t expected because time had not permitted a full education on the matter.  Paul stressed imminence, but not to the point of teaching that His return must come in the immediate lifetime of himself or those he taught.  We will explore that more fully in its place, but set aside even now any thought that Paul’s teaching shifted with time.  It may have expanded and developed into greater fulness, but being given by divine revelation before ever he took up the task of proclaiming the gospel far and wide, I simply cannot allow that there was error in it, any more than one could allow that error pertains in any of that which we have had preserved for our benefit in these pages we call Scripture.

To be sure, as we see in that record, even the innermost circle of Christ’s companions and family had need of developed understanding.  They fell short often in perceiving the truth of what He was saying, and in grasping its full implications.  For many, if not all, it would take His death and resurrection to really establish that understanding and conviction.  We are no different.  What we believed in our first days of faith may have been accurate enough as to the basics, but we more than likely had certain ideas and beliefs that we thought consistent with the teaching of Scripture at the time which we found later needed to be corrected or discarded.  Honestly, if this has not been part of your experience, I must wonder if perhaps you are in need of deeper consideration of what you believe.  I come back to that song I have often quoted over the years of these studies, not that I could any longer recommend the album from which it comes, nor the band involved.  It was not offered in hope, but in fullest cynicism.  “If you’re a believer, what do you  believe?  What do you believe it?  Don’t you ever wonder if it’s really true?”  Cynically as that series of questions get offered, they are worthy considerations for the believer.  Are you believing Truth, or are you believing opinions?  Do you believe because you heard it from a number of people, ergo it must be true?  Do you believe it because, well, it’s what your parents taught you to believe?  Do you believe because some pastor somewhere said so, and he seems to have quite a large following?  Or do you believe it because it is the clear, revealed and preserved Word of God?

There is a reason these things have been written, and a sense of Church history will demonstrate just to what degree God has acted to see it preserved.  He’s not doing so on a whim.  It’s no game for Him.  It’s needful for us.  “These things happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (1Co 10:11).  We need the written word because otherwise all we have is opinions and voices in our heads.  We may deem those voices holy inspiration, and we may even be right.  The problem is, we may also be wrong.  It might just be our own thoughts bouncing around.  Worse yet, it may be doctrines of devils whispered in our minds.  I know.  Some would teach that Satan has no such power as to infiltrate our thoughts, and particularly not if we belong to Christ.  But I’m not sure you could point me to anything in God’s written Word that would establish that as true.  I don’t think so.  These things are written for our benefit.  They are written so that we may have a reliable, incredibly well attested reference to which we may submit our questions and from which we may discern our answers.

That which Paul wrote, clearly, in regard to the text of the Old Testament applies equally to the text of the New.  Yes, the hand of man was involved both in the writing and in the determining of what texts should be accounted Scripture, and which texts, while perhaps interesting, are not.  These which compose the Canon of Scripture are reliable, non-contradictory if properly understood, and clearly the product of those chosen by Christ and filled by the Spirit in their production.  And yes, I would include the authors of the Old Testament as being chosen by Christ just as were the Apostles in their day, and to the same end.  These men, chosen by Him, taught by Him, and overseen by His Spirit, were tasked with the production of utterly reliable, entirely accurate recordings of what God did and what it meant.  We have their histories.  We have their relaying of the immediate doctrines of God.  And we have their explanatory application of those doctrines to life:  Torah, Prophets, and Writings;  Gospels, Revelation, and Epistles.  The correlation may not be perfect, but the general fulness is.

So, with these initial thoughts out of the way, let us turn our attention to what is laid before us in this passage.  We begin, as we must, with the fundamental doctrine being affirmed and expanded upon in its text:  That of resurrection.

Fundamental Doctrine of Resurrection (01/21/23-01/25/23)

Established By Evidence (01/21/23)

As I am asserting in the heading of this section of my studies, the matter before us is a matter of fundamental doctrine.  As such, there a several sub-points to be considered here, and part of the problem that Paul finds necessary to address has arisen because there simply had not been time to give those several sub-points sufficient consideration while he was with them.  That time had been much shorter than anticipated, and that had left certain aspects and applications of doctrinal truth unexplored.

So let us start with what they did know.  This Jesus, Messiah, had died, and died most ignominiously.  He had been condemned by His own for what was no crime.  He had been crucified by Rome in spite of their own determination that there was no legal basis for doing so.  “I find no guilt in this man” (Lk 23:4).  And yet, when repeated attempts on his part to talk sense to the crowd before him failed to shift their demands, Pilate capitulated and knowingly sentenced an innocent man to Rome’s worst punishment.

Be clear.  There was no question but that this had happened.  The years since had as yet been few, perhaps thirty or so, perhaps less.  There were plenty alive who had been witness to that event and would gladly tell of it, the Apostles first and foremost.  But we know, too, that there were those from amongst the Roman guard who recognized the enormity of the wrong done, and had, at least, suspicions as to the holiness of this one they had been commanded to crucify.  The centurion, we are told, began praising God, and declaring, “Certainly this man was innocent” (Lk 23:47), or as Mark records it, “Truly this man was the Son of God” (Mk 15:39).  How did these men know the centurion’s comment?  Were they within earshot?  In Luke’s case, certainly not, nor is it likely that Paul had heard this and relayed it to him.  As to Mark, it’s harder to say, but it still seems a bit unlikely.  What is far more likely is that this centurion who began praising God had not stopped, but being truly brought to faith, spoke of this Jesus who died.  And one can imagine his reaction when news began to spread of the next step in this drama.

You see, Jesus didn’t stay dead.  And this, for those to whom Paul preached, and honestly, for you and me, is the hardest part to accept.  It would have been particularly hard to accept in Jerusalem at the time.  The authorities in the temple took steps to prepare a cover story for the missing body.  After all, the fact of the empty tomb could not be denied on its face.  That was evident to any who went to see.  That the stone had indeed been removed from before that tomb was not some debatable point.  It was, if you will pardon the wording, rock-solid fact.  So, too, was the absence of a body.  Just the smell on the air would give evidence of that, even if nobody cared to duck in to confirm the matter.  The thing they could deny was what had happened.  So, they spread the tale that those disciples of Jesus had come and stolen His body.  Out of a tomb sealed by a rock as tall if not taller than a man, which would need to be rolled up a slight incline to get it away from the entrance.  And this, done, while a contingent of Roman guards and temple officers stood by.  Oh, perhaps they had been bribed.  By that ragtag lot?  Who had money sufficient to the need?  And how likely that an entire contingent of guards would happily look the other way knowing the likely consequence of failing at their duty?  It’s not like they could provide any sort of cover story for themselves.  Oh, they overwhelmed us.  Really?  Where are the marks of battle?  What were their weapons?  Rocks and dung?  And you dare to call yourself a Roman soldier?  Yes, I can see that working out well for them.

That’s the thing.  The cover story was, to any who cared to give it a bit of thought, not any much more plausible than what the disciples were saying.  And their story, that He had been seen walking, talking, eating and so on, some several days after what was very clearly His death, was so wild a tale that, well, who would believe it, really?  Who would offer that as a claim, because they would know before they spoke that nobody was going to buy it.  Honestly, if they were trying to take credit for the missing body, they would be better off with the story the temple had devised.  At least that had the slimmest possibility of being reality.  This?  Utterly unbelievable.  And that, I think, gave it just the slightest edge in being believed.

Now, had it just been the eleven remaining Apostles and those women with them who made this claim, we might yet write it off as a desperate attempt to preserve some legitimacy to this ministry they had pursued the last few years.  One could understand such a response.  The men, particularly, had left jobs and family to be on the road with this guy.  They had really bought into His message.  They thought this was the One, the chosen of God, sent to liberate Israel.  His preaching had been so lofty, and they had seen some stuff.  This was the real deal.  But now He was gone.  What games will the mind play under such circumstances?  How readily will we lie to ourselves and to others to preserve beliefs we were so thoroughly convinced of?  Had  it been just them, you could readily foresee the claims being entertained briefly, but dismissed because the weight of evidence presented by ordinary experience outweighed the probable self-delusion of these few hard-core believers.

Here’s the thing.  It wasn’t just them.  And, we might note, the way had been paved to recognize that it was in fact possible for the dead to rise.  Why do you suppose Lazarus was raised from his grave?  Was it just because He had known Jesus as a close friend?  If we conclude so, I think we do Jesus something of a disservice.  His actions, and particularly those actions which demonstrated the power of God which was His own inherent power, were not undertaken for such frivolous reasons.  He did nothing, you may recall, but what His Father commanded.  That gets a little confusing, admittedly, for “I and the Father are One.”  One in essence, three in Person.  It gets messy for us to contemplate the interactions there, because it is quite simply beyond our ken, beyond our experience.  We have nothing to go on.  We have the facts declared to us by this Three in One God.  My point is simply this:  Lazarus was resurrected to a purpose.  After all, he would return to the grave soon enough.  To raise him just to provide some thrills to the crowds in Jerusalem doesn’t justify the expenditure of power, nor does the brief respite from death really give cause for it.  The same, I must say, applies for all those other healings.  If it was only about the healing, it was pointless.  Those who were healed went to their graves just the same.

But Lazarus was known around the city.  He was, it seems, a man of means, from a family of means.  It was well known that he had died.  Crowds had been out to comfort his sisters in their loss.  Just so, it was undeniably evident when he was found to be alive and walking the streets of Jerusalem in the company of this Jesus.  That’s something no spin from the temple crew was going to suppress.  So, there was precedent now for the grave failing to hold onto its contents.  And that precedent involved Jesus.  This, too, was well-known to all in the vicinity.   Those who had come out to comfort Martha and Mary were there.  They saw the grave opened, and as had been observed, opened long enough after the event of his death that the stench would be overpowering.  But Jesus just called out in command, and Lazarus came forth, under his own power, in spite of the bindings of the burial shroud with its heavy infusion of spices and unguents.  So, when news began to come out that this same Jesus had left His own graveclothes behind, and emerged from a tomb sealed and under Roman guard, it was not so unbelievable as it might have been.

Then there was this:  He hadn’t appeared only to the twelve, or the remnants of the twelve.  He had, we are told by our Apostle, appeared at some point to five hundred and more at one time (1Co 15:6).  And hear it well, in that same verse, he observes, “Most of them remain until now.”  The story could be checked.  One doesn’t spread a claim so outrageous when it can so readily be refuted.  But when there are myriad witnesses available for the skeptical hearer to seek out and consult?  You know, Jewish law accepted the witness of two or three as sufficient in the court of law.  Here was the witness of five or six hundred!  Point established.Then there was this:  He hadn’t appeared only to the twelve, or the remnants of the twelve.  He had, we are told by our Apostle, appeared at some point to five hundred and more at one time (1Co 15:6).  And hear it well, in that same verse, he observes, “Most of them remain until now.”  The story could be checked.  One doesn’t spread a claim so outrageous when it can so readily be refuted.  But when there are myriad witnesses available for the skeptical hearer to seek out and consult?  You know, Jewish law accepted the witness of two or three as sufficient in the court of law.  Here was the witness of five or six hundred!  Point established.

Those who seek to cast doubts on the claim of the resurrected Jesus have a rather insurmountable problem.  They weren’t there.  They weren’t anywhere close to events, not geographically, not temporally.  Those making the claims were, and they had the backing testimony of far too many other witnesses to events for us to maintain the idea that this was all some mass delusion, or some contrivance of a fanatical sect seeking to establish itself.  I noted the centurion previously, but his inclusion is, I think, quite important.  There is every good reason for him to be included in the record, and that by multiple witnesses.  The Jewish populace might be expected to latch on to this tale, especially if it were found in some way to be to Rome’s detriment.  But a centurion?  He had no reason to buy this story, and honestly, every reason in the world to denounce it as lies.  But hear again his testimony.  “Truly, this man was the Son of God.”  When these stories began to spread of this Son of God risen and walking the streets of Jerusalem, given such a realization and given awareness of his very personal, very identifiable participation in the killing of the Son of God – recall that he was standing right before Jesus when He died – I should think he might be inclined to seek some means of making amends, of begging forgiveness.

Rome may have had many gods, and they were most assuredly false gods at best.  But they understood this much:  You don’t mess with a god.  They have power beyond yours, and they will crush you without a thought if you annoy them.  Yes, I think maybe he would be looking for some way to pay for his crimes with something other than his life.  And I think maybe, since he no doubt had heard something of what this Man taught and what He offered, he would seek out those disciples of Jesus who were yet in the city to ask their advice.  What am I to do?  I put the Son of God to death.  Yes, I was only following orders, but is He really going to take that as an excuse?

Can you imagine the nervousness of those disciples should he approach?  After all, the temple authorities were pulling out the stops trying to quell any further mention of Jesus.  And to some degree, we must suppose they had the backing and cooperation of the governor.  He didn’t need a riot, after all, and he’d already demonstrated that he could be cowed by the threat of one.  But he needed to know, this centurion.  Was there hope for him?  And it would seem likely, given his place in the record, that indeed, he found hope and laid hold of it.  Here was testimony above and beyond that of the locals.

So, with all of that in place, it’s clear that Paul made the death and resurrection of Christ a central facet of his message.  It is, after all, the central message.  It is the sole basis for hope.  Jesus, the very Son of God, God Incarnate, came among men, lived the life of perfect holiness that every man since the first failed to live.  And yet He died.  Death being the wages of sin, His death was unwarranted, for He was sinless.  But it pleased Him to be obedient, even unto death.  And God, in resurrecting Him from death, demonstrated that He was pleased to accept that sacrifice as the once-for-all atoning price paid for all those who were to be redeemed.  Eternal blood had put paid the debt of eternal sins.  This was most needful for one and all to grasp.  It was needful for the Jews to understand that in spite of being God’s chosen people, they still had need for His atonement.  Their annual ceremony of atonement could never put paid to their debt of guilt.  He could.  It was more needful still for those outside the Jewish community.  Their practices had been more egregious by far, not least in that they gave their worship to other gods which were, in fact, no gods at all, but demons.  How could God forgive them?  What hope could they have?  And the Gospel came!  The same hope by the same Man, Christ Jesus.  Yes, He died for your sins.  He died for the sins of all mankind, past, present, and future; every last one who would call upon His name, repenting of their sins and seeking His forgiveness, every last one of those whom the Father called to Him.

If all of this had been a fabrication, this upstart religion wouldn’t have made it for even five years.  And so, when we come to the if clause of verse 14, we are to recognize that this is not an insertion of doubt, but a declaration of certainty.  The Greek underlying that if clause makes this plain enough.  If, as is most certainly the case, we believe that Jesus died and rose again.  He is not pursuing probabilities.  He is explaining necessary consequences.  We believe this.  We know this to be true.  Ergo, it follows…  That’s the bit that he hadn’t had time or occasion to fully impart to them while he was with them.  It’s a logical conclusion, but not necessarily one that will appear to the minds of those facing persecution, facing the loss of dear friends and fellow believers.  This was all quite new, after all, and all around them were an unbelieving and even hostile populace, laughing at the very idea of some resurrected felon being an object of worship.  Even if it could be permitted that one might add yet another deity to the pantheon, what sort of deity was this?  The current lot were bad enough with their rather dubious morals and capricious interactions with mankind, but this?  Preposterous!  And some would conclude that yes, given the death of my fellow believer, perhaps this has been preposterous.  Perhaps we’ve been misled.

But Paul is there to bolster belief.  No!  You know that these things happened.  He did die.  He did rise again.  Paul could attest to this personally.  He had been there.  Whether or not he went out to gloat and laugh at the cross, we don’t know, but we know the vehemence with which he sought to put an end to this sect of Christians.  And we know he encountered Jesus personally, well after His death.  Events left him no room for doubt, and he wasn’t the only witness.  As noted, there were plenty of others to corroborate his story.  You know this is true.  Now, think!  Recognize the implications of that.   Death is no obstacle to this One in whom you have believed.  He’s already proved that!   He’s conquered death.  But I’m getting just slightly ahead of myself.

Critical Doctrine (01/22/23)

This fact of Christ’s resurrection is a point that cannot be overemphasized.  It is central to the gospel, and may even be considered foundational, fundamental.  Remove this from faith, and faith is rendered pointless.  If Christ is not risen, as Paul writes to the Corinthians later, we are of all men most to be pitied (1Co 15:19).  If He is not risen, our hope has been only for this life, and that is no hope at all.  Its scope is too narrow, its extent too brief.  The grave remains the final statement and none escape it. 

And to be clear, the Thessalonians clearly knew of His resurrection.  And they believed that He had in fact been resurrected.  As we have already observed, they had every reason to believe, for it was well attested by those to whom they could appeal for confirmation, and by too many to accept that it was some personal delusion, or some connivance between conspirators.  As concerns belief that Christ both died and rose again, Ironside writes, “We are not Christians if we do not.”  Shortly thereafter he repeats the point.  “Anyone who does not believe in the death and resurrection of Christ has no right to the name Christian.”  When I say that this is a fundamental and critical doctrine of faith, that’s the seriousness of it.  You cannot rightly call yourself a Christian if you don’t believe the truth of this most critical point of Christ’s mission and ministry.  Apart from this, He is nothing more than perhaps an interesting teacher from antiquity, to be received no differently than, say, Aristotle.  Or we might perhaps account Him a prophet or a visionary, but He remains entirely and solely human, and His life and death have no greater value than that of any other man.

But the facts remain stubbornly factual.  He did live.  He did die.  He did not stay dead.  And this is not merely sensational news.  It is attested fact.  And it is, apart from the other fact of the Virgin Birth, the most important fact in the whole of the Gospel.  No.  I will say it is even more important than that.  That fact plays a supporting role in understanding the full power of this one.  Christ died:  The one man in all of history to have walked out his entire life without once sinning against God or man.  He was obedient to the commandments of God in every last respect, even, as Paul reminds his readers, to the point of death, and that, by the most heinous, most degrading, most painful means devised by man (Php 2:8).  Again, if He is but a man, then this is one more grotesque point in the long, grotesque history of mankind.  But He rose again!  He didn’t remain dead.  Death could not keep Him.  He, in fact, kept death, defanging Satan’s greatest weapon against mankind.  He has the keys to Hades now, not Satan. 

Okay, so what has happened in all this?  If I slide momentarily back to the Virgin Birth, here is our starting point.  Unlike the rest of us, Jesus came into this life unstained by original sin.  The sins of the fathers could not pass down to Him because fathers were not involved.  His birth was, otherwise, entirely according to the normal, human process, but that point of conception was not.  And Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, took pains to keep her a virgin until the time came for His birth.  Understand this:  Here, too, there was incontrovertible evidence for the claim being made.  That she was a virgin would be ascertained by whomever may have been there to assist with the birthing.  I don’t suppose, for all that they were in Bethlehem rather than home in Nazareth, that this birth was so private as to have no midwife to assist.  No mention is made of this, but that does not preclude it’s being part of events, and I should think, a likely one.  So, that part was confirmable.  Even without the midwife, I suspect there might be evidence to be had, but I am not inclined to explore the specifics farther than this.

So, then, born without the inherited sin of a father (Ps 51:5 – I was brought forth in iniquity.  In sin my mother conceived me), He began life on a different footing than others.  And we can understand, certainly, that Mary was also conceived by natural means, that she, as much as Joseph, bore the marks of original sin.  But like it or not, this was a patriarchal society, and inheritance, for good or for ill, followed primarily the father’s line.  There were exceptions, to be sure.  And we might take notice that those exceptions took a bit of arguing to get established.  But God is not man.  He is Just, and He would see Justice done to His daughters every bit as much as to His sons.

But Jesus, by design, enters life apart from original sin.  He could not live a sinless life otherwise.  And this, I dare say, we ought to take to heart ourselves.  For us, there can be no doing good enough in the course of life.  There can be no earning of salvation.  We enter the race having already lost.  Our original father, Adam, lost it for us, and we inherit that loss from conception.  Nor do I suppose for a moment that in vitro fertilization or other such innovations of modern medicine provide a means to skate around that fact.  There was one way to avoid it, and there was one, utterly unique occasion on which that way was taken – by God’s choice; by God’s design.

So, now our sinless Man undertakes to grow, and He grows well.  He is a quick study when it comes to the things of God, and avid as well.  And at the proper time, He undertakes to pursue that life commanded Him by God.  He goes forth to the wilderness testing, something that seems a bit of a standard for the one who would be a prophet.  John the Baptist had, by all appearances, followed a similar course, and of course, there are the examples of the Old Testament, even going back to Noah, and we might go back all the way to Abraham, I suppose.  And Jesus proceeds to be baptized, despite John’s reticence.  Why?  Well, John was reticent because he knew full well that this One coming to him had no need of baptism.  He had nothing from which to repent and be cleansed.  Jesus, for His part, made it plain.  It was an act of obedience, a fulfilling of every last thing commanded by God, even this.  It must be done else obedience would be incomplete.  And so, it was done.

Then, in the fulness of time, with all accomplished but this last thing, He is betrayed into the hands of His enemies on the Sanhedrin.  And He submits.  He will not even permit that His apostles make some vain effort at defense.  He could, as He notes, have called down angels by their legions.  He could have called His followers to rise up.  He could have.  He did not.  He obeyed the commandment of God.  He fulfilled His purpose.  He went to that contrivance of a court, accepted the humiliating treatment without complaint, and without reviling those who so abused Him.  He faced Pilate with dignity and honesty and even, I think, with compassion for the man who would, as He well knew, shortly sentence Him to a most undeserved death.

And that is what makes His death such a central matter in this news we call the Gospel.  It was undeserved.  In all of mankind, never had there been a man died who did not deserve it.  Quite the opposite, we should marvel that any man was ever permitted to live.  We need but consider Noah, alone with his children and their wives preserved out of that catastrophic judgment of mankind in the flood.  Noah may have been a righteous man, but only by comparison to the world at large.  His righteousness was not of the same nature or degree as what we see in Jesus.  He may have saved mankind in that here was seed from which to regrow the breed, but it’s not long before we see that this seed still comes with the stain of sin.  The fresh start for mankind is not so fresh as to have eradicated that issue.  It would need something greater.  And something greater has come.  Behold, the Man!

Jesus goes to the cross, mocked and abused, yet still not railing against the injustice of it.  He goes, to the degree one can do so, meekly, humbly.  And when the time comes, much to the surprise of those experts at prolonging the process of crucifixion, He determines that enough is enough and breathes His last.  And even in those final, agonizing moments, He remains obedient, calling upon the Father not to avenge, but to forgive.  And as we have observed, among the Roman soldiers seeing to this gruesome duty, there was at least one, and he of rank, who recognized the enormity of what had just happened.  They couldn’t believe it, really.  Nobody died that easily on the cross, not that fast.  It was designed for prolonged suffering.  But they took steps to prove Him truly dead, and He truly was.

Unlike most convicted felons condemned to such a death, His body was not simply tossed into the foul pits of Gehenna.  Rather, Pilate granted permit to Joseph of Arimathea to take the body and inter it in his own tomb, and so it was done.  And, as we have noted, the temple authorities, showing a bit of awareness at least of their own crimes, sought guards to prevent any shenanigans around that tomb, lest, ahem, His disciples whisk away the body and start claiming His resurrection.  See?  In spite of the charges used against Him, saying He had sworn to tear down the temple, and thus blasphemed against God, they knew full well what He had meant.  Their density, their insistent misunderstanding was quite intentional.  Their efforts to thwart the inevitable were very much intentional; and very much fruitless.  They served, in the end, only to confirm the more what had transpired.

Jesus rose!  He left His graveclothes there, all neatly folded, and departed an open tomb.  But the tomb hadn’t been left open, it had opened.  It had opened without interference from a stunned Roman guard, and it had opened without any involvement of His disciples who were, frankly, too scared and dejected to even consider such a thing.  They did not as yet understand with sufficient fulness to have even thought to try and execute any such plan.  It simply would not have occurred to them.  Add to this that the whole ministry was about repenting of sin and seeking to walk holy and humbly before God, and such a plan becomes very much unthinkable, even if they had been in a state of mind to permit of it.  No.  Jesus rose from the grave.  He had been in there as long as had Lazarus.  And, we might recognize, He wasn’t around on the outside to call Himself forth.  He was called forth by another, by the Father, or by the Spirit.  In saying this, God being One, I suppose we could say He in some ways did call Himself forth, but again, things get murky when we delve into the interactions of the Trinity in His Persons.

So, what was the deal?  Why all this supernatural business?  Well, He died because it was necessary.  It wasn’t a pointless atrocity.  It wasn’t some perverse amusement for the Father.  Far from it.  But it was necessary.  It was needful that God should arrive at some means to allow for the forgiveness of sins while yet upholding perfect Justice.  God, after all, being Justice, cannot permit Justice to fail without Himself failing from being God.  But He had made covenant with His people, with this epitome of His Creation.  And neither can He lie without failing from being God.  A way must be made.  The impossible must be made possible.  And again, behold the Man!  But more than a Man.  Jesus, for all that He set aside His heavenly prerogatives as God when He took upon Himself the life of mankind, remained wholly God every bit as much as before or after.  The blood He shed on the cross was, as Anselm insisted, eternal blood.  It needed to be, for the guilt of the sins for which He would atone was an eternal guilt as those sins had been committed against eternal God.  Here was the only atonement which could possibly achieve full payment for sin.  And it had been offered.  It had been offered freely, willingly, by the true High Priest, the eternal High Priest.

In resurrecting Jesus, God signified the acceptance of this atoning offering.  The debt had been well and truly paid, and that which had been paid for would indeed be granted.  To all who are the called, to all whom He has determined from before the dawn of creation would belong to His Son, forgiveness was purchased, guaranteed, and delivered.  The records of the court were wiped clean of all charges.  Here is the righteousness of Noah.  It’s not a perfect record in his life.  It’s the record wiped clean by the blood of Jesus.  It’s the forensic righteousness, as we speak of it, that comes of judicial determination.  It is his standing in the view of heaven’s court.  And in this, we are his equal.  We, too, have had our liberation from sin and sin’s debt purchased by the saving blood of Jesus our Savior.  This we believe.  This we know.  “We are not Christians if we do not.”

Go back to the earliest confessions of the Church.  We can go back to the Apostles’ Creed, that encapsulation of the Apostolic teachings:  We believe in Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten son, our Lord:  Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary.  He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried.  He descended into Hades, and on the third day, rose again from the dead.  And He ascended into heaven, where He sists at the right hand of God the Father Almighty.  This is our story.  This is our knowledge.  This is our hope.

We can go back further, to Paul’s letters.  Writing to Corinth, he reminds them of this fundamental truth.  “He was buried.  He was raised the third day according to the Scriptures.  He appeared to Cephas, and then to the twelve” (1Co 15:3-4).  We can look to his declaration to the believers in Rome.  “He was delivered up for our transgressions, raised for our justification” (Ro 4:25)  There’s the Gospel in a nutshell.  There’s the good news.  He died not for any sin of His own, but for ours.  We can confer with Peter.  “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness, for by His wounds you were healed” (1Pe 2:24).  He, of course, alludes to a much earlier confession of Christ, one that predated His birth.  “He was pierced through for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities.  The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed” (Isa 53:5).  Note well that the healing spoken of here is something far grander than merely addressing illnesses and symptoms.  This is not some promise of perfect health, where any sort of physical malady must be seen as evidence of sin unaddressed.  No!  It is finished!  And frankly, as I have observed in regard to Lazarus, let every illness be addressed, every infirmity restored, and still, death must come.  Repair what you will, the grave remains inevitable.  But that gets me well ahead of myself.

Let me point just one step beyond, before I divert briefly in my course.  This is really the core of Paul’s message in this passage.  Belief in the resurrection of Christ should rightly lead to belief in personal resurrection.  Honestly, remove that belief and you have removed hope.  The grave remains the end of the story, and all those promises of heaven are but a lottery ticket with the usual odds of winning, which is to say, vanishingly small.  But this is fundamental.  This is faith, really.  Believing, knowing, that He died and rose again assures us that we will likewise be raised in due course.  There is a reason the death of the saints is spoken of as sleeping.  It’s not the final condition.  When our Savior returns, He will bring with Him all who have been sleeping in Him, sleeping through Him.  For apart from Him, death would indeed by the final word.  But because of His obedience and His atoning work, it is not.

Father, thank You for leading me to wander through this doctrine a bit this morning, to recapture the grandeur of it.  You indeed to marvelous things, and among them, this must surely be the most marvelous of all, that You have, from all eternity, purposed to demonstrate Just Mercy, to redeem the unredeemable, to love the unlovely, and that, with an everlasting love.  Thank You is not enough.  Nothing could be enough.  But thank You is what I have, and what I have I give to You, knowing I have received it from You.  Glory to Your name.  All glory in the highest!  May You be exalted this day and always, and may I never lose this heart of gratitude for the enormity of this blessing of salvation You have both purposed and obtained on my behalf.

Ancient Doctrine (01/23/23)

As much as this idea of resurrection strikes us as amazing, and I’m sure it does, or at least that it did when first we heard it, it was not some novel invention that came about specific to the Apostles.  It had been around.  The Pharisees certainly believed in it, though the Sadducees did not.  If anything, I would say it was the more incredible that the Sadducees held that idea to be ridiculous.  It says rather a lot about their commitment to the religion they claimed to lead, and the Torah they claimed to hold sacred.  And what it says is not particularly good.

I’m not sure but what the same could have been said of the religious Jew as we have seen said of the Christian.  If they did not hold to the doctrine of bodily resurrection, then they had no business claiming the Jewish faith.  They had no business declaring their belief in what the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings declared to be the truth of God.

That’s not to say it’s an easy doctrine to accept.  You may now be so long in the faith that you have pretty much forgotten the earliest days, your first hearing of what the Gospel proclaims.  You may have forgotten the days of your unbelief, when the idea of this Savior who died and rose again was laughable, and that any sane human being actually believed such a thing rendered their mental capacities rather suspect.  And yet, here we are.  And I, for one, would not hold my mental capacities suspect, nor those of any of my fellow believers.  And I know for a fact that many of my fellow believers are men and women of significant accomplishment in fields that do not really comport with having issues with mental capacity and sound, logical reasoning.  Yet, here we are.  I believe in Jesus Christ, our Lord.  He was born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified dead and buried, and on the third day rose again.

But I want to look backward from those events here, rather than forward to my day.  And I want to do so briefly.  I am not looking to provide an exhaustive list of passages giving evidence in ancient awareness of this matter of resurrection, for I think a brief sampling will serve.  Let’s start with one of David’s prayers.  There is much in the prayers of David that strike us as passing strange with our modern, Christian perspectives on things.  We hear him crying out to God to crush the violent oppressors he faced, even suggesting that their babies be dashed upon the rocks, and I suspect there rises up something of a question.  What is that doing in God’s word?  This is a man after God’s own heart?  And, much though it may wrench our views of this God we serve and love, I think we must answer that yes, this is a man after God’s own heart.  He hates sin that much.

We could as readily look askance at David’s tendency to present himself as having walked perfectly before God.  “My steps have held fast to Thy paths.  My feet have not slipped” (Ps 17:5).  Really, David?  You expect us to buy that?  I mean, we know your story, and assuredly, God does, too.  Okay, so maybe we would do well to recognize that God’s perspective as to our righteousness, we who are His own, does not so much hinge on our perfect track record as on something outside ourselves.  And perhaps, just perhaps, David had a glimpse of that reality.  Let’s go to the end of that same Psalm.  “As for me, I shall behold Your face in righteousness.  I will be satisfied with Your likeness when I awake” (Ps 17:15).

Let me say this.  David could be a bit oblivious at times.  I suppose being the king can do that to a man.  You’ve got the power and nobody much to answer to.  I am king!  I will do as I please.  And he did.  And then he was reminded rather painfully that in reality he did have One to answer to.  And answer, he did.  “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Thy lovingkindness.  According to the greatness of Thy compassion blot out my transgressions” (Ps 53:1).  That Psalm, of course, is written upon Nathan’s confronting him with the egregiousness of his deeds with Bathsheba, and worse, with having her husband offed lest his name be sullied.  These were not deeds in keeping with one who claimed, “My feet have not slipped.”  And looking at the end of that Psalm, it’s clear that he was not that oblivious.  That ‘when I awake’, implies a laying out in sleep, and the setting makes clear that the sleep he refers to is that which Paul is addressing here, the sleep of the grave.

Well, death comes as the wages of sin.  So whatever it was David meant earlier, he was not pointing to his perfect track record.  He was pointing to the work of that One He would see in righteousness.  He knew full well that the only way he was going to see God’s face was in righteousness – full righteousness, not the variable stuff of present existence.  And, to our point in this section, it’s quite clear he was expecting a resurrection, whether bodily or not.  I think we can reasonably suggest that the care taken to inter the bodies of the dead would indicate that the expectation among the ancient Jews was, in fact, for a bodily resurrection.  Why else be bothered?

Let’s try another, this one from Asaph, whose name we know, as he penned so many psalms, but otherwise, I’d have to confess I know little about him.  At any rate, his declarations are not so very different from those of David.  “My feet came close to stumbling.  My steps almost slipped” (Ps 73:2).  That seems, somehow, just that bit more self-aware than David appeared to be.  But it still strikes me as speaking a bit beyond facts on the ground.  I had thought to quote but one verse from later in this psalm, but honestly, I think it to my purpose to take it from that verse to the end.

“With Thy counsel Thou wilt guide me, and afterward receive me to glory” (Ps 73:24-28).  That was the verse I had set aside.  But let us continue.  “Whom have I in heaven but Thee?  And besides Thee, I desire nothing on earth.  My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.  For, behold, those who are far from Thee will perish; Thou hast destroyed all those who are unfaithful to Thee.  But as for me, the nearness of God is my good; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all They works.”  What a glorious confession of faith!  This actually moves into topics beyond the scope of Paul’s teaching, suggesting the doctrine of that second death which is truly perishing.  But it also clearly maintains an understanding that life does not come to a halt at the grave.  The body may.  But the inner man continues on forever.

There is a distinction made in that section, between the righteous and the unrighteous.  It is a distinction made often in Scripture, particularly, I think, in the Old Testament, but it certainly appears again in the New.  “The wicked is thrust down by his wrongdoing, but the righteous has a refuge when he dies” (Ps 14:32).  Even in death, there is a distinction.  The wicked have truly perished.  The righteous sleep, and that, rather peacefully.  They have no need to fear reunion with God, nor to fear that they may never know such reunion.  I don’t doubt but that had they heard Paul’s bold declaration, “If we have hoped in Messiah for this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied” (1Co 15:19), that would raise no alarms with them.  No great surprise there.  Paul was, after all, a Pharisee of Pharisees.  His doctrines did not depart from those of old.  They built upon it with the new revelation of Who this Christ is.

One more, and I think we can call this part done.  This takes us back to perhaps the earliest writings of Scripture, those of Job.  That righteous man declares, “As for me, I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last He will take His stand on the earth.  Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh I shall see God; whom I myself shall behold, and whom my eyes shall see and not another” (Job 19:25-27a).  Those words are dear to all who have come to know Christ and to adore His words.  I must observe, though, that there is a foreshadowing of the Last Day even here, in this early text.  We see it already, in his observation that He will take His stand on the earth ‘at the last’.  There remains, however, the closing statement of Job in this particular dissertation.  “So that you may know there is judgment” (Job 19:29).  Job was seeing some things, and them more clearly than many.

We come, sometimes, to think what word we would leave behind on our tombstones when the time comes.  There are plenty of options, of course, and much one could compose.  On this occasion, though, I am struck by a thought familiar enough, I should think, to those of us of a certain age.  We used to see it umpteen times a night if we were up late enough to watch the Tonight Show.  “More to Come.”  Yes.  I think that would be a suitable epitaph.

Applied Doctrine (01/24/23)

We have looked at this matter of Christ’s resurrection, and we have seen somewhat of the ancient hope of believers who came before the advent of our Lord.  And we have seen that this doctrine was indeed taught and taught early as the Christian faith was brought to the Gentiles.  What remains is to understand the implications of this, or the application of this doctrine to how we live.  And how we live includes how we respond when those we love die.  That is where our brothers in Thessalonica were having some difficulties and arriving, it would seem, at some misunderstandings.

We hit the issue head on in this passage.  Don’t grieve like those outside the Church who have no hope!  Why do you suppose they grieve so?  For them, the loss is permanent.  They have nothing of expectation for what comes once the body is buried.  They may have some conception of a place apart where the dead go.  The Greeks had their Hades and their Tartarus, so they weren’t entirely devoid of the concept that life continues.  But they saw no real hope, for there was no real chance of being restored from that place.  Oh, yes, they had their myths of certain heroic figures going into Tartarus to retrieve their loved one.  But they knew it was myth, and if they did not, yet it was a thing reserved to those with god-like powers, which pretty well ruled them out as contenders.

Even in Israel we see signs of this depth of grief, and they, of all peoples, really should have known better, I should think.  We see it in the records of Jesus’ ministering.  We have, for example, the case of that synagogue official who had come to Jesus on behalf of his dying daughter.  By the time they were able to go to his home, the child had died, and mourners were there (Mk 5:38).  It was a business, this mourning.  You could hire mourners, and indeed, propriety insisted you must.  You hired pipers to play sad songs.  It was something of a production.  And why?  Because this one was gone and not coming back.  The grave was the end.

Not so, said Jesus.  And He called that girl back to life (Mk 5:41).  We see it again with Lazarus.  But observe that on both occasions, Jesus has a rather peculiar way of addressing their condition before they are called back.  “The child has not died, but is asleep” (Mk 5:39).  “Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep; but I go, that I may awaken him out of sleep” (Jn 11:11).  It would easy to think Jesus was just using some relatively known euphemism for death, but that’s not the deal.  This is new, or rather, it is an expanding of the understanding of what has always been true.  Those who have died in faith, known to Christ though they knew Him not in His Incarnate person, do not perish, they have but passed into a period of rest.  Death, for the believer, is not annihilation, but only an undisturbed rest.  As Matthew Henry writes, “It is but a sleep to them.”

Understand that there is a most significant distinction between the sleep of dying and the permanence of perishing.  Indeed, so great is the distinction that it is perfectly reasonable that we find the Apostles pretty much abandoning use of the term death in regard to believers.  Jesus died, yes.  We see that reiterated even here.  “We believe that Jesus died – and rose again.”  But those of our brethren who have gone to their graves?  They sleep.  They are dead in Christ, but they sleep.  It is not their end, nor shall it be ours should our own time come before He returns.  It is a passing, a change of state, but it is not full and final separation from Christ nor from those who belong to Christ.

Let us hear Jesus’ words to Martha as Jesus contemplated the work ahead in bringing Lazarus forth.  “I AM the resurrection and the life.  He who believes in Me shall live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me shall never die.  Do you believe this?” (Jn 11:25)  That may be the single most important question Jesus ever asked.  It defines the nature of this sleep in some ways.  Death can’t hold on to the believer.  If you die, yet you shall live, and if you live you shall never die.  This must be set alongside Paul’s later, more complete teaching on the subject, for this being Scripture, the two must comport.  It’s a verse that has shown up, I think, in just about every commentary on this passage.  “I tell you a mystery:  We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.  In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed” (1Co 15:51-52).

Okay, so we can see pretty clearly that this use of sleep for death was not an absolute.  For one, those to whom the word was brought needed to understand the point, and that required a bit of back and forth between the terms, such that sleep became yes, a synonym for death as concerns the believer, but really, something of a commentary on the state of death for the believer.  We look back to the events on the Cross, and those that followed.  Jesus died.  He truly died.  There was this agony of separation from the Father, an agony the depths of which we cannot, I think, fully appreciate and that, because of His work, we shall never experience, praise God!  But death didn’t hold Him.  He conquered death.  And our Father was pleased to accept the payment of His death, the price of eternal blood shed for us, as the full recompense for our sins.  And so, Jesus could say, the one who believes in Me shall never die.  There will be this significant change as concerns the body.  But the soul, the spirit (and in this case, we must account them equivalent), has never been dead and never will be.

We see a further glimpse into the state of the believer who has gone on ahead of us as Paul again writes to Corinth.  “We are of good courage, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and at home with the Lord” (2Co 5:8).  That is the state of the believer who has gone to sleep.  He is absent from the body.  He is not annihilated.  He is with the Lord.  To that thief on the next cross over, who in his last agonizing moments came to faith, Jesus said, “Truly I tell you that today you shall be with Me in Paradise” (Lk 23:43).  There goes the concept of Purgatory, right out the window.   Today you will be with Me.  Yes, your body may lie broken, tossed in the pit.  It may undergo decay and return to dust.  Indeed, it is pretty near certain that it will.  Not an issue.  You will be with Me.  Your spirit proceeds immediately.  The body goes to its rest.  And the day will come, as we are informed both here and in other places, when that body shall be called forth, and transformed so as to be suitable for eternity.  Only then shall spirit and body be reunited.

This is the picture Paul is outlining here.  When He comes, when the time for the full restoration of His kingdom has been determined, and the full number of the elect have been called and redeemed, then shall come that moment – that merest moment – when those whose bodies have slept shall have their bodies awakened (and reconstituted as necessary), refit for immortality, and reoccupied by the eternal spirit of its owner.  Okay, the scientific among us may have questions.  I mean, we understand that bodies decompose, the elements separate out, become parts of other things, and most probably, parts of other beings.  So, who gets which atoms?  Well, simple answer:  That’s beyond my paygrade.  But it honestly constitutes no particular issue.  God is God.  If death is not too great a hurdle for Him to overcome on behalf of His people, neither will this be.  I don’t suppose we need to posit that these bodies to which we are restored are in fact composed of the same original elements.  After all, if they were, would they not have the same original defects?  Would they not remain mortal, subject to wear and decay?  And this new body will not be thus.  “It is sown a perishable body, it is raised an imperishable body, a spiritual body raised in power” (1Co 15:42b-44).  “This perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1Co 15:53).

Jesus’ death, as Paul writes in that same chapter, has taken away the sting of death.  And I truly love how the JFB proceeds from there.  “That hand which laid them to sleep will awaken them once more.”  This is what has made the difference.  Those who have died in Christ, sleep in Christ, because He has laid them to sleep.  He has, as it were, rocked them to sleep that they may slumber peacefully until the time comes for Him to awaken them once more.  And Oh!  What a glorious day greets them when they awake! 

Okay, one last thought for this part.  The Wycliffe Translators Commentary observes that what Paul teaches here, what Scripture teaches everywhere is a matter of bodily condition, rather than anything to do with the soul sleep that some hold forth.  Well, that must lead me to ask, “What is this soul sleep of which you speak?”  And a quick search indicates that it is the idea that the soul also goes into a state of, shall we say, temporary annihilation between the time of death and the time of Christ’s return.  But we have already seen how that would be an issue.  “Today you will be with Me in Paradise.”  That has already given us two landmarks that must necessarily lead to rejecting this idea, although I think I have probably thought similar in times past.  First off, He says it is today that this will transpire, not some indeterminate future point, today.  So, either the dead have already transferred out of the realm of time such that concepts such as we have about today no longer have any bearing, and one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, or He’s speaking of immediacy.  Second, we have a locative statement.  It is not in the grave, nor in Hades or Sheol.  It is in Paradise.  In heaven.  It is with Him, where He is.  And dear ones, He is most assuredly not in the grave.  That, as we have observed, is certain.

So, before I wrap up for the morning, let us return to the glory of that moment which awaits us.  I will explore it more fully in a later portion of this study, but I want to sneak a peak at it here, as we observe the waking faithful, the moment of transformation, of completion, when we shall know this work of sanctification once for all completed.  The dead shall rise first, but I don’t think we can posit any great length of time between that event and the next, that those who remain alive at the time are caught up together with them to meet the Lord.  Again, lay it alongside Paul’s longer exposition in 1Corinthians 15.  Every body of every believer undergoes transformation in this brief moment.  There may be a succession of events depicted, but still, as he describes it there, it is in the twinkling of an eye.  The order is all but irrelevant.  I think Paul notes the precedent of those in the grave for the sole purpose of countering the idea which had arisen, that they were somehow disenfranchised by death.  By no means!  They shall have the honor of first obtaining their new bodies.  But not so as to disenfranchise you, either.  And what are we seeing?  We are seeing the glorious dawn of the eternal Day of the Lord.  Oh yes, there will be the daunting matter of Judgment, but even in this, what do we, as His own, see?  We see the utter glory of His perfect Justice.  We see the full extent of that Mercy He has shown towards us.  We come to fully appreciate the full magnitude of the price our loving Lord paid on our behalf.  Yes, it may be (I have yet to established firm views on this) that we, too, must face the reciting of our sins.  I am not wholly convinced that this is the case, but neither am I confident that it is not.  But even should we have to face that recitation in full, yet we have this:  Our Counselor, our Attorney, stands with us, and for every charge brought, there comes the answer, “Penalty paid.”  I do see cause in some of the things Scripture says of this most glorious day, that there may be no record to read out.  The record has been wiped, eradicated by the blood of Christ, and no charge remains to be heard.  I should have to say it’s my fervent hope that this is the case, but should it be otherwise, yet I have hope in my Savior, and yet, there remains an eternity ahead with every tear wiped away.

But our King is on His throne, set there in the heavens, and that moment of seeing gathered together those from every tribe, every tongue, every age, to proclaim the glory and the majesty of Him Who sits on the throne!  Wow!  I recall, if not as well as I used to, being on the Mall in DC with myriad fellow believers for a gathering called together by the Promise Keepers organization.  I recall the potency of hearing that entire gathering singing out, “Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty” as one.  It was a sound to shake the heavens.  And yet, as compared to the scene before us in this passage, it might as well have been the lone chanting of a monk in his chambers.  The glory, the power, simply does not compare.  Here, indeed, shall be a joyous sound that shakes both heavens and earth, as our King of kings takes His rightful place of rule over not only the elect, not only the earth, but all of Creation, now and forevermore.  Glorious day, indeed!

Universal Application (01/25/23)

My last pursuit in regard to this most fundamental doctrine of Christian faith may better belong to the sidebar study I expect to undertake before too long.  But I will touch on it here.  We are shown, as it were, two waves of transformation:  First, the awakening of those who have been asleep in the grave, and then, second, the taking up of the living faithful.  There is a forcefulness to this event which may get somewhat lost in translation, but what the NASB speaks of as being ‘caught up’ to meet the Lord expresses an application of significant external force.  As Barnes observes, that force does not imply any unwillingness on the part of the believer.  It’s not that we who trust in Christ shall have been too attached to this world to depart it.  Far from it!  I suspect more and more of us feel that same desire Paul expressed, much preferring that we might be absent from this body and together with our Savior.  But we have not the power in ourselves to make it so.  This body, most assuredly, is not capable of ascending to meet Him by its own abilities.

But we see these two waves, however nearly united in time, and I guess some have arrived at the idea of a first and second resurrection of the elect.  And some, I think, have gone so far as to suggest the dead in Christ arise before the thousand year reign depicted in Revelation, while the rest must live through that turbulent time before ascending.  Well, I would have to observe immediately that in order for any such thing to transpire, it would be needful that these bodies had already been replaced with something rather more durable.  A thousand years was a long tenure even before the Flood, and it would be something like a tenfold extension of the longest lived among us now.  So, that would require, to my thinking, that the bodily transformation which is spoken of where Paul addresses this scene more fully had already transpired, and bringing that back to this passage, that would require that we had already risen to meet our Lord.  This is a roundabout way of saying that the details for such a dual-resurrection view just don’t add up, so far as I can see.

That being said, Scripture does speak of a second resurrection, and I will save exploration of that point for my sidebar exercises.  But I have a reasonable suspicion that this pertains to a matter not addressed in this passage:  the resurrection of the reprobates for purposes of judgment and sentencing.

What is emphasized here is the oneness.  Whether dead or alive on that day, as concerns our bodies, all alike shall be changed.  And again, the all, in this discussion, pertains solely to believers, though I think we can say that even the unbelievers shall know this change, though to their eternal regret.  For them, too, the grave shall prove not to have been the end, but only a stage.  For them, too, an eternity lies ahead, but it is an eternity of judgment, of punishment, of utter separation from God and His holiness.

Others have observed, and rightly, that this aspect of the matter is not addressed in our passage because it is not to Paul’s purpose.  It doesn’t mean he wasn’t aware of these things at the time, only that it wasn’t a point of concern that needed addressing with his readers.  Remember, this is not primarily a matter of imparting doctrine, although good and sound doctrine is surely being imparted.  Rather, it is a matter of gentle correction and comforting amidst afflicting trials.  And so, the emphasis, as I say, is on the oneness of this day.  Both dead and living will be caught up in their turn, and as many have emphasized, the time between is to be no great period.  It’s not some lengthy unfolding of events that we have in view, but merely a declaration as to the sequence of events:  First this, then that, and so on.  But the emphasis is on that reality that both the dead and the living arise.  Both the dead and the living shall be changed.  Both the dead and the living shall know this new body to suit their new life, and they shall all be gathered together as one, one joint body now visibly gathered under their one eternal Head.

This is necessary, this change.  As Paul will describe at length when he addresses this with the Corinthians, this present body is simply too entwined in corruption.  It is a body of corruption.  In current form, it cannot be redeemed.  I suppose the same could be said of our spirit prior to our Lord sending His Spirit to awaken us to Himself.  It, too, was corrupt beyond any hope of purifying.  Certainly, nothing we could do in ourselves would achieve it.  Our crimes were too enormous, and our capacities, even had we been willing, never sufficient to the task.  But God.  God made possible a true cleansing, a full cleansing, sufficient to render our spirits utterly renewed and free of sin’s stain.  Yet, for the duration we remain in this body of corruption.  We groan, as Paul says, wishing to be clothed, knowing this current, shabby tent will never do.  And we drag this dead corpse along with us wherever we go, always dying, yet ever alive.

There is, I guess, that least little grain of truth to the current fascination with zombies.  In fairness, it is the state of every man living, that while alive, we are always dying.  And it hasn’t entirely changed on the part of the Christian.  We still drag along this body of death, still find ourselves dealing with the old man of the flesh, and the sinful temptations to which he so readily inclines.  But the spirit has been renewed.  This temple has been occupied.  And in this renewed state, we are aware of the problem, aware of the corruption, and the hopelessness of this body.  And so, something in us, however dimly we may recognize the situation’s full ramifications, longs for this day that Paul sets before our eyes, that day when this current body with its fleshly limits, is done away, and a body fit for eternity is given us.  This corrupt cannot put on immortality.  It can’t be dressed up to play the part.  We might put it in terms of Jesus’ parable of the new and old wineskins.  This body is the old wineskin.  Try and take it as your vehicle into eternity, and it must burst.  It can’t handle the newness of life.  That requires new equipment, equipment that won’t wear out, won’t deal with temptations, with capitulations, and with consequences.  That new body demarks our arrival at the completed work of Christ in us.  And in this new body, arisen to meet our Lord as He not just calls us to Himself, but pulls us to Himself, brings us to the time of our full realization.  In that moment, and henceforth forevermore, “The same honor awaits [us] as [our] Lord.”  I am quoting the JFB here, but relocating it to our present, much as Paul has relocated the events of that day to his present.

This is the moment we live in.  It is always the moment we live in.  We know not the day, and frankly, we need not know the day.  I watch those who are caught up in trying to know in advance and I see it cause nothing but turmoil in them.  There may be anticipation, but it seems ever to be tinged with dread, and dread leads to doubt, and doubt opposes faith, undermines assurance.  This is not what I see our Apostles seeking to do.  Look once again at the end of this passage.  “Comfort one another with these words.”  If all you can see is coming judgment, and the loss of friends and family who, in spite of all efforts, have rejected this call, then despair must surely overwhelm you.  But that is because your focus is not on Christ but on the world.  God’s glory is upheld, magnified.  The fullness of His perfection in Holiness, in Justice, in Mercy, in Love, and in Wrath is fully on display, and we must recognize that if these loved ones have not responded to the call, it is not because we didn’t shout it loud enough.  It is because for them, the call never came.  It was never up to us.  We are servants of our Lord, to be sure, and called to solemn yet joyous pursuit of our duties in His service, which most assuredly include making this Gospel known.  But His success is not dependent on us.  We are granted to have a part in what He is doing, but it ever remains the case that He is the one doing.  He makes the difference, and apart from Him, our greatest efforts yet amount to nothing.

In the meantime, we who have known the calling of our Lord must learn to apply this doctrine of resurrection to our own lives, our own situations.  All die once, as the author of Hebrews observes.  “It is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment” (Heb 9:27).  This is a given, an unavoidable point in every man’s future.  And that includes those who are alive at His coming.  But this death is not perishing.  As Paul and the other Apostles, following Jesus’ example, make the point, the body but sleeps, and at least for those who belong to Christ, the spirit is already with the Lord.  At this juncture, at least, I could not say what becomes of the spirits of those who do not belong to Him.  And then comes judgment.  That is off-stage in this passage.  At present, I would maintain it is off-stage as being what comes after.  But we have more to explore, and I don’t wish to come down to a dead-set view just yet.  It simply isn’t a subject I have given sufficient attention as yet.  I suppose after some thirty years, perhaps it’s time. 

What I would observe, however, is that which follows upon judgment.  For some, that first appointment of death is not the only one.  Some die twice, and if I am not much mistaken, it is this second death that is in view when Scripture speaks of perishing.  This is full and final.  Unfortunately for those who will experience it, it is not so terminal as they suppose.  It is not such utter annihilation as obliterates consciousness.  No.  As I have said, eternity lies ahead for these just as much as for the believer.  But it is an eternal perishing.  Here, perhaps, that idea hinted at in the zombie movies applies even more fully.  Those who undergo this second death will never, for all eternity, be truly alive.  But neither will they cease.  They have entered into that stage where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched (Mk 9:48), a state which, should it be fully understood, I cannot imagine that any would but seek by all means to avoid.

But, alive or dead, this body of corruption must be destroyed and refitted or replaced so as to be suited for eternity.  And that, as I say, seems to hold whether eternity holds out that blessedness of being forever united with and sharing in the honor of our Lord, or the dreadful consequences of insisting on being the captain of your own ship as you have sailed into the maelstrom of sin.  Either way, eternity awaits, and you will meet it in a body suited to weather eternity.

I can think of nothing more suited to end this part of the study than to return to Joshua’s address of God’s people.  “Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve:  Whether the gods which your fathers served which were beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you are living; but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD” (Josh 24:15).  Nothing has changed but perhaps the names and the geography.  Our fathers, however far back you choose to go, served other gods.  The lands in which we live serve other gods.  They may not name them as gods, but gods they are.  This world, dear ones, is not our home, and its gods are not our gods.  And as Jesus taught so plainly, you cannot serve two masters.  You will belong to the LORD or you will belong to the world.  It cannot be both.  Choose you this day, and choose with eternity in view, because it is and ever shall be.

Revelation Builds (01/26/23)

I come now to a question that I sought to explore in my first notes, and which I would return to now.  It is the question of what we are to understand as Paul’s meaning when he says, “This we say to you by logo kuriou.”  The word of the Lord is a phrase that carries certain connotations when we hear it, particularly coming from one who bears the prophetic mantel.  It is a phrase I think is used far too lightly by many today who would be recognized as prophets in their own right.  I’ve said it often enough.  If indeed they are prophets, then let them live by the standard of the prophets of old.  If indeed they are prophets speaking forth the logo kuriou, then this should be no issue.  But if not, the penalty God sets upon those who make false claim to speaking for Him is severe, as is the penalty for any sin.  And, I might suggest, this same penalty must surely hold for those who claim to preach Christian faith but deny fundamental doctrines such as the one before us.  The preacher, by his very office, is laying claim to being spokesman for God, of proclaiming God’s Word, and as such has a significant duty to speak truly and as one fully directed by the Holy Spirit in his words.

Here, however, the wording suggests something more.  It is a phrase that suggests fresh revelation, and in the economy of the New Covenant, Paul is one of the very few, select agents authorized to provide such.  So, it’s certainly not out of the question.  Even as John would provide so much that was previously unclear as regards the Last Days and the coming of the kingdom, so, too, Paul is authorized for more than merely making this Gospel known to peoples outside Israel.  He, too, has revelatory knowledge as concerns this Last Day and its events.  We can see that well enough in 1Corinthians 15, which can’t help but keep coming up when we consider this subject.  So, is this also new revelation, or just a reference to what Jesus had taught while here?

Either way, as Calvin perceives, the point is made that the doctrine he proceeds to set forth is not his own.  Did it refer to a prior teaching of Christ’s?  Then the doctrine is not his own.  Did it come by divine revelation of which Paul was the first, and to date, sole recipient, until he made it known?  Then the doctrine is not his own.  I take Calvin’s point.  Either way, it is the word of God.  But if it is a reference to what Jesus taught while here, one might expect we would find reference to it in the Gospels that record His time with us.  This was, after all, a major matter, this business of the Last Day.  It had been a major matter long before His arrival, and continues to be so long after His departure.  Just consider how deeply fascinated many of our brothers and sisters remain with learning more of that time.  How many seek to come to grips with The Revelation, to understand its implications and indications more fully against current events?  How many books have been written seeking to demonstrate that now is the time?  Well, someday, one of them is bound to prove true, I suppose.  But meanwhile, we have what God has chosen to preserve to guide His people, and we are told, as you are doubtless tired of seeing me write, that we have been given everything needful to life and godliness (2Pe 1:3).  You’ll pardon me if I find in that sufficient cause to cease nosing about for new revelations, greater details as to how the end is to come.  I will, as I have said, take some time at the end of this part of my studies to consider what Scripture says of it.  But I am well satisfied to stick with that and let it be enough.

Back to our text and the implications of that phrase for us here.  Take it as you like, Paul speaks on the full authority of the Lord.  And we can see the specific matter that he relays as coming by the word of the Lord.  It pertains to the order of events.  As I have shown before, the Old Testament saints were not unaware of the resurrection to come.  The Pharisees, at least, still recognized this reality as relayed to them in the Scriptures, even if the Sadducees had dismissed it as incompatible with human reason.  Well, it is that.  This idea of resurrection is hard enough to maintain by mere human understanding.  Too much in our experience militates against such a concept, and we come to laugh at those who insist on life after death, on having encountered the ghosts of those who have long been gone from this life.  And yet, here we have just such an encounter in Christ, though He had not been so long gone at the time.  Then, too, neither was His return a matter of phantasms and wispy, questionable sightings.  This was fully attested, physically confirmed.  He had even eaten with His disciples.  They had touched Him, walked and talked with Him, seen and noted the scars of His death, even on this body.  Now, whether those were temporary reminders, or whether they remain permanent features of His resurrected body, I cannot say.  To what degree we shall go into heaven with the marks of our present body, I cannot say.  But to some degree, it seems to me that such things must be erased, given the promise of every tear wiped away.  I’ll save further thought for that sidebar, though.

So, we can perhaps forgive the Sadducees their skepticism on this matter.  And the Greeks, of course, would have nothing to do with it.  It defied reason to suppose that, in spite of umpteen thousands of years of historical   evidence to the contrary, dead bodies were going to spring to life.  The modern man, as I have probably already said, might add that the limits of physical matter, and the reality of atoms and molecules being recycled down through the millennia make it even less reasonable to suppose a bodily restoration.  Like the Sadducees wondering which of the several brothers would take the one woman as wife in the afterlife, so we might ask which of several hundreds of individuals gets the atoms?  But hard fact remains.  Jesus died and rose again, and having risen, He ascended into heaven, and the promise was proclaimed to those hundreds who witnessed the event that He would be back.  He will be.

That we would be there to see it, even having died, is not news.  This was understood even by Job.  But there is this new detail given as to the order of things.  Those alive at His return will not precede those who sleep in the grave.  When the command goes forth, they shall, in fact, be first to arise and join Him.  The matter of the shout of command which follows after takes us back, I think, to that which Jesus had Himself taught.  It’s another passage that can’t help but come up frequently in discussion of that Day.  “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn.  They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and glory.  And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other” (Mt 24:30-31).  Okay.  We see the trumpet.  We see the clouds and the activity being in the sky.  But nothing was said about events on the ground for believers.  Nothing was said as to which comes first, and which later?  For one, Jesus was not keen to have His disciples vying for honors, was He?  And what could be more signal honor than to be first to greet Him?

This, I think, we can reasonably account as new revelation, even if that thinking comes as being slightly at odds with my conclusions not so many months ago.  By ‘divine revelation from the Lord Jesus’, he supplies us with more understanding of those events.  And, I might suggest, by that same divine revelation comes the more detailed exposition on the resurrection of the saints in 1Corinthians 15, particular those points made in regard to the absolute necessity of it.  But Clarke observes as I have commented, that what he tells us in regard to the resurrection could not lead one to this new conclusion by power of reason.  Even given acceptance of this doctrine of resurrection, human reasoning isn’t going to get you to this understanding.  Nothing in that doctrine directly suggest anything to do with order, nor with such details as our being taken up from the earth into those clouds.  And here, we can pause to ask whether it is us rising into, or above the clouds, or whether the image of clouds intends to convey the sheer numbers involved.  For my part, without putting a great deal of thought into it, I should think that passage from Matthew clarifies it pretty readily.  He comes on the clouds of the sky.  We could add the angel’s message to those who watched Him go up.  He will come just as you have watched Him go (Ac 1:11).  His going was not in the company of some mass of resurrected individuals, yet it involved clouds.  “A cloud received Him out of their sight” (Ac 1:9).  So, the sameness, alongside His express comment, would assuredly seem to indicate clouds at His return.  It does not preclude, I should note, that our numbers as we arise will be such as to render the sight cloudlike to those left below.  But enough of that.

Clarke, for one, is so convinced of the newness of this express revelation that he writes, “In no place does the apostle speak more confidently and positively of his inspiration than here; and we should prepare ourselves to receive some momentous and interesting truth.”  Fair enough.  And what is this momentous and interesting truth?  The dead shall rise first, and then those yet alive will be caught up together with them.  We shall meet the Lord in the air.  I think we could say that both the order of events, slight though the difference in arrival times may be, is news.  So, too, is the detail that our meeting Him shall be in the air.  That takes us beyond what Jesus had to say on the subject while He was here.  It is momentous in this, I think:  It requires us to acknowledge power outside our own in achieving this reunion.  We may have machinery to take us into the air, and even into space, but we certainly can’t achieve it solely by the power of our own bodies, nor could we long survive it in those bodies, apart from significant supporting infrastructure.  And we aren’t told just how high in the air it shall be, although the presence of clouds might suggest to us that we remain in the atmosphere somewhere. 

But it is first and foremost this order of events, the dead rising first that is freshly revealed.  I think, too, we could add the necessity of a transformation of the living as being freshly revealed for the first time, although the transformative nature of it is not so expressly discussed here as in Paul’s later exposition on the subject.  But we get a glimpse of it.  Change is going to be needed to accommodate this scene.  Change is needed to fit us to ascend amongst those raised from death, just as change was needed in their bodies, long since, in many cases, decayed and dissolved until even bones are no longer to be found.  But such things, as I say, are hardly beyond the capacity of Him Who created man from the dust to begin with, and for that matter, created the dust.  No.  These details are not going to be found in the Synoptic Gospels, nor in John’s gospel, for all that.  But here it is:  First the dead are raised to reunite spirit with these new bodies, then the living shall, I suppose, metamorphose into their own new bodies, all to be received before Him together as one, from across all time and space.

I would note that even Jesus is not shot of this necessity, He being as He is the first-fruits of those restored from this sleep of death (1Co 15:20-26).  He had taken up the life of a human.  How exactly this joining of the human and the divine works, and how this could transpire and leave God unchanged through all eternity, I confess is beyond me to explain.  But this I know.  He was every bit a man, every bit human.  He was born according to the normal course of birth, even if His conception was extraordinary, being the work of the Holy Spirit and no man.  He grew as a man, from infancy to adulthood.  He learned as a man, matured as a man, and most assuredly died as a man.  The body interred in that tomb was a human body, and being human, was subject to decay, although not so fast that three days would see it gone.  But being a human body, it was as much in need of transformation as yours and mine.  It was no more fitted for eternity than is this frame in which we find ourselves.

So, to those who try and posit an Enoch or an Elijah as having skipped this step when they were translated into heaven, I’m sorry, but no.  If it was needful for Jesus, for God Himself, it was most assuredly needed for them.  And it is more assuredly needful for us.  This mortal MUST put on immortality.  This corrupt MUST be swallowed up by the eternal.  Its present form simply couldn’t handle the needs.

One question we must accept as left unaddressed in this teaching is the correspondence of the events Paul speaks of and those of the tribulation.  We shall have to look elsewhere for that.  The immediacy implied in that ‘next’ would certainly seem to suggest the Rapture preceding those events, but then again, it doesn’t require much imagination to see those events unfolding around us in the present, and I know some would argue they have been unfolding since the day Jesus died.  But again, I shall save further exploration of any such considerations for that sidebar study that looms.  I don’t know as I shall find conclusive answer.  After all, two thousand years on, and we can find several different views still prevalent, so I don’t suppose there’s really a clear-cut answer to be had.  But we shall see what we shall see.

For now, we settle on this.  New information has been revealed here, and it comes by the word of the Lord.  It is trustworthy and utterly reliable.  I don’t know as we care too much about the order of things.  We already knew that the dead would be restored to life.  Job knew it.  It doesn’t hurt, though, to see it confirmed.  The grave is no obstacle.  We have been given a glimpse of the newness of these bodies, made necessary even by the simple factor of meeting our Lord in the air, a place these bodies are distinctly not suited to remain for very long.  And, as we continue this study, I think we shall find rather more significance in this matter of His return in power being in the air.  It’s more than just making room for the mass of humanity involved.  But we shall be caught up.  We shall be together, and together with Him.  Death has not made us strangers to those who have gone before.  It has given us no advantage, nor them.  Well, perhaps them, insomuch as we understand that at death their spirits have already gone to be with Him.  That, it strikes me, is great advantage.  But then, we know so little about how that goes.

Suffice to know that come what may, we shall be with Him.  As such, Paul is able to conclude, “Comfort one another with these words.”  That’s our comfort.  We shall be with Him.  Whatever the present holds, whatever the future proves to be for us in this life, eternity waits, and in that eternity, we shall be with Him.  Glory to God in the highest!  He Who has done great things has greater things yet in store for us, and He does not fail.  He Who promises is faithful.  It shall be so.  Amen and amen!

Christian Response to Death (01/27/23)

Going back to the beginning of our passage, we see in part the reason Paul is concerned to address misunderstandings on this matter of death and resurrection.  Set aside knowledge that we shall indeed be restored to life, and life together with our fellow believers and our Lord, and the grave is a finality.  Death is an ending from which there can be no sequel.  And so, the loss of a loved one truly is deserving of the inconsolable depths of grief displayed by those who see it that way.  And how not?  To them, this one is cut off permanently.  The loss is keen, and there is nothing to soften the blow.  Nothing.

Can you imagine, in a society like that of Israel, the wife mourning her husband’s passing?  Here was your earthly provider.  Here was, quite possibly, your sole means of support.  That has to play into the emotional overload as well.  But even without that concern, there are the necessities of aging, the need for assistance, for fellowship, for companionship.  And as we are considering those who have married, there have been long years to hopefully grow close.  I recall the despondency of my father when my step-mother passed.  For him, the loss was particularly keen as his own mobility was much impaired by age.  And she had kept him well, both in love and in making his house a home.  The loss was significant.  She was a believer, and presumably he was as well, being a pastor and all.  But still the loss hits home.  One could question whether perhaps he mourned beyond due measure, whether he really had laid hold of this doctrine in all its significance.

But it does demonstrate a balance point in understanding this doctrine.  Grief is not forbidden, or declared to be evidence of lacking faith.  And neither, to be very clear, is the grave somehow evidence of faith or righteousness lacking in that one who has occupied it.  Death, to be sure, is the wages of sin, and to that end, as we have discussed, it remains appointed to all men once to die.  But in Christ, this death of the body has been rendered a question of sleeping, not of annihilation.  We who remain, though, do experience the loss, and we are not somehow rendered so emotionless in our heavenly focus as to feel nothing at the loss.  Some of us will process grief differently than others, but if we feel nothing, then something is very wrong.

The call, then, is not top dispense with grieving entirely, but to bridle it with the understanding of hope.  If our grief takes us to the same depths of sorrow as we find in the unbeliever, then how do we expect to present this Gospel as offering hope?  Where is that hope if we go to our end just as anybody else?  What’s the point of bothering with the challenges of walking righteous and humility?  As Paul says, if our hope is in this life only, we are of all men most to be pitied (1Co 15:19).  We have foregone much that offered pleasure, and gained nothing.  This is what our incessant wailing and sorrow proclaim.  It wasn’t worth it.  God wasn’t there.  But He is, and it is!  We are not without hope, but possessed of a hope most certain.  They have not died.  They but sleep.  And their spirits have already gone to be with the Lord, that very moment, to be with Him in Paradise, in heaven, and no waiting room such as is supposed in the idea of Purgatory.

Our hope is certain.  The promise we have of restoration into eternal life is given us by God, Who cannot lie.  This restoration is every bit as certain as our eventual death, more certain yet if we account that transformation of the living as unique from the experience of those who have been asleep.  For living or dead at His coming, as we are reminded here, we will rejoin Him in life.  That is certain.  The grave, for that generation yet living on that day, is not.  And so, as we contemplate those who have gone on before, yes, we know sorrow for the loss of their fellowship.  As Calvin writes, “It is one thing to bridle our grief, that it may be made subject to God, and quite another thing to harden one’s self so as to be like stones, casting away human feelings.”  Jesus wept at the loss of a friend, even knowing it was to be but a very temporary loss, even knowing what He was about to do to change that situation.  Death is a sorrowful thing, as it should be, for even in the believer, it is demonstration of the high cost of sin.  It is, though small and temporary, a victory for the devil, and any victory of his is reason enough for grief.  But not for loss of hope, for he does not win the war, only this little skirmish.

Our sorrow should know the tempering of this hope, both for ourselves in our sense of loss, and for those we have lost.  In their case, this loss is infinite gain.  Paul got this, and I have little doubt but that he got it more and more clearly as his trials and sufferings increased.  “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Php 1:21).  I can still remember a brother from early years in the church who had just experienced the loss of a child, he and his wife.  If memory serves, it was a matter of miscarriage, but the loss was certainly no less keen for that.  His response, was to sing before the church the song built upon that passage.  His child, though lost to him and his wife, now knew infinite gain, for his child was already with the Lord in spirit, and would know life in eternity together with Him.

Now, that may strike one as being rather presumptuous.  After all, that child certainly hadn’t reached the age of maturity, certainly hadn’t had opportunity to participate in believer’s baptism, or even infant baptism for that matter.  But God, to be sure, is able to save regardless.  Some would insist that these unborn children are still without sin at that point, but that seems to me to violate the teaching of Scripture.  David famously confessed that it was in sin that he was conceived (Ps 51:5).  Before the first cells split in the zygote, already sin was present.  This is kind of the point of all that is said of Adam’s failure and the sinless perfection of Jesus, our last Adam.  Sin needed addressing in all of us, for it was present in all of us, and present from the outset.  But that being said, nothing precludes our Lord from sending His Holy Spirit into even the least developed fetus to inform the spirit within and call it to Himself, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.  Where that call goes forth, there is a willing response.  Nothing precludes Him saving as He wills.  Nothing could.

As I proceed toward the next part of this lengthening study, I would consider one more observation that I have come across in the commentaries.  This comes from the JFB.  “Death affects the individual; the coming of Jesus, the whole Church.”  This point is at least somewhat on display here, and might even be considered a portion of that new revelation that Paul was supplying.  Certainly, we recognize that individuality of death.  Yes, there are occasions for mass deaths, sadly.  And for the most part, those are occasioned by violence such as we hope never to experience ourselves.  But even then, the experience remains a most individual matter.  Each one who dies does so pretty much wrapped up in their own experience of it.  There’s really no way to share it, is there?  Their thoughts and prayers may be for those left behind.  They may pass from this existence with hearts full of concern for their spouses, their children, or what have you.  But still, it remains strictly personal, as it must.

But then we come to this marvelous moment that is set before us, and wonder of wonders!  Those who have gone individually to be with the Lord return as one, en masse.  I rather like the way the JFB presents the case.  To paraphrase:  At His coming, all will be with Him, body and soul, visibly and together.  This is the marvelous testimony of the revealing of the saints.  We have sung it so often.  “We are one in the Spirit, we are one in the Lord.”  Here, on this most glorious day, shall come the unmistakable evidence of the truth of that declaration.  Here we shall be. One body, gathered together in glorious, unified display together with our one Head.  In that day, there will be no congregating by denomination.  There will be no bickering over doctrinal differences.  There will be no doctrinal differences.  For then, we shall know as we have been known:  Perfectly and in full.  Then, whatever errors have been there in our own beliefs and understanding shall have been corrected.  I don’t suppose we shall feel shame for our misunderstandings, nor rebuke.  Rather, we shall experience a fuller wonder at the majestic glory, the beautiful perfection of our Lord and King.  There will be too much of rejoicing to leave room for regret.  And there will never be an end to it.

Lord, we sing of this glorious day, and rightly so.  We long for it, and rightly so.  Yet, I think I have yet to fully lay hold of the wonder of it.  It fails to grip me as it ought as I go through my days here.  I leave these times of study, and am soon enough preoccupied with matters of life and employments and challenging relationships and all else that comes of living here.  You know.  Yet somehow, You navigated it all and remained pure.  This is a wonder all in itself.  And it can become challenging to determine what is acceptable and what is not.  Certainly, to be so focused upon heaven as to disregard earthly employments and duties is not in our calling.  No.  You have provided these things for our supply and our development.  And yet, we can make of them more than they are, and allow them to displace our love for You.  Let this not be.  Let us not lose sight of the hope set before us.  Should it come about that in these dark times we must face death, and even violent death, that we should yet play the man, as those who have gone before.  I rest in the assurance that should I be called to face such an end, You will see to it that I am equipped and able to withstand.  And further, I lay hold of this firm hope that, come what may, the worst that can come of it is that I am with You that much sooner.  And come what may, this Day is certain, this glorious day when I have been called up to be with You, and to remain with You forever.  And I take consolation in knowing that those whom I have loved who loved You will be there, too, rejoicing right alongside me.  May it be, Lord, that there are those present whom I can thank for my being there, and those who may have cause to give me some small thanks for playing a positive part in their own life of faith.  May You know some profit for the expenditure You have made on me.  And may You be glorified, come what may.  Oh, yes, You shall be!  For You are utterly glorious, my God and my King.

Expectant Anticipation (01/28/23)

Okay.  I noted the question that arises as to Paul’s intended meaning in claiming to convey the word of the Lord in this teaching.  Another question arises, though, and that concerns the significance of him speaking of those remaining alive on that last day with the referent to ‘we’ – ‘we who are alive and remain’.  Is it the case that Paul, at least at this earlier stage of his ministry, expected Christ’s return to occur during his own lifetime?  I mean, at this juncture, it’s pretty obvious that expected or not, this did not transpire.  Or at least, if it did, then the whole of the Christian religion has been very much in vain.  Thus, I think you will find that it is primarily such as seek to eradicate Christianity specifically, or religion generally, who will take up this idea that, ooh, Paul was wrong!  And that, while claiming to speak by divine revelation.  See?  The whole thing’s a fraud.

But honestly, the problem was even more pronounced for this group he was trying to comfort, and we see from his later letter that it would seem there were some there who took his meaning exactly so.  There, the problem that was being addressed here is seen to have worsened, or mutated.  The problem has shifted from concern over those who have died to concern that those yet living had missed it.  Paul’s response to this?  Don’t let anybody convince you that the day of the Lord has come already, even if the claim appears to have come from me (2Th 2:2).  There follows his instruction as to those who had taken this idea of imminent return and made it an excuse to blow off work.  We hear, he says, that some have taken to an undisciplined life and aren’t even working, and these we command – and again, ‘in the Lord Jesus Christ’ – to get to work and earn their own keep (2Th 3:12).  Indeed, he instructs the elders of that church, as he had commanded them when with them:  If they won’t work, don’t let them eat (2Th 3:10).

This bit of information from that later letter should inform us as to his meaning here.  For one, the mention that he had given them this very instruction while he was there gives some indication that his sense of imminence was not so imminent as all that.  We need to be mindful of this as we read.  And that second letter did not come so very long after the first.  It’s not like years had past and his understanding had shifted as he realized that events weren’t happening quite as he expected.  Then, too, as one or the other of the commentaries observed, it is hardly thinkable that one speaking from this place of divine revelation could speak wrongly on so important a detail.  That argument, one might say, begs the question, particularly for those inclined to doubt Paul’s divine inspiration in what he says.  But again, the other, more mundane evidence, confirms that no, he did not necessarily expect this return to come in his own lifetime.

We could add, of course, the example of John.  False expectations had arisen around him as well.  The Church learned of those events just prior to Jesus’ ascension into heaven, when he took Peter aside and John was following after.  Peter had asked, what of him?  And Jesus answered, effectively, what is it to you?  But it’s the way He said it.  “If I want him to remain until I come, what is that to you?  You follow Me!” (Jn 21:17).  Interestingly, only John even bothers to note this point, and he does so with the express purpose of correcting misunderstandings that had arisen in regard to it.  He notes that some of the disciples took this as indication that John would not die, and then stresses the point:  “Yet Jesus did not say that he would not die” (Jn 21:23).

You know, there’s a pretty solid lesson for us in all of this, as to how we treat Scripture more generally.  What had happened here?  Those who heard of these events latched onto one statement, failing to keep hold of the context, or even the full sentence, and had made from this poor basis a whole fabrication of beliefs.  Ooh!  Jesus said John won’t die before He comes back.  No.  No, He did not say that.  Yes, He used those words, but you have forgotten the if.  It is a third class conditional, which is taken to present a probable future case, but even so, it would seem to me that the setting requires us to understand a more rhetorical aspect to the usage.  Jesus is not, in fact, saying anything about John’s case.  He is addressing Peter’s case.  His point is simple enough to grasp.  Peter, mind your own business.  See to your own walk.  To try and stuff more significance into it than that only leads us to error, as happened with those disciples.  What we might conclude from John’s bringing this up is that he, at any rate, did not expect it.

So, what have we got?  Well, we have, as Calvin observes, something which has been preserved for the benefit of the Church in all ages, and that, by the purpose of the Holy Spirit.  There is an understanding that we should maintain in regard to all of Scripture.  It is all here because the Holy Spirit determined that it is needful and of benefit to the Church that it be so.  There is instruction here that, however needful in the immediate case for which it was written, remains just as needful to all believers in every age.  We must also surely recognize that if the Holy Spirit saw fit to preserve this for our edification, it is in fact free of error in its teachings.  That is not to say that certain, insignificant scribal errors may have crept in over time, but I think we can yet insist that any such errors as have crept in, being still under the supervisory prospect of the Holy Spirit, have not been allowed to so corrupt the text as to alter the meaning.  So, another lesson for the one seeking to translate and understand this Word.  It bears the only imprimis that matters.  God has stamped it with His approval, taken pains to see it preserved against all odds and all attack.  The accuracy of its text, given the long ages of being copied by hand, is truly a marvel, and this is well attested by those ancient copies unearthed by archaeologists on occasion.

And with all that, what can we safely conclude from this passage?  Well, we can certainly conclude that there will be some alive at His return.  We cannot conclude anything about when.  What we are seeing in Paul’s writing is, at least per Calvin, a typical Hebrew idiom.  It is something that would have been readily understood, one supposes, by a Jewish audience, and it is something that would quite reasonably roll off of his tongue.  But it is not primarily a Jewish audience to which he writes, but Gentile.  The Jews among them would not have thought anything of the phrase, it being familiar to them, and may have seen no reason to explain its significance.  But the Gentiles may very well have heard this as imparting significant news as to the timing.  They would, however, have been wrong.

Then, what is intended?  What is intended is the imparting of a sense of urgency, a sense of imminence.  The urgency pertains to how we are living our lives, how we are living out our faith today.  Today could be that day.  And I suppose I must stress, could be.  It ain’t necessarily so.  But it could be.  You don’t know!  You won’t know.  Jesus made that clear over and over again.  You’re not getting advance notice that He’ll be dropping in next week, or next year, or tomorrow.  You know only that He will come, and when He does, it will be like a thief in the night.  That is not to say He’s looking to catch you out.  It is simply to say that you need to be ready, always ready.

You need to live as one expectant that his Master may come through the door at any moment, and being His servant, such a perspective must keep you diligently about the tasks assigned to you, such that when He comes, whenever that may be, He will find things to His liking.  And this is the perspective which is to inform our daily life.  Live with intentional urgency.  This applies, certainly, to our own participation in the work of our sanctification, and in our efforts to live in accordance with His commandments.  And that being the case, it must surely apply to our interest in propagating the Gospel amongst those who have yet to hear His call.  Time is short.  That should lend urgency both to our own development and to our pursuit of this great purpose of the Church.  It should inform how we declare this Gospel.  You don’t have the leisure to consider it at length and decide some time down the road whether or not you will choose to believe it.   There may be no down the road.  You don’t know the day of His coming.  Neither do you know the day of your demise.  Either of these, whichever may come first, marks the end of this offer.  Your coupon expires and will no longer be accepted.  The time for decision is now.  The call is ever, “Choose you this day.”  And that call is not just to unbelievers, but to the called as well.  Today, choose who you’re going to serve, and then do so.

Ironside sums it up nicely.  “It might please Him to defer His coming until we have left this world, but we are to live in daily expectation of His return.”  That’s it!  God has so designed this world that we who believe should live each day in glad anticipation of His return, and do so with the very real expectation that it very well could be today.  We could be the ones found alive at His coming.  It’s possible.  I don’t think, however much we may see signs in our times that this is it, that we can properly come down to the conclusion that we are, indeed, that last generation.  If Jesus says, “It’s not for you to know,” I think we must accept that as ruling out any such certainty.  But lacking such certainty does not in any way preclude possibility.

Imminence is stressed throughout the New Testament, not as insisting that those immediately addressed shall be alive to see the end, but that they could be.  Again:  The Holy Spirit has seen to it that we have these notes of urgency preserved for our own edification.  The truth conveyed is no less applicable to us than to them.  We aren’t given these insights so that we can comment on how ignorant they were back then, and how much more advanced we are now.  For one, we would be entirely wrong in such conclusion.  We have not improved all that much.  Sure and we’ve had some highly significant technological advances since that day, but as beings, not really, as to the internal, immortal part of man, no.

So, let’s look at a few of these urgings from Scripture.  Paul tells the Corinthians that the time has been shortened (1Co 7:29).  This comes amidst discussion of matters regarding marriage, suggesting that given the shortness of time remaining on this planet, ‘those who have wives should be as though they had none’.  I’ll leave it to studies of that epistle to expound on the significance intended there.  But he goes on.  Let those who weep be as though they did not.  Let those who rejoice be as though they did not.  Let those who buy be as if they did not possess.  And so on, to the conclusion:  “For the form of this world is passing away” (1Co 7:30-31).  Time is short.  Make best use of it.  You’ve had time enough for pursuing your pleasures, now it’s time to get serious and pursue the business of the kingdom.  Mind you, this comes as concurring with what was written to Thessalonica.  He’s not calling the people of God to forego employments, or just settle into some remote commune to await the end.  It’s perspective.  It’s mindset.

Another.  “Let your forbearing spirit be known to all.  The Lord is near” (Php 4:5).  Now, I would have to say, in spite off the Wycliffe Translators Commentary taking this as an example of imminence, that it is imminence of another sort.  This is not, to my thinking, pointing us toward the day of Christ’s return, but rather to His very real, very near presence even as we await His return.  The Lord is near?  Indeed, He is in you, abiding in you, and you in Him.  “May the all be one, even ad You are in Me, Father, and I in You, may the also be in Us; that the world may believe that You sent Me” (Jn 17:21).  You have the Holy Spirit indwelling, and God is One!  It is God’s temple, not just that of the particular Person of the Holy Spirit.  Father and Son are right there with you, as well.  You are never far from Him.  “Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Where can I flee from Your presence?  If I ascend to heaven, You are there.  If I descend to Sheol, You are there.  If I go to the remotest parts of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, Your right hand will lay hold of me.  Though I should think to hide in deepest darkness, yet I should find that darkness is not dark to You, for whom night is as bright as day” (Ps 139:7-12).  He’s always been near, and He always will be.

As one more example in two quotes, let us consider these:  “If anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. Maranatha” (1Co 16:22), and this:  “He who testifies to these things says, ‘Yes, I am coming quickly.’  Amen!  Come, Lord Jesus” (Rev 22:20).  The two express the same fundamental desire for imminent return.  And we see from John’s closing message, chosen by the Holy Spirit to conclude this work of revelation, that Christ Himself declares His imminence.  We must, of course, remain mindful that with Him, a day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as a day.  How concepts of quickness apply in the context of eternity is something of an open question.  But He is coming, and He is never late.  And we won’t know the timing.  For God’s design is that we not know, that we live in anticipation always, and that so anticipating, we seek to be found ready at whatever time He chooses to return.  It could be as I finish this study.  It could be as I shower.  It could be as I am doing bills later today.  Or, it could be long ages after my demise.  We don’t know.  We won’t know.  But we know He is coming.  He said so, and He does not lie.

So, I’ll wrap up this morning with a repeat of my prayer from some months ago when I first worked through this passage.  I am daily surprised at the depths to be delved in this brief passage, and rather taken aback by how briefly I treated them in my first working through them.  This is as an endless mine of riches, and keeps turning up instruction and understanding most beneficial and needful to me today.  So, by all means, Thank You, Lord!  Thank You for so gripping my attention with this material.  But, to return to that earlier prayer.

Awake us to Your Holiness.  Awake me to Your sovereignty.  Remind me, for I am a forgetful man, of Your very near presence, and Your true lordship over this poor man.  Let me live for You, and grant me patience with those who seek to do likewise.  The time will come when we have all the time in the world to dwell in Your presence with clear awareness of You, and no awareness of any temptation to depart from You.  May I learn to appreciate that same nearness and dedication here and now, indwelt by You, and keenly attentive to Your voice leading, Your Spirit guiding.

And has He not done so?  Have we not, even with this morning’s study, been brought back to keen awareness of our Lord’s nearness?  May it hold us, truly grip us, and may we not lose hold of that longing anticipation, and the excitement of His nearness.

Courtly Scene (01/29/23)

This morning, I shall focus on the brief description we are given of our Lord’s arrival in this passage.  We have four details given of this event:  A shout, an angel, a trumpet, and a location.  There seems to be some debate as to how exactly those first three inter-relate.  Is the angel sounding this trumpet by way of repeating the shout?  Are the effectively simultaneous events, or are there activities in between which are elided in pursuit of Paul’s present purpose?  I don’t know as we’ll touch on all such questions, and I sincerely doubt I shall arrive at satisfactory answer for many, but let’s see where it goes.

First, let us look at the shout.  This is not the huzzah of an excited reception.  Rather, the term used has to do with a command given loudly.  Barnes identifies it with the voice of, say, a coxswain commanding his oarsmen, or of a huntsman commanding his dogs.  Those ideas are certainly contained within its meanings.  They would be reasonable occasions for such a shout.  But here, I think we must accept we face something much more significant.  Mr. Henry suggests, and I think rightly so, that this is the command of a conquering king.  He has not come alone, after all.  We know this because, at minimum, we have mention of an archangel giving voice.  And I should have to think that if the archangel finds need to relay this command it is because those he commands are with him.  This accords, certainly, with other things said of this day.  Indeed, Paul’s declaration would seem to rely in part on what Jesus Himself had said of this day.  “They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.  And He will send forth His angels with a great trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other” (Mt 24:30-31).

We shall come back to that, I think, because these two pictures of that Day are one, and what Jesus spoke must certainly inform what we find revealed by Paul.  Okay, so we have this:  The voice of command has gone forth from our Lord, and this comes about, we may presume as commanding the hosts of heaven that are with Him on this day, for this is the day of final victory.  This is the day in which the kingdom of heaven is rightly established in full upon the earth.  This is the day when the Usurper and his minions are once for all defeated and, to use the familiar phrase, put under the feet of our King.  How exactly this shall play out is not entirely clear in what we have before us.  Is this the call to charge?  Is this the call to proclaim His arrival?  Is this, as would certainly seem to be said in Jesus’ description, the call given to the elect to come to Him?  Is it all of the above?

I am actually somewhat inclined toward that latter perspective.  The significance of that shout, and the trumpet of God sounding forth will be somewhat different for different groups of hearers.  For the angels, certainly, this is clear.  They are given command and they go forth to their duties.  And we do have the clear declaration of Christ that a chief duty, if not the first duty, is to gather together the elect.  Here is the harvest.  Here, as the Wycliffe Translators Commentary indicates, is the Rapture.  But that is not our focus just now.  Our focus is on the scene into which we are to be gathered.

We have then a calling of heaven’s angelic armies to go forth to final victory.  But what we are seeing here is not a battle.  It’s already a victory.  Or perhaps the battle is simply elided from Paul’s description because a full dissertation on the Last Day is not his purpose, rather the comfort and consolation of those believers who have seen some of their brethren go to their graves.  And I might remind that it seems likely that some of those who have died have died as a result of significant persecution at the hands of their own countrymen.  Whether this comes by way of those Jews who so opposed the message of Messiah’s coming, or from the Gentile population is not said.  I would tend to suspect the former, as the latter had little reason to be worked up about it.  But we don’t know, honestly.

So, the king gives command.  The angelic commanders relay the command.  We can safely assume that the angelic hosts heed the command, and carry it out in full.  The victorious King is come, and His army is swift to accomplish all His purpose, and to see this kingdom established and secure, every opposing force subdued.

For the elect, it seems clear enough this shout comes as calling them forth into life.  For the dead, those who sleep in Christ, it is very much a call back into physical life, as spirit and body are reunited, but not just a restoration of that old body which was in the grave.  After all, as we have observed, that body will have devolved into its component matter, and bits of it may very well have gone into the growth of other bodies, which bodies may also have been occupied by the souls of the elect.  More to the point, though, mortal bodies can’t handle eternal conditions.  Physical bodies such as those we now know could not handle even the events of this day without significant technical support, say, a spacesuit and perhaps jetpacks or the like.

Then, too, there are the rest of humanity to consider.  For the sound coming forth on this day is fit to ‘shake both the heavens and the earth’, as Clarke describes it.  He’s needn’t be given too much credit for the phrasing, I don’t think, as it pretty much reflects what Scripture says of that day.  “‘Yet once more I will shake not only the earth, but also the heaven.’  And this, ‘Yet once more,’ denotes the removing of those things which can be shaken, as of created things, in order that those things which cannot be shaken may remain” (Heb 12:26-27).  “The day of the Lord will come like a thief, in which the heavens will pass away with a roar and the elements will be destroyed with intense heat, and the earth and its works will be burned up” (2Pe 3:10).  Yes, I dare say that’s going to shake things up a bit.  And frankly, it puts paid to spacesuits and jetpacks being of any use, doesn’t it?

So, then, the angelic host have come.  They have been commanded, and they have gone forth.  To what purpose or purposes we are not told precisely, at least not here.  But in part, again going back to Jesus’ description, we know it is to call His elect to Him.  Here, then, is a sound so great as to awaken the dead, as God calls one and all to appear before Him.  And this is indeed one and all.  What Paul is focused on is the elect of God, and these, being called forth and re-equipped with heavenly bodies, arise to Him.  No, that’s insufficient.  That puts us too much in mind of imagery familiar from Saturday morning cartoons, the spirit drifting skyward, harp in hand.  What Paul puts before us is another matter entirely.  This is being caught up, as the NASB puts it.  Hauled up might be nearer the point.  Power is exerted to bring us hence.  Whether that means power flowing into us such that we are then able to propel ourselves upward, or whether it intends, perhaps, the strength of angels taking us in hand and hauling us along after themselves is an open question.  But that latter image puts me in mind of Lot and family escaping the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, which would certainly be an apt image to bear in mind here.  So, such a strongarm gathering up would seem quite appropriate, and as has been observed already (I think), it implies nothing as to our willingness to be gone.  No, I don’t think willingness is going to be an issue on that day.

All of this starts to turn attention to that matter of the trumpet of God.  Those of a certain mindset will think rather immediately of some giant shofar.  I’m not sure from what creature such a shofar might be thought to come, but no mind.  It’s come out of heaven after all, and who knows what the rules are there?  But I would note that shofars were not the only trumpets in the temple.  They had instruments of metal as well.  What is more to the point than the nature of this trumpet is the purpose.  And here, we might go back to events at Mount Sinai when God came down to meet with His people.  There, too, the trumpet sounded, and the sound was sufficient to cause a significant sense of dread in those He called.  This was serious.  I mean, the lightning flashes, the clouds gathering over the mountain, and the thundering voice of the Almighty should have made that pretty clear already, but the trumpet sealed the deal.  This, too, was a voice of command.  This was a summons issued to all.  Come and appear before your Lord.

We see this reflected in the ceremonies of ancient Israel.  The sounding of the trumpet wasn’t to thrill the pilgrims.  It wasn’t a bit of show to excite the crowds.  It was a solemn matter.  And one particular aspect, which I commented on in my first pass notes, concerns the announcing of the year of Jubilee.  Here was the official notice that the first day of that year had dawned, delivered in observance of Yom Kippur (Lev 25:10-17).  It was time.  It was time to restore each to his own property and family, whatever events may have transpired in the preceding years.  And the year of Jubilee was a year of rest, as well as restoration.  Here was a pause in the labors of God’s people, and also of their lands.  Here was the arrival of liberty, the day of the Lord’s favor.  And as Jesus had said in initiating His ministry, “Today this prophecy is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Well, here is full and final fulfillment.  Here is announced the eternal year of Jubilee, and God’s people restored to their true homelands, and to those abodes our Savior has prepared for us.  But there is first this most solemn occasion.  Now, Clarke suggests that the trumpet call comes after our rising to be with our Lord at His coming.  But that rather depends what the purpose of that call is.  If it is the call to judgment, then perhaps he is right.  But then, perhaps not.  Judgment is not in view here, so it’s impossible to say, from only the evidence of this passage, where that fits, and I will save the bulk of my consideration of that correlation for the sidebar that looms ahead.

What, though, if this is in fact the call to final Jubilee?  That seems to me to be perfectly in keeping with this Day.  And even Clarke observes this.  “It was by the sound of the trumpet that the solemn assemblies, under the law, were convoked; and to such convocations there appears to be here an allusion.”  Perhaps his intent is to set this between the resurrection of the dead from their graves, and the gathering together of all the elect, both those freshly resurrected and those already alive at the time, to join our Lord.  I suppose that could be his meaning.  But I don’t see reason to suppose any particular gap of time between those two things.  Suffice to say that association of the trumpet call to solemn occasion is well and fully established.  And what Paul declares here, as to the order of things, when it comes to the living and the dead follows, according to Barnes, doctrinal understandings familiar to at least some among the Jews of his day.  This, I should note, does nothing to undermine his claim of divine revelation.  Plato seems to have understood somewhat of Truth, and yet, when Jesus comes and proclaims Truth, it is most assuredly divine revelation, not just a regurgitating of Plato’s philosophy.  The same, I think, may be granted Paul on this point.  The ideas may have been familiar to him from other sources, but the validity of them comes by way of God.

All of this combines to set before us a scene of majestic splendor and majestic authority.  This is kingdom business.  And it is most clearly kingdom presence.  This is, after its fashion, the inauguration day of heaven’s kingdom and heaven’s King restored to His rightful rule on earth.  As such, as I have already observed, the battles involved in establishing His throne are not in view, only the outcome.  Victory!  Every enemy now a defeated foe, imprisoned and awaiting judgment.

And here, it is worthwhile to consider where the events Paul describes are taking place.  Thanks to the Wycliffe Translators Commentary for bringing this aspect out of the passage.  Our Lord appears in the air.  What have we seen in regard to the air in the course of Scripture?  This is the realm of those powers and principalities which have so plagued His people and usurped His place.  This is, then, a full victory, and our Lord now sits enthroned in the very place of their vanquished power, the dwelling place – I suppose we must now say, the former dwelling place – of those evil spirits which have opposed Him lo, these many years.  This is, then, absolute victory.  This is our Lord come in the full glory and power and majesty of His eternal rule.

With that, let me take us to a quote from Chrysostom, which the JFB put before my eyes.  “When a king enters his city the loyal go forth to meet him, the criminals in confinement await their judge.”  Here, then, is the scene laid out for us, the reason for comfort in these words.  Our King has come, and we, His loyal subjects are finally out from under the thumb of this occupying force that has so long oppressed and enslaved us.  No more are we the oppressed minority, the struggling remnant of hope.  No!  Now our King has come.  Now our enemy has been vanquished, our tormenters put in chains, and awaiting judgment.  Now, we are entered into our fulness.  Our Lord is come, and all is being set right.  Glory be to His name!  Even so, Lord, come quickly!

Comfort of Oneness with Christ (01/30/23)

I approach the conclusion of the main body of my notes on this passage, and in doing so, I approach the conclusion of Paul’s discussion here.  “Therefore comfort one another with these words.”  This is more than some sort of funereal instruction.  This is not simply introducing a formulaic homily to be delivered by the pastor on the occasion of some member of the flock passing.  This is daily comfort.  This is fundamental to living out our days in the joy of the Lord.

If you have ever watched somebody get caught up in sensing that the end is upon us, that all is spiraling down toward that moment of final dissolution, you know just how terribly such a focus can disturb the ones thus focused.  Oh, we cannot even look at the beauty of a sunrise and take joy in it any longer, for we know what is coming.  Well, look.  Christians through all ages have known what is coming.  Peter certainly knew it, and laid it out in terms more terrifying, I suspect, than anything you’re seeing foretold this week.  The skies rolled back, heat so intense that the base elements of solid, physical reality melt, and the whole of the earth is laid bare.  Yes, those are things by which he describes this great and terrible day, and he declares them with the certainty of Apostolic knowledge.  So it shall be.  And given such a description, it must surely be plain to all that nobody’s surviving that event.  No stores of food will matter.  No stockpiles of ammunition will help.  Nothing’s left.

And yet, Peter, and the other apostles, and Christians down through every age have gone forward into their daily lives not with the despondency of pointlessness, not with dread of coming events, but with joyful confidence.  Even those who faced certain martyrdom in those periods when Rome was seeking to eradicate this new religion from her territories did so with joy at being found worthy to share in our Lord’s sufferings.  And some, even among those not yet facing it with certainty went so far as to seek out opportunity to do so.  Crazy by our standards, and not unlikely, by the standards of their compatriots.  But there it is.  What happened, that those with such dire certainties ahead went to them not with dread but with joy?

Well, for starters, there’s this.  These were people who knew.  They knew what God had said of Himself and of them.  And they believed it.  They trusted it.  They knew what He had said of these last days, for it was taught without compunction.  But they also knew with equal certainty that this was not the end, only the glorious culmination of one phase as it gave way to the next.  And the next is glorious indeed, being an eternity freed from bondage to sin, free from the stains of past failure, free from the temptations to future failure.  This is to be victory indeed, and it comes not by way of our carefully perfect adherence to every jot and tittle of God’s Law, but by way of the One Who, alone among all men who ever were or will be, did exactly that.  And then, He died on our behalf.  But death could not hold Him, for He did not properly belong among the dead.  Death comes as punishment for sin, and He had died as He had lived – sinless.  And so, paying the price for all whom God had chosen to receive this payment, He put paid the price of our sins and won for us full and permanent restoration into the good graces of our God.

And get this!  From before the first day of Creation, God already knew who was in that number.  He already knew the final count.  He already know the moment of your birth and of mine, and He already knew, with absolute accuracy the exact duration of our individual lives.  Not even a sparrow passes out of the sky, said Jesus, without our Father knowing it (Mt 10:29-31).  It’s more than His merely being aware of it.  “Not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.”  He is in control.  He is always in control.  He decides.

David got this (and thanks to Pastor Mathews for having brought this out in yesterday’s sermon, which was on the very topic of this passage).  “You know when I sit down and rise up.  You are intimately acquainted with all my ways.  You know what I will say before I say it.  You are all around me, have laid Your hand upon me.  Where could I go to be away from You?  There is no such place.  You knew me before I was even fully formed in my mother’s womb!  And this!  In Your book were written all the days ordained for me before ever one of them had come to pass” (Ps 139:2-16).  This is not just David’s story.  It’s our story, every last one of us.  God knows.  He knows who’s in, and He knows who’s out.  He knows exactly how long each individual life is to be because He ordained that it be so, and He doesn’t get things wrong.  You can’t change it.  The machinations of men who think themselves powerful and ever so wise can’t change it.  The devil and his minions, for all that they hate you with the heat of a thousand suns can’t change it.  The most potent forces of the universe, though unleashed directly upon this planet we call home, can’t change it.  God knows you.  He knows your life in utmost detail, and He’s got this.

The end will come.  That is a certainty.  But the end comes with an equally certain guarantee for those who are the unique, peculiar people of our God:  They shall be caught up to be with Him, and to be with Him forever.  Dead or alive at the time, this is not the end.  Whether it comes before the events spoken of as the great Tribulation or after, or in the very midst of it, this is not the end for us.  It is, if anything, the beginning.  Here is that moment when we shall finally see our Savior as He truly is.  Here is that moment when we shall begin to know as we have been known.  And consider what was just said in that regard.  God has known us far more thoroughly than we have even known ourselves, and here in this moment of being caught up to be with Him, it would seem we shall all know one another with equal, or at least very similar, scope of knowledge.

My wife was asking last night what question I would have for Jesus when this day comes, and I can only conclude that there will be no question to ask.  I would say the reason is twofold, at least.  First, as I have just said, we will have entered into full and complete knowledge.  What question is left to ask?  Second, we shall be, I dare say, so utterly filled with the joy and wonder of standing in His presence as to be too struck with rejoicing to be bothered with such things as questions, even if there should occur to us some gap of understanding yet to have explained.

Comfort one another with these words.  Here is the Rapture!  Here is the assurance that dead or alive at the time, He shall gather us to Himself even as He promised.  And He is not late.  He is never late.  He may tarry from our perspective, but it is only His patiently awaiting the full number of the elect to have received His call and His love.  And then!  And then, here we come!  His elect, His bride.  This is assured.  This is certain.  And having come to Him, we shall always be with Him.  There will be no cause evermore to depart His side.  Beloved, can there be any greater comfort for us than this incredible news?

Oh, I know.  There are those who have our concern at present, those we care about who do not appear to have responded to His call, if in fact they have heard it at all.  And we may feel a tinge of guilt, or even a deep sense of guilt at this, that we have not done enough.  We failed at our task, and now they are lost because of our insufficient attentiveness.  But God is hardly going to be blocked from His purposes by us, is He?   If the Devil and all the devil’s powerful minions cannot so much as delay His works by a moment, but can only discover to their dismay that they have played their part in bringing His plans to fulfillment in spite of themselves, are such weak beings as us really likely to throw Him off His game?  I think not.

Here is the message as regards those whom God has chosen.  “They must live with Christ as long as Christ Himself will exist.”  That’s Calvin’s choice of description.  Let me add another, this from Barnes.  They ‘shall share the same destiny as He does’.  This is your heritage.  This is what’s stored up in heaven with your name on it, in that place where thief cannot rob, rust cannot erode, and moth cannot destroy.  This is the moment into which we are seeing entrance here.  We shall be changed.  You know the passage by now.  We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.  It’s the same scene painted yet again.  The trumpet will sound, and in a flash, in the blink of an eye, the dead will be raised imperishable and we shall be changed (1Co 15:51-52).  All of us.  This mortal must put on immortality.  And that, to the great sorrow of those who have rejected our Lord, includes them.  Though, their eternity doesn’t bear consideration.  Such sorrows await, such an infinitude of punishment unending, forevermore in a place of unquenchable fire with no least hope of surcease.

But for the elect?  We shall meet our Savior in the air, in the very midst of the camp of our former, now vanquished enemy.  We shall receive from Him our crown of glory, as Mr. Henry observes.  Is that to be reward for our works?  In part, I suppose it may very well be, and as such there will be degrees of crowning glory as there have been degrees of obedient service to our Master.  But I have to think that this reception into our glorified, immortal bodies and our welcome into His company are already a crowning glory unequalled.

From here, we run into questions, admittedly, because the ordering of events on this great Last Day remain a bit hazy.  At least they do so for me, and thus, the intentions of pursuing that subject more thoroughly in coming days.  It does seem sufficiently clear that we shall in some fashion join Christ in assessing judgment upon those who now stand fully and finally condemned.  Whether we will do so as passing sentence on our own parts, or merely as approving observers of our great Judge at His work is uncertain to me.  I tend to think the latter, but then we have that curious question of Paul’s.  “Do you not know that we shall judge angels?” (1Co 6:3).  That comes amidst a call to take care of such petty legal matters as may be necessary in this life without dragging our brothers into courts of civil law.  So there is something of judicial exercise in view, not simply approving of another’s exercise of that office.  But here, I don’t know.  Mr. Henry falls on the side of observer, as we stand, “approving and applauding the sentence he will pass upon the prince of the power of the air, and all the wicked, who shall be doomed to destruction with the devil and his angels.”  This, as John writes, is the second death (Rev 20:14).  Sadly for them, there is no second resurrection.

One other question looms large for us when we contemplate this grand reunion in the sky.  Will we recognize one another?   So many questions arise as to the nature of this new body.  Does it look like the old?  I mean, we see Jesus with His disciples, and they can yet see the wounds of the cross upon Him though He is clearly in His glorified body, given that He enters a room without bothering with doors.  Yet, at the same time, we find Him walking with two close disciples for hours, even taking meal with them, and they didn’t have a clue that He was Jesus until such time as He chose to be known to them.  So, I don’t think we can necessarily count on this new body being recognizable as the old one.  I don’t think we can assert with any great assurance that it shall be composed of the same original materials.  After all, those materials are likewise temporal and subject to wear, so what would be the point?  And as we have discussed, there’s that little issue of recycling to consider if we take that view.  I’m not sure we can even count on those bodies having but one consistent form.  I just don’t know.

But I know this, because it is told us:  We shall know as we have been known.  We shall know those we are with, whether or not we recognize them by their features.  We shall know them as we have never known them before, even as God has known us.  Ironside turns us to another portion of Paul’s letter to Corinth in support of such a view.  “Now we see dimly, then face to face.  Now I know partly, then in full, just as I also have been fully known” (1Co 13:12).  Go back to Psalm 139 again.  That degree of knowing is entire and entirely intimate.  Are we to be mind-readers, then?  I don’t know.  I rather hope not, for such an existence doesn’t seem all that palatable, at least not with the state of our current minds.  But perhaps, being perfected there shall remain nothing we would prefer we could keep to ourselves, nothing of which to be ashamed, so no reason to hide our thoughts away.  Perhaps.

However it shall be, it does appear we shall know one another.  We shall recognize one another by some means.  Otherwise, as the JFB observes, there would be something lacking in the consolation here.  Those who have passed on would be just as permanently removed from us.  I recall reading something of Jonathan Edwards’ writings recently wherein he was looking to this day.  He suggested, and I’m not sure with altogether happy notice, that pastors and congregations would be reunited for mutual assessment in that day, the pastor standing for review of how he performed is duties, and his congregants for how they responded to what he taught.  I don’t know.  I have suspicions.  I suspect we may well encounter those whose lives we have touched, and those who have touched our own.  I don’t know whether we shall indeed stand before Christ as our Judge.  I tend to think so, but then, I tend to think it will not be the terrible experience we could reasonably expect, for He shall also stand as our Advocate.  And before that court, I suspect we shall be mute, if in fact we must stand at all, as our Advocate gives answer for every charge.  But I am mindful of those places in Scripture that speak of the debt wiped away, nailed to the cross with Him.  The picture painted is of a record expunged.  And if that is the case, then what cause to be in court?  The case was already settled.

But we have this as consolation, as assurance that life goes on, and even the dead shall not be left behind or miss out on even the least moments of that time together.  That, of course, supposes time still has meaning in eternity.  Yet another mystery to which we cannot really hope to provide answer while yet we remain in the realm of the temporal.  But we shall be reunited, and we shall have forever to share.  Shall we share memories of our times together here?  I don’t know.  Could those be shared without recollections of sins and sorrows that beset us along the way?  Or, will we simply rejoice to have the fellowship of those once dear to us as we join our hearts in gladsome song to the One we have long adored?  Somehow, I suspect we will be far too occupied with joyful worship to be much concerned with anything else.  But as I seem to be saying more and more as I come to the close of this rather lengthy study, I don’t know.  I can only venture guesses.  Or, to quote the song from some years back, I can only imagine.  But imagination, with our limited insights, can prove less than beneficial.

So, let me draw this main body of my study to a close with thanks to our God.

Father, these promises are so incredible, and there is in them so much that we wish we understood more completely, so much that awaits to be revealed that our curiosity simply doesn’t want to leave alone until such time as You choose to reveal it.  Forgive us our anxiousness, our persistent knocking after matters You have reserved to Yourself.  But I do indeed thank You for that which You have made clear and certain.  We shall be with You!  We shall indeed know an eternity in which to love and enjoy You.  Forever.  Without the failures of this present weakness, without the sorrows and regrets.  And we shall indeed be one, even as You are One.  We shall know Your victory.  We shall dine at Your table, rejoicing in Your glory, and singing Your praises forevermore.  Oh!  What glorious hope.  Oh!  What assurance.  Oh!  What cause for joy even here, even now.  May we lay hold of that joy even here, even now, and make known to a sorry old world just what is possible with our God for Whom nothing is impossible, for Whom the word loses all possible meaning.  Glory be unto Your name, and Your name alone, now and forevermore.  Amen.