The New Testament is pretty clear with respect to
what happens to us after we die. It is
that our ultimate end is bodily Resurrection into a Creation made new with the
glory of God. Yet, we don’t hear much
talk of that. I expect that if we were
to start talking resurrection with people particularly those under the age of
forty most would start imagining a Zombie Apocalypse – ashen corpses with near
superhuman strength suddenly pushing their way out of graves to stumble about
the streets groaning and growling in pursuit of our brains.
For people in the church, we seem to regard Resurrection
as something that happened to Jesus but we rather talk about our souls going to
Heaven when we die. Southern gospel
singers sing about God having a room for me in that heavenly mansion in that
city of gold. Joke after joke tells us
we have to make it past St. Peter at the pearly gates and if so, we will spend
our days wearing white robes and halos, sitting on clouds, strumming
harps. Or, we walk off into that bright
light at the end of the tunnel and meet Jesus who reunites us with our loved
ones. And of course, going to Heaven is
conditional upon whether we have believed in Jesus as our Lord and Saviour and
lived good lives. If not, then there’s
Hell – eternal torment, flames, worms, demons, weeping and wailing, and that slimy,
pitchfork wielding, red dude who looks like a slicked up Wayne Newton who’s so looking
forward to torturing us for eternity.
Then there’s what we tell our children when people
die. Grandma’s gone to be one of the
stars now. Or, God needed another angel
in heaven so he took Aunt Sally to be his special helper. Grandpa’s gone but he’s watching over us or
Grandpa’s gone but he still lives on in the love in our hearts. Then we sit them down to watch Disney’s The Lion King where they learn about the
circle of life. …and we’ll stop there
with the analogies before the sarcasm starts dripping.
Little do we realize it but all of what I just said
about what we believe happens to us when we die with the exception of bodily
Resurrection are ancient Greek, Egyptian, Celtic, and even Nordic Pagan beliefs
which the Medieval Church dressed up with Biblical imagery. Those very vocal atheists that are writing
prolifically these days with a real hatred for Christians have a field with us
on the simple fact that we don’t have our endgame sorted out, that we prefer to
believe what ancient Pagans believed rather than the Bible, and, and most
troubling, we lie to our children about it. Moreover, for more than three-quarters of the
time span that Christian Religion has dominated Western Culture we have used
the threat of Hell to coerce conversions and to control the general
population. We have finally realized how
immoral that is, but nobody has taken up the challenge of trying to sort out
the Bible on the meaning of its Hell-like imagery. Hell is a proverbial skeleton in our closet
that we’d rather not deal with.
When we sort Paul out on what happens when we die we
find that he taught what New Testament scholar and former Anglican Bishop of
Durham N. T. Wright calls “life after life after death.” Of course, he’s having a little of fun with that
question that shows up in news headlines when the topic of Near Death
Experiences comes up – Is there life after death? Ever since the invention of CPR and with
medical science developing some pretty remarkable resuscitation methods people saying
they have experienced life after death have increased. Wright says that the Bible does teach that there
is life after death and more specifically that there is a life after life after
death. Let’s look at Paul on this.
Paul and the Christians to whom he wrote had a very
strong belief that Jesus would return to establish his Kingdom on earth. This belief was so strong that it seems they
talked very little about what happened to believers who died before Jesus
returned. Paul’s first letter to the
Thessalonians, his earliest letter, deals with that question. Paul says that those who have “fallen asleep”
in Christ will be resurrected first and those who are alive will be changed to
have a body like Jesus’ resurrection body.
So, early Christians referred to death as “falling asleep” with the
expectation that those who have fallen asleep will also be awakened,
resurrected.
The image of falling asleep begs the question of what
happens to us while we are sleeping. Do
we die and suddenly wake up resurrected with a new body or is there something
else to expect? In the first chapter of
Philippians Paul, writing from prison, gives the impression that he believes
his death, death by execution, was immanent.
Verses 19-26 show us that Paul believed that his death was nothing to be
feared, but was actually a good thing because he would get to go and be with
Christ Jesus. This reminds us of what
Jesus told the thief who died beside him on the cross, the thief who believed
Jesus was innocent and defended him.
Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in Paradise.”
So, it seems that in the early church they believed
that when we died, when we fell asleep, somehow in a disembodied state we went
to be “with Christ” until the Day came when God the Father said it was time to
bring everything to its fulfillment.
When that trumpet blows, everything will be made new, the dead will be
bodily raised, and there will be judgement even of the faithful. Everyone will have to give account for their
lives. Then, sin, death, and the
corrupted powers will be finally destroyed and as Isaiah said, “The earth will
be full of the knowing of God as the waters cover the see” (11:9).
So, there is life after life after death. When we die, we go to be with Christ in
Paradise until the Resurrection. To say
anymore than that is speculation and obviously I’ve said nothing about “nonbelievers”
or “the wicked”. That’s a topic for
another day.
Looking closer at what Paul has to say here in 1
Corinthians 15. He’s answering the
question of what our bodies will be like when we are raised. Paul’s answer is really quite poetic. He says God gives everything bodies that he
has purposed them to have. The body we
have now is like a seed that falls into the ground and by dying it gives life
to a plant that gives more life. The
sun, moon, and stars are all different kinds of bodies with different kinds of
glory, which means brightness or shininess.
The body we know have simply houses who we are. It is perishable, has no glory, and is weak. Our new body will be made alive by the Spirit
of God and will be imperishable and will have glory and power. It will be a body like Christ’s heavenly
body, made alive by the Spirit of God, and life-giving. In short, it’s a bit beyond imagination, but
it will be imperishable and immortal.
To close, it is time we get our endgame
straight. God created this Creation and
called it very good not just to let it be destroyed by sin and death just so we
can blip off and live on clouds in heaven.
God’s purpose for his Creation is that his Creation bears his
glory. This is why bodily Resurrection
into a Creation made new is our endgame.
Therefore, there is nothing wrong with telling people that God loves his
Creation and intends to save and renew it with his own glory. For now, this Creation is an awesome gift
from God, so be kind to it and care for it.
Exploiting it only cause everything, all creatures great and small, and
us to suffer needlessly. There is also nothing
wrong with telling people God loves us each and that we are unique and
wonderful persons whom God intends to save and renew with his own glory. The body we have now indeed dies, but it is a
gift from God to us that we would do well to care for otherwise we suffer
needlessly. There is nothing wrong with
telling our children that when we die we go to be with Jesus in a wonderful
place until that Day when God makes us alive again. So, let’s just look forward to that day and
love everybody on the way because that makes life now all the better. Amen.
