Resurrection and Transformation (03/11/23-03/12/23)

Well, after the marathon of the previous section, this one looks rather a relief.  I have but two passages I would consider here, the first coming from Jesus’ response to His persecutors, who complained of Him healing on the Sabbath.  That, of course, begins with a truly wonderful declaration, and one we perhaps need to hear with fresh ears.  “My Father is working until now, and I Myself am working” (Jn 5:17).  Now, of foremost importance is that notice John gives us of the implications here, implications His hearers fully apprehended.  This was a claim to being equal with God.  So, for those who wish to see Jesus slowly arriving at this conclusion, or who would insist that He never made any such claim, sorry.  John, who was there, whereas you were not, says otherwise.  They knew what this meant.  So should we.

There is, however, another aspect of this that may or may not have bearing.  There remains a great deal of debate as to the applicability of the Sabbath for we who constitute the New Testament Church.  In general, we would certainly hold that the Ten Commandments still apply, seeing it was only the ceremonial aspects of the Law that were set aside in this New Covenant.  But somehow it seems this matter of observing the Sabbath is a bit of an exception.  Maybe it’s just the flesh.  Maybe.  Certainly, there remains much within us that would prefer to have the day to our own devices, and with the pressures of the work week, we feel it all the more.  There is so little time to pursue my own ends, must I give up even half of that?  Well, I could point out, I suppose, that the original mandate was a six-day work week with one day of rest, so if in fact the answer is yes, it is but a return to original expectations.

But then I have this other thought.  It’s not that the Sabbath is now dismissed, and we can do entirely as we please.  In plain point of fact, I might suggest that the pursuit of the Sabbath as a time for leisurely pursuits and family time was never the point.  Look at Jesus’ response again.  Of course, I am working!  My Father is working.  The nature of that labor may differ for us, and really, it should.  The goal is not so much a time to stop and recharge, although there is something of that in it.  It’s more about how we recharge.  We recharge by spending time with our Lord.  And if we are spending time with Him, is it not all but inevitable that we are about the same work He is doing?  Okay, so that’s a bit of a diversion from my goal here, and thoroughly speculative in nature, but I’ll just leave it here.

What I really want to focus on is farther down in the text.  There has been much more said about the association, the oneness, of Father and Son, which culminates in this.  “For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself, and authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man” (Jn 5:26-27).  Life and judgment.  Here is the one with the power of life and death, and not just that which constitutes restoring bodily health or putting that body to death.  This goes farther, deeper.  Here is the One with power to destroy both body and soul in hell.  Here is the One who has it in His power to give Life, real life of the soul, restoring the possessor to that shalom state of man before the Fall, and thus lasting into all eternity.  Such an announcement, not surprisingly, met with shock amongst those He was correcting.  Already they were operating from a base of offense, and had almost certainly moved right on into suspicions of blasphemy.  Before, they were merely persecuting Him for working on the Sabbath, as they defined work.  Now?  Now they had grounds.  Just listen to what He is saying about Himself!

And so, He counters the offense, at least for those with ears to hear.  “Don’t marvel at this!  An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs shall hear His voice and come forth:  Those who did good to a resurrection of life, those who did evil to a resurrection of judgment” (Jn 5:28-29).  And that is really the bit which has brought me here.  Here is news of resurrection.  Here is clear declaration that the grave is not the end.  Far from it!  We have, I believe, discussed this somewhat already, but this is rest, particularly for the believer.  Remember that which the angel proclaimed in Revelation 14?  “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on!  They may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow with them” (Rev 14:13).  The Lamb says, “I give them Life.”  Indeed, the Lamb says, “I already did.”  Don’t marvel at this!  They who died in faith, devoted to our Lord, whether they died prior to His incarnation, or long ages afterwards, die with this as their promise:  They shall hear His voice and come forth once more, to a resurrection of life.

It is, of course, simultaneously a threat, if you will, to those who would reject Him.  You, too, shall find no escaping of judgment in the grave.  That is not the end, not even for you.  I don’t know as we could constitute it a rest in their case.  It seems unlikely, doesn’t it?  More, it’s a lengthy period of trepidation, knowing what must come.  I mean, can you imagine?  All your life you’ve gone along as if this earthly existence was the sum of it all, and the end of your days here would be the end of you.  Who knows how you have reached your end.  Perhaps it was some sudden calamity.  Perhaps you enjoyed your merry way into old age, surrounded by riches and pleasures.  It really doesn’t matter, does it?  Now the grave has come for you, and perhaps you think you have made peace with the concept.  Okay.  My time is done.  It’s been fun and all, but I’m outta here.  So you thought.  But with body now deceased, can you imagine the surprise when you learn that consciousness is not?  Somewhere down in that consciousness, you knew it all along, but you fought hard against that knowledge, suppressing it with every ounce of effort that you could muster.  You had convinced yourself it was all stuff and nonsense, and now you discover that no, it was you that was all stuff and nonsense.  And what remains?  Keen awareness that for you, too, this resurrection must come in its due time, and you must face the Judge, the very One you so forcibly rejected.  And you know that He is the One who shall have say over your final outcome.  Indeed, He has already said.  There is no hope of a reprieve.  There shall be no letter from the governor, no late-arriving evidence to change the court’s decision.  You shall hear His voice and come forth to a resurrection of judgment.  And you know it.  Not much rest in that, is there?

But let us leave the poor unbeliever to his chosen future, and we, in our turn, may spend some more time looking at our side of this equation, the resurrection unto life.  I suppose I’d best clarify my advice here.  I’m not talking about how we pursue what remains of earthly life.  I’m not by any means suggesting we just leave the perishing to perish.  For somewhere among them are those whom our Savior is calling, and we who have already heard His call have rather a demand upon us, don’t we, to be instruments in His hands by which He may call those who have yet to hear.  No, my meaning is only that I shall be turning now to the latter half  of 1Corinthians 15, with its exploration of both the necessity, and to some degree, the nature of this transformation that happens with our resurrection to Life.

Here, we find Paul addressing the skeptics among his readers.  You ask, “How are they raised?  What kind of body do they come with?”  And his response is sharp.  “You fool!  Nothing you sow comes to life without first dying, nor is that which grows the same body as was sown.  You plant a bare grain of whatever it may be you wish to grow, not the grown plant” (1Co 15:35-37).  And follows a fairly lengthy developing of the idea that builds from the initial point that God gives each seed a body of its own to grow as He wishes.  So, he observes, different animals have different bodies, and likewise birds and fishes, and even those objects we see in the sky.  The sun is not the same as the moon, and stars differ from one another.  All of this is readily observable and obvious (1Co 15:38-41), and it brings him to the point he wishes to make plain to these folks.  All of this has its parallel in resurrection.  You sow a perishable body, subject to death and decay.  But God raises it to be an imperishable body.  What died and went to the grave was dishonorable and weak.  What arises has glory and power.  In short, “if there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body” (1Co 15:42-44).

So, here’s our message.  The resurrection is a fundamental transformation.  Being as we’ve been watching a fair number of nature shows of late, the example of the metamorphosis of a butterfly comes to mind.  I mean, most animals look somewhat different at birth than they will as adults, some remarkably so.  Tadpoles, for instance, have little resemblance to the frogs they shall become.  This is something far beyond the developing egg and the hatchling.  But then we come to the caterpillar, with its many legs, varied bodily defenses, and mandibles fit for swift consumption of leaves.  One day it has grown enough, finds a convenient spot, and by one means or another creates a case for itself in which it all but dissolves into its component elements, a formless goo only held together by that chrysalis it formed.  But give it a few days, and out pops something bearing no resemblance to what went in.  Here is a thing of beauty, with but few legs, and possessed now of wondrous wings.  The mandibles have gone and now there is this long, flexible proboscis for sipping nectar.  No more chewing for this one.  The change is radical, and more or less complete in its thoroughness, though I am told that some miniscule core of the original remains intact throughout.

Can you not see the parallel?  What is sown is not what rises out of the ground.  What was us in our pupal form, if you can bear it, is not what we shall be in maturity.  I know many ask the question of whether we shall be recognizable in this new body.  Will we know each other in heaven?  Well, personally, I think these are likely two very different questions.  The body in which  find Jesus as He meets His own between resurrection and ascension is sometimes recognizably Him.  But at other times, it clearly is not.  Mary did not recognize Him immediately, and you have to think that somebody walking up to you with the holes still in His hands might just lead to being recognized.  But it wasn’t until He wished to be recognized that He was.  Likewise, the two who walked with Him to Emmaus.  They had hours to notice some similarity, some facial characteristic that might have at least had them observing that this stranger looked much like their Teacher.  And again, the holes in His hands ought to have been a bit of a giveaway, right?  Yet, they didn’t know Him until He chose to be known.  At the same time, while there are clearly physical differences, given He entered the room through closed doors, still, when He met the eleven in the room where they hid from the authorities, He was very much recognizable.  Here!  You can touch the wounds, see that it is Me.  And in spite of the necessarily ethereal nature of this body such that it could pass through that closed door, still He ate with them, and the food did not simply drop through Him to the floor.

So, is the body the same?  Clearly not.  This is now a spiritual body, and has properties unique to the spiritual life.  If we assume some similarity, at least, to those bodies possessed by the angels, it might occur to us that the taking on of form to suit the occasion is part of that body’s feature set.  If there is purpose to appearing as we were, say, for reason of recognizing one another in this new realm, then sure, it can have that look.  But if that form is not needed, and another is?  Then that other form can just as readily be assumed.  That, at least, is how it would seem to me.  Will it be needful to do so for purposes of recognition?  Of that, I am not convinced.  I would suppose that those heavenly beings such as angels are perfectly able to identify one another regardless of form.  Form, you might say, no longer matters so very much, given they are spiritual beings.  And so, I should think, it will be for us.

But let’s go back to Paul.  Those of the earth are earthy.  Those of heaven are heavenly.  We have borne that earthy image, and we shall bear the heavenly.  And then we have a conclusion to this long answer.  “I tell you this, brothers:  Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.  The perishable cannot inherit the imperishable” (1Co 15:48-50).  And this, of course, must raise other questions with us.  But, what about Elijah?   What about Enoch?  Or Melchizedek?  You’ll hear that asked even today by those who wish to insist that this transformation is not something for the Last Day, but something even for today, even for our earthly tenure.

I cannot fathom on what basis they suppose any such thing, other than wishful desire, but they do.  Others, they reason, knew this transformation in life, and God is no respecter of persons, ergo I should be able to know such transformation in life.  But it’s a false supposition.  Flesh and blood cannot proceed into the kingdom.  It’s not equipped for that realm, couldn’t survive it even if it could somehow find entrance.  How shall this flesh take to the spiritual air?  How would a caterpillar fly?  And if it did, what would it ever find to eat?  How would it be sustained?  For all that, can you even launch yourself into space and expect to survive it?  Certainly, we have devised means by which we can carry sufficient of the earthly with us into the heavens to survive so long as those supplies last.  But let the air run out, or food supplies run short.  Let the craft or the suit develop a leak, allowing the vacuum of space to find entrance, and sorry, Charlie.  The perishable cannot inherit the imperishable.  The oxygen breather cannot simply take to inhaling water, nor the fish up and decide, ‘Today I shall breathe air and walk.’  First, it’s hardly up to the creature to decide its nature.  Second, will and main force will never suffice to bend the laws of physics, I don’t care how much we see folks around us deluding themselves into thinking otherwise.  We used to know that that hippie on his bad acid trip, believing he could fly, would soon discover that delusional beliefs are insufficient to overrule nature.  Somehow, we’ve forgotten that simple and obvious truth, and decided that believing oneself to be a different sex, or some previously unknown sexual mixture, or a different race, or even a different order of the animal kingdom is enough to make it so, and we should all be supportive of the delusion.  But the end will be no different than for that poor hippie.  Reality has a bad habit of winning, no matter how hard we believe.  Peter Pan always loses in the end.

Paul has his own answer to such questions, though he does not directly raise those biblical examples of men seemingly walking straight into heaven.  “I tell you a mystery!”  No, he’s not trying out for Suspense Theater.  He’s opening up a matter previously not understood.  This isn’t a clever hiding away, but a revealing.  “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (1Co 15:51).  You know, this alone ought to suffice to put paid to such questions.  We may not die and go to the grave, that being what sleep is referencing.  It makes no difference.  Resurrection is still required.  This physical, however advanced in piety, will never be sufficient to the spiritual realms of heaven.  And it shall happen so quickly as to be all but imperceptible to the eye.  “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, the dead shall be raised and we shall be changed.  For this perishable must put on the imperishable, this mortal must put on immortality” (1Co 15:52-53).  There is a necessity to the matter.  It cannot be otherwise.  And it is also given a very specific point of application.  The when of this is pinpointed with utmost accuracy:  At the last trumpet, at that summoning to meet our Lord in the heavenlies, gathered round His throne for that final assigning of sentence or reward:  Sheep and goats separated one from the other forevermore.

Here is that victory over death, which we saw was the last enemy of our Lord of Life to be defeated (1Co 15:54-58).  Now, understand that this victory has already been achieved.  In dying on the cross and not staying dead, the truth of His last breath was declared to all.  “It is finished!”  Everything needful has been done.  Victory is obtained.  Obviously, in spite of that victory, we continue on here on earth, still facing the enemy, still doing battle, and oft times feeling the wounds of battle.  But “Death is swallowed up in victory.”  It was achieved at the cross.  It will be fulfilled entire on the Last Day.  All shall be resurrected:  Those who did good to eternal life, those who did evil to eternal perishing.  We have seen this already declared.  Paul doesn’t need to spell it out again here, where he is focusing on the redeemed.  For us, his conclusion is cause for great joy.  “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”  And seeing this, we have cause to heed his concluding advice.  “So, beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord, fully assured that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

Here is what the Thessalonians needed to hear.  Here is what we need to hear.  The assurance we have of this final outcome is not cause for slacking off in the present.  Neither is it some mark of the elite believer that they achieve this transformation in the present.  They don’t.  Any supposition that they do is as delusional as that hippie trying to fly.  It is pride of a most grotesque form.  It is a refusing to hear the clear message of the Scriptures one claims to believe.  “At the last trumpet” is not some moveable marker that we can have pointing where we may.  It is a clear marker of the timing, and nothing you or I or even the devil may think to do can alter that timing in the least.  It is for the Father to know, as He has long since determined that moment with utmost precision.  From before the beginning it was established, decreed and immutable in His immutable will.  In the meantime, we remain, according to His will, equally immutable.  We remain because we have work to do:  His work done His way.  Let us get to it.