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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 and filled 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 for us we place our bets on our “immortal 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 we convince ourselves 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, more popularly since all the talk about Near Death Experiences, 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 according to Medieval Catholicism, the poet Dante, Puritans, and scores of American Revivalists.
Then there’s what we tell our children when somebody has died. 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 day with us on the simple fact that we don’t have our endgame sorted out, and that we prefer to believe what ancient Pagans believed rather than the Bible, and, and most troubling, we aren’t honest with our children about it. Moreover, for more than three-quarters of the time span that the 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 unethical and 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 seems to be 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, Wright is 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. 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 imminent. 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 any more 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 now 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 bear 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; or with saying that this Creation is an awesome gift from God, so for now be kind to it and care for it or, as we are learning, this planet can indiscriminately let us know it’s not happy with how we are treating 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 of God to us that we would do well to care for otherwise we suffer needlessly. Lastly, 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 is what makes life now all the better. Amen.
