TO CHEW ON: "'He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.'" Luke 20:38
Through the Sadducees' attempts to entrap Jesus with a trick question we have, reported from Jesus' own lips, a fascinating exposé of life after death. In answer to the hypothetical situation they invented, which included a question about whose wife someone would be in heaven, Jesus tells them:
- There will be no marriage in heaven.
- There will be no death.
- Those who attain that state will be "equal to the angels" and are "sons of God."
- They will have experienced the resurrection (Luke 20:34-36).
In a passage where he explains this state, Paul tells the Corinthians that because Christ was raised we too live in the hope of being resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). Our post-resurrection bodies will be as different from our natural bodies as a seed of grain is different from the plant that grows from it (1 Corinthians 15:37-38).
But to achieve these bodies we must experience the mortal, natural body state. This is true in history (Adam before Christ) as it is for each one of us (natural body before spiritual body) (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).
And if that event, that resurrection "trump of God" sounds before we die, not to worry, says Paul: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" - 1 Corinthians 15:51,52.
Though you and I probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about death and what comes after, it is sneaking up on us, coming closer every day. Thus it's a good thing to look it full in the face from time to time and to realize that because we have this hope, this expectation of life after death we have every reason to go on living now with purpose. As Paul sums it up in 1 Corinthians 15:58:
"Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."
And as Jesus concludes His speech on life after death to the Sadducees:
"'He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him'" (present tense forever!).
PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for this reminder that there is more to life than this life. Help me to live now with that in mind. Amen.
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New King James Version (NKJV) Used with permission. The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.
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