

# The Return of Christ  
and the Resurrection of All Humanity

Copyright 2016 Grace Communion International

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Scripture quotations, unless noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The "NIV" and "New International Version" are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™

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Table of Contents

We Are Living in 'the Last Days'

The Coming of the Lord

No One Knows When Christ Will Return

Here He Comes, Ready or Not

The Resurrection of the Body and Why It Matters

Immortality: The 'Mother of All Changes'

With What Body Are the Dead Raised?

The Resurrection: Our Hope for the Future

The Last Judgment

God's Wrath

About the Authors...

About the Publisher...

Grace Communion Seminary

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## We Are Living in 'The Last Days'

Do we see "the signs of the times"?

"Mark this," Paul wrote. "There will be terrible times in the last days" (2 Timothy 3:1). What do we see now? America at war. Shootings in our schools. Disasters in the weather. Is it all coming to a climax? Will World War III soon be upon us?

We are living in the last days! — and we have been for almost 2,000 years. The last days, said Peter, were already here in the first century (Acts 2:16-17). "In these last days," we are told in Hebrews 1:2, "God has spoken to us by his Son." "The last days" began with Jesus Christ! When Paul told Timothy about the last days, he was not so much predicting the future as describing his own day. He was telling Timothy what kind of world he lived in.

### Wars and rumors of wars

Wars have always been with us. Natural disasters have plagued humanity for millennia. Societies have been breaking down, and violence has been erupting, for centuries.

"You will hear of wars and rumors of wars," Jesus said, "but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come" (Matthew 24:6). There will be famines and disasters, but those are only the beginning of problems. There will be persecutions, and there will be predictions. People will say, It is just around the corner, but do not believe it. Do not be alarmed. Just persevere. Just do the job set before you.

Someday, the end will indeed come. But the world has had many disasters since the last days began nearly 2000 years ago, and I am sure that there will be many more. God can end the world whenever he wants to, and I will be happy for the great day to come, but I do not see any biblical proof that it will be very soon.

Frankly, we need faith and hope whether or not there is a war, whether or not the end is near. We need faith and zeal no matter how evil the days are, no matter how many disasters strike near us. Our responsibility before God does not change with the times: Our job is to preach the gospel, to preach repentance and forgiveness, to teach those who believe, and to worship God.

When we survey the world scene, we may see disasters in Africa, Asia, Europe, and America. Or, if we look again, we may see fields white and ready for harvest. There is work to be done, as long as it is day. We must do the best we can with what we have. Where are we now in prophecy? We are now in the time in which the church should preach the gospel.

### What should we do?

Jesus calls us to perseverance, to running with patience the race set before us. Paul likewise speaks of the end, when the children of God will be revealed, when all creation will be liberated from bondage (Romans 8:19-21). How then do we live? "We groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for...the redemption of our bodies" (verse 23). We are eager for the troubles of this world to be over, but we are also patient (verse 25).

Peter gives the same outlook. He also waited for the day of the Lord (2 Peter 3:10). What advice does he give us? "You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God" (verses 11-12). That is our responsibility day in and day out. We are called to live holy lives, not to make predictions the Bible does not authorize us to make. We are to be faithful in our daily lives.

Nevertheless, in the last days there will be people with a veneer of godliness but denying the power of Jesus Christ. There will be people who deceive and are deceived, people who proclaim the end is near. Do not be alarmed; do not be deceived. Simply do what God has been telling his church to do for nearly 2,000 years: worship, teach and preach.

God will take care of the timetable — our job is to be found faithfully working, whenever the end happens to come. Correct predictions don't count for anything on the day of judgment — only faithfulness will be rewarded.

### National and physical blessings

Nevertheless, some people seem anxious for the end to come. They would do well to heed the words of Isaiah:

#### Woe to those...who say, "Let God hurry, let him hasten his work so we may see it. Let it approach, let the plan of the Holy One of Israel come, so we may know it."... Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight. (Isaiah 5:18-21)

The prophecy speculators often mix nationalism in with their prophecies. They are interested in the welfare of America specifically, as if Americans are in greater need of repentance than the Chinese are. They want national repentance so that God will "heal this land" and they can live in peace and safety. Many of them assume that if America obeys God, then we will reap the blessings God promised to ancient Israel.

Repentance is a good thing. It is good to have peace and safety, and I would enjoy such blessings just as much as anybody else. But I wonder how appropriate it is that we would want other people to repent so that _we_ can enjoy physical blessings. Does not repentance begin at home, beginning with our self-centeredness? Shouldn't spiritual blessings for others be a greater incentive for us to want them to turn to God? Didn't Jesus tell us to be concerned about all nations, not just our own?

In this fallen world, God allows natural disasters, sins and evils. He also causes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the bad as well as the good. As Job and Jesus show, he also allows evil to fall upon the righteous. This is the way God allows the world to function.

For the ancient nation of Israel, under a special covenant, God promised that if the nation was obedient, he would prevent the natural disasters that normally fall upon both the wicked and the righteous. He did not give that guarantee to other nations, nor did he say that other nations could elect themselves to a position of most-favored nation in his sight. Modern nations cannot claim as promises the blessings God offered specifically to Israel in a special covenant that is now obsolete.

The Bible makes no guarantees that even if all of America repents, that we will no longer have any troubles. The new covenant, the better covenant, offers spiritual life rather than guaranteeing physical blessings. By faith, we are to focus on the spiritual, not the physical.

Physical things are not wrong, and God does sometimes intervene in physical affairs to help us. But the new covenant does not make guarantees as to when and where he will do it. The new covenant calls us to faith despite the circumstances, to faithfulness despite persecution, to patience despite an eager longing for the better world that Jesus will bring.

Here is one more thought that may put prophecy into better perspective: Prophecy's greatest purpose is not to get us to focus on dates — it is so that we will "know the Lord." Prophecy is to point us to Jesus, the best of all possible blessings. Once we have arrived at our destination, we no longer need to focus on the path that brought us to him.

Joseph Tkach

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## The Coming of the Lord

What do you think would be the biggest event that could occur on the world scene? Another world war? The discovery of a cure for some dread disease? World peace, once and for all? Contact with some extraterrestrial intelligence?

For millions of Christians, the answer to this question is simple: The biggest event that could ever occur is the second coming of Jesus Christ.

### The Bible's central message

The story of the Bible centers on the coming of Jesus Christ as Savior and King. As described in Genesis 3, the first human sinned and fractured their relationship with God. But God foretold the coming of a Redeemer who would repair that spiritual break. To the serpent who tempted Adam and Eve to sin, God said, "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel" (Genesis 3:15).

This is the Bible's earliest prophecy of a Savior who would smash the power that sin and death hold over humans ("he will crush your head"). How? By the sacrificial death of the Savior ("you will strike his heel"). Jesus accomplished this at his first coming. John the Baptist recognized him as "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29).

The Bible reveals the central importance of God becoming flesh at the first coming of Jesus Christ. The Bible also reveals that Jesus is coming now, in the lives of believers. The Bible also states that he will come again, visibly and in power. Jesus Christ actually comes in three ways:

### Jesus has already come

We humans need God's redemption — his rescue — because we have all sinned, bringing death to everyone. Jesus redeemed us by dying in our place. "God was pleased," wrote Paul in Colossians 1:19-20, "to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus Christ], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross." Jesus healed the breach that first occurred in the Garden of Eden. Through his sacrifice, the human family is reconciled to God.

Old Testament prophecy pointed to the kingdom of God in the future. But the New Testament opens with Jesus "proclaiming the good news of God. 'The time has come.... The kingdom of God is near,'" he said (Mark 1:14-15). Jesus, the King of the kingdom, was walking among humans! Jesus offered "for all time one sacrifice for sins" (Hebrews 10:12). We should never underestimate the importance of Jesus' incarnation, life and work two millennia ago.

Jesus came. Also —

### Jesus is coming now

There is good news for those who believe in Christ: "As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world.... But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions" (Ephesians 2:1-2, 4-5).

God has raised us with Christ, spiritually, now! Through his grace, "God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus" (verses 6-7). This passage describes our present condition as followers of Jesus Christ.

God "has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade" (1 Peter 1:3-4). Jesus lives in us now (Galatians 2:20). We have been born again, spiritually, and can see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).

Asked when the kingdom of God would come, Jesus replied: "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20-21). Jesus Christ brought the kingdom in his person. Jesus lives within Christians. As he now lives in us, he extends the influence of the kingdom of God. Jesus' coming to live in us also anticipates the ultimate revelation of the kingdom on earth at Jesus' second coming.

Why does Jesus live in us now? "It is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God — not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do" (Ephesians 2:8-10). God has saved us by grace, through no effort of our own. Although works cannot earn us salvation, Jesus lives in us so that we may now do good works and thereby glorify God.

Jesus came. He is coming. And —

### Jesus will come again

After Jesus' resurrection, as his disciples watched him ascend to heaven, two angels asked: "Why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven" (Acts 1:11). Jesus will return.

At his first coming, Jesus left some messianic predictions unfulfilled. This was one reason many Jews rejected him. They thought the Messiah would be a national hero who would free them from Roman domination. But the Messiah was to come, first, to die for all humanity. Only later would he return as a conquering king, and then not just to exalt Israel, but to claim all earth's kingdoms as his own. "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever" (Revelation 11:15).

"I am going...to prepare a place for you," Jesus told his disciples. "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am" (John 14:23).

Later, the apostle Paul told the church how "the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God" (1 Thessalonians 4:16). At Christ's return, he will raise to immortality the righteous dead and change to immortality the faithful who are still alive, and they will all meet him in the air (verses 16-17; 1 Corinthians 15:51-54).

### But when?

Throughout the centuries, speculation about the second coming has caused uncounted arguments — and untold disappointment when various predictions failed. Overemphasizing the _when_ of Jesus' return can divert our minds from the central focus of the gospel — Jesus' saving work for all humans, accomplished in his life, death, resurrection and continuing work as our heavenly High Priest. We can become so engrossed in prophetic speculation that we fail to fulfill the rightful role of Christians as witnesses to the world, exemplifying the loving, merciful, Christ-like way of life and sharing the good news of salvation.

"When anyone's interest in the Scriptural announcements of the Last Things and the second advent degenerates into a subtle drawing up of precisely worked-out future events, then he has strayed a long way from the content and spirit of Jesus' prophetic utterances," says Norval Geldenhuys ( _Luke,_ The New International Commentary on the New Testament [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1952], page 544).

### Our focus

If knowing when Christ will return is not possible (and therefore, by comparison to what the Bible does tell us, unimportant), then where should we focus our energies as Christians? Our focus should be on being ready for Jesus' second coming whenever it occurs! "You also must be ready," Jesus said, "because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him" (Matthew 24:44). "He who stands firm to the end will be saved" (Matthew 10:22). The whole Bible revolves around Jesus Christ. As Christians, our lives should revolve around him, too.

Jesus came. He is coming through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit now. Jesus Christ will come again in glory to "transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Philippians 3:21). Then, "the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God" (Romans 8:21).

I am coming soon, says our Savior. As Christians, disciples of Jesus Christ, we all can reply in unison: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus" (Revelation 22:20).

Norman Shoaf

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## No One Knows When Christ Will Return

The Bible nowhere tells us, directly or indirectly, when Jesus Christ will return. When Jesus returns is not as important as whether we are ready when he does. Yet people for nearly 2,000 years have constructed elaborate prophetic outlines that can distract people away from the gospel and crush believers' faith.

### The early Christians' view

The earliest Christians apparently expected Jesus to return almost immediately. Just before his ascension to heaven, his disciples asked, "Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?" (Acts 1:6). They grossly underestimated how much time would pass before Jesus' return. As the disciples stood looking upward, two angels asked: "Men of Galilee...why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven" (verse 11).

Jesus' return was sure. The disciples didn't need to worry about when it would occur. God wanted them to stop gazing into the sky and get on with preaching the gospel.

The disciples' early epistles show the belief most of them had: that Jesus' return would be soon. For instance, Paul wrote of how "we who are still alive" would be caught up together with the resurrected saints at Jesus' coming (1 Thessalonians 4:15-17). Paul later softened this view and corrected Christians who, thinking time was short, had become idle busybodies (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2; 3:11).

The book of Revelation laid out a grand drama stretching till the end of time. This book included the thought that Jesus' return might be more remote than previously thought. The saints were to live and rule with Christ for 1,000 years (Revelation 20:4). Grasping the Bible's statement that a day is as 1,000 years (2 Peter 3:8), some saw an analogy between history and the seven days of creation. They concluded that the present age would run 6,000 years before a 1,000-year rest under Christ.

#### Prompted as well by Zoroastrian (Mandean) cosmology and the emphasis on the Psalmist's thousand-year days in 2 Peter 3:8, Christian theologians of the 2nd century a.d. transformed world history into a world week, and the seventh day thereof into the world sabbath, a jubilee of sweetness, peace, and earthly delight after six thousand-year days of human labor. (Hillel Schwartz, _Century's End_ [New York: Doubleday, 1990], page 10)

### Looking for a kingdom

For some time, Christians, including Justin Martyr (circa 100-165) and Irenaeus (circa 115-200), continued to look for Christ to set up a literal kingdom of God on earth. In the third century, Origen (185-254) asserted that the kingdom existed not in time or space but in believers' souls. "For a collective, millenarian eschatology Origen substituted an eschatology of the individual soul" (Norman Cohn, _The Pursuit of the Millennium_ [New York: Oxford University Press, 1970], page 29).

By the fifth century, Christianity was the Roman Empire's official religion, and the church could no longer be seen as a "little flock" at odds with the world. Now Augustine (354-430) wrote _The City of God,_ treating the book of Revelation as a spiritual allegory and saying the millennium was realized in the church. But believers went on embracing ideas like the "last days," the Antichrist and the warrior Christ who would physically return to conquer the world.

### Warrior Christ vs. Antichrist

Believers fearfully watched for the evil Antichrist, with whom the returning Christ would war.

#### People were always on the watch for the "signs" which, according to the prophetic tradition, were to herald and accompany the final "time of troubles"; and since the "signs" included bad rulers, civil discord, war, drought, famine, plague, comets, sudden deaths of prominent persons and an increase in general sinfulness, there was never any difficulty about finding them. Invasion or the threat of invasion by Huns, Magyars, Mongols, Saracens or Turks always stirred memories of those hordes of Antichrist.... Above all, any ruler who could be regarded as a tyrant was apt to take on the features of Antichrist. (Cohn, page 35)

Popes were often associated with the Antichrist. So were the Muslims, who controlled the Holy Land and upon whom Europe's Crusaders descended in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. So were the Jews.

As the year 1000 approached, various teachers predicted that the world was about to end and that Jesus Christ would appear. An army of pilgrims sold their belongings and trekked to Jerusalem to await Christ. Terror filled them at every storm, comet and other event of nature. They fell to their knees at every crack of thunder, expecting the earth to open and give up its dead. Every meteor over Jerusalem brought Christians into the streets to cry and pray.

### Dates that failed

More concerned with the _date_ of Jesus' return than with how Jesus commanded his followers to live, prognosticators went on misreading prophecy:

* During the great plague of Europe (1348-1352), prophets said the end was at hand and that Christ would appear within 10 years.

* The Roman Catholic Church has often figured in end-time scenarios. For example, John Wycliffe, a 14th-century reformer, said the Catholic mass was Daniel's abomination of desolation.

* Martin Luther (1483-1546) believed the church's final conflict with evil would pit it against the Turks and the pope.

* John Knox, in 1547, saw the pope in Daniel 7:24-25.

* In 1806, at Leeds, a hen laid eggs bearing the words, "Christ is coming." Many visited the spot and "got religion." Then someone discovered that the ink-inscribed eggs had been forced up into the chicken's body.

* John Wesley said the end would come in 1836. Others suggested 1830 and 1847.

* Based on the text of Daniel 8:14, a New England farmer named William Miller expected the world to end in 1843 or 1844. His followers pinpointed Oct. 22, 1844. Unwilling to accept the Great Disappointment that resulted when Oct. 22 passed without Christ's return, some explained that Christ began to cleanse the "heavenly sanctuary" on that date. They gave birth to the Adventist movement.

* Charles Taze Russell, whose Bible studies formed the foundation of the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, said Christ had returned to earth in 1874 and would begin his visible reign in 1914. Jehovah's Witness literature later spoke of "the Creator's promise of a peaceful and secure new world before the generation that saw the events of 1914 passes away."

* More recent failed speculations include those of Edgar C. Whisenant, who in 1988 listed _88 Reasons Why the Rapture Will Be in 1988_ (when Christ failed to return, he predicted the rapture for 1989); a book produced in Georgia that placed the rapture on Oct. 8, 1992; and a Korean prophet's assertion that the rapture was set for midnight, Oct. 20 or 28, 1992. (In South Korea, 20,000 Christians left school or quit jobs to await the end.)

### Differing views of the Millennium

For nearly two centuries, many fundamentalist and evangelical Christians have embraced a school of prophetic interpretation known as dispensationalism. Adherents teach that Bible prophecy pinpoints the route world events will take toward the return of Christ. His return will inaugurate his millennial rule on earth. Believers mine the apocalyptic significance of Daniel, Revelation and other Bible prophecies.

Early Christians were premillennialists. But by the time of Augustine (354-430), the church concluded that the millennial period (which may or may not equal exactly 1,000 years) was not totally in the future. Jesus had already bound Satan, said the new orthodoxy, and the church already existed in an age of grace. Most Christians held this view, known as amillennialism, until after the Reformation. It is still the most common view.

During the 17th century, the Puritans asserted that the New Testament church fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about Israel. The promises of Israelite (church) prosperity were realized in the Reformation. They looked for a worldwide revival of faith before Jesus returned. Many Protestants held to this postmillennialism for two more centuries.

Around the turn of the 19th century, some Christians saw the political and social chaos of the period as a signal that Christ would return soon. The Old Testament prophecies, many decided, referred to Israel and not the church. Thus some began to expect the Jews to return to Judea before Jesus' second coming.

Onto the scene stepped one of the most important propagators of dispensationalism: John Nelson Darby. He was born in London in 1800. Darby, an Anglican clergyman, became disturbed with apathy among Christians. Scholarship had begun to question the Bible and Christian beliefs. By 1828, Darby came to believe that the whole church was apostate. He believed that God has dealt with humanity through a series of different dispensations, or ages. He read Revelation as a prediction of events to occur at the end time.

Rejecting the optimism of both amillennialism and postmillennialism, he taught that the final cycle of prophetic events would begin with a secret, pretribulation rapture of believers. After this, the world would experience the Great Tribulation for seven years, culminating in the return of Christ.

Darby rejected the day-for-a-year idea. He taught that when the Bible said a day, it meant a day. So when Daniel wrote of the beast's 1,260-day rule, he meant three and a half years. Only after Christ's return would the Millennium unfold. Satan's final rebellion, the resurrection of the dead and the final judgment would follow.

William Miller's work sank because he set dates and belabored one or two scriptures to the exclusion of others. Darby avoided these traps. Instead, he appealed to "the signs of the times" to insist that the end was near, without setting dates. He incorporated all the Bible prophecies into a large, complex system, reinforced with numerous proof-texts. Then he promoted his teachings through preaching and writing. Darby's teachings attracted thousands of British and U.S. Bible students who feared theological "liberalism" and who took special interest in Bible prophecy, particularly end-time scenarios.

The 20th century's towering figure in premillennialism was Cyrus Scofield. Convinced of Darby's dispensational scheme, Scofield published his _Scofield Reference Bible_ in 1909. It combined the biblical text with detailed notes that set forth the dispensational view. Printing the notes on the same page with the biblical text made the notes seem to take on the same authority as the biblical text.

Scofield's teachings included a "gap" between Genesis 1:1 and 1:2, the identification of the "Gog" of Ezekiel 38 with Russia, predictions about the Jews' return to Judea and the teaching that true Christians would vanish at the rapture while deceived, "professed Christians" would follow the Antichrist into the Great Tribulation.

Scofield's Bible was revised in 1917, just when the British mandate over Jerusalem fueled the premillennialist belief that the Jews would return to their promised land. The _Scofield Reference Bible_ went on to sell millions of copies throughout the world. Dispensationalism, with its emphasis on "literal" Bible interpretation and detailed end-time prophetic scenarios, remains the focus of millions of Christian evangelicals to this day.

### Primary point of prophecy

Today's chaotic world almost begs us to look for cosmic significance in its developments. We yearn for Jesus to come and straighten out the mess. But prophetic speculation is still ill-advised in any year.

Prophetic misfires destroy faith. Timothy P. Weber wrote:

#### Many loyalists will be bothered to see how many times their teachers' minds have changed and how easily they have substituted one sure fulfillment for another... Many of the popular Bible teachers have missed the mark on numerous predictions, especially on the date for Christ's return. Yet they rarely explain or apologize; they just move along with newer, updated editions or different projections. ("If the Rapture Occurs, This Magazine Will Be Blank," _Christianity Today,_ Jan. 11, 1993, pages 60ff.)

### "The Lord is at hand"

#### If Christians of the first generation assumed that theirs was the generation that would witness the second coming, those of later generations have learned to be more cautious.... Each Christian generation...should live as though it might be the last one, while bearing in mind that Christians in the remote future may look back on the first 2000 years AD as the early period of church history. The second coming of Christ remains the hope of his people, as it is also the hope of the world (without the world's necessarily being aware of this); but its timing is not of the essence of the hope.

#### If one asks what, in that case, is to be made of the [New Testament] assurance that the Lord is at hand, an answer may be found in a sermon entitled "Waiting for Christ" by the 19th-century English preacher John Henry Newman. He pointed out that, before Christ's first coming, the course of time ran straight toward that event, but that since then the course of time runs alongside his second coming, on its brink. If it ran straight toward it, it would immediately run into it; but as it is, the great event is always at hand throughout the present era. The course of time will one day merge in the presence or parousia of Christ. If reckoned in terms of the succession of years, final salvation is nearer now than when Christians first believed; but personally, Christ is not nearer now than he was in NT times, and he is as near now as he will be when he returns.

#### There are times when the partition between his presence now and his coming parousia becomes paper thin; one day it will disappear completely and this mortal life will be swallowed up in the eternal order.... For each believer the partition disappears in the moment of death; at the last advent it will disappear on a universal scale. ("Second Coming of Christ," _Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible_ ).

### Glossary

  * Millennialism. The belief in a period of the rule of Christ on earth. The most literal view understands this time as being 1,000 years.

  * Amillennialism. The belief that Christ is already ruling on the earth.

  * Premillennialism. The belief that Christ will return before his earthly reign.

  * Postmillennialism. The belief that Christ will return after an earthly reign that does not require his physical presence.

Norman Shoaf

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## Here He Comes, Ready or Not

Don't you wish that Jesus would return? That all the wretchedness and wickedness that we see around us would end, and that God would usher in a time when "the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea" (Isaiah 11:9)?

The New Testament authors lived in expectation of the Second Coming that would deliver them "from the present evil age" (Galatians 1:4). They exhorted Christians to prepare themselves spiritually and to be morally alert, knowing that "the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night" (1 Thessalonians 5:2), unexpectedly, without warning beforehand.

### Jesus answers the disciples

When Jesus lived, just like today, people were anxious to know when the end would come, so they could "get ready" for it. Jesus' reply implied that they should stop speculating and always be ready, without being prompted by prior indicators. Look at the accounts in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, where Jesus explains to the disciples that the temple would be destroyed (this happened in a.d. 70). What was Jesus really saying? Was he telling us to look for the signs of the times?

"Tell us...what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" the disciples asked Jesus privately (Matthew 24:3). Believers have had the same question ever since. How will we know when our Master will return? We feel a need to know. But Jesus points us to a different need — the need to be ready regardless of history's times and seasons.

The answer Jesus gave conjures up (in the biblically literate mind) images of the figurative, frightening four horsemen of the Apocalypse (see Revelation 6:1-8) that have ignited the imagination of prophetic and fantasy writers for centuries. False religion, war, famine, deadly disease — sounds like our age right here and now? Yes, it does, and it was meant to sound that way. It was meant to sound like every age.

Some have said that what Jesus meant is that when we see an _intensifying_ of war, famine, and these other things, it means the end is near. Stimulated by this idea of things getting really bad before Christ returns, fundamentalists have tried, in their zeal for truth, to flesh out what they view as end-time references in prophetic scriptures, especially in the book of Revelation.

But what was Jesus saying? He does not discuss the idea of intensification. He seems, rather, to be discussing the constant condition of humanity. There have been – and always will be until he comes again – many deceivers who come in Christ's name, as well as "wars and rumors of wars...famines and earthquakes in various places" (Matthew 24:5-7). Has there been, since Christ came, a generation spared these things? These prophetic words of our Lord find fulfillment in every age of history.

Yet today, as in the past, people look at world events and some, even some leading Christian opinion makers, claim prophecy is unfolding and the end is near. All of us _want_ the end to be near, and we desire our Savior's return. However, Jesus said, in guiding our response to what some call the signs of the times: "See to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come" (verse 6).

### Don't be afraid – be ready

Regrettably, sensational end-time scenario preaching in public campaigns or through television, radio and magazines is often used in the cause of evangelism to frighten people into believing in Jesus Christ. "Shape up or burn up" is an option given. If you don't give your life to Jesus, you will be a victim in the violence to come. We forget how Jesus himself evangelized — how he brought the good news. He evangelized above all through kindness and mercy — look at the examples in the Gospels and see for yourself.

Paul explains it: "Do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?" (Romans 2:4). It is God's goodness (expressed to others through us) that brings people to Jesus. We can be sobered by the concept of divine judgment, but we should not evangelize through threats.

Jesus pointed to the need to make sure we are spiritually ready for his return whenever it will be. That was his emphasis. That is more important than trying to establish something beyond the scope of human knowledge — "no one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (verse 36). Being better informed than the angels instead of being better prepared for his coming is where some people focus. Jesus concentrated on our being prepared.

In reinforcing this point to his disciples, Jesus used various illustrations and analogies. For example, "as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (verse 37). At the time of Noah there were no signs of imminent disaster. No discussion of wars and rumors of wars and famine and disease. No threatening clouds on the horizon, just sudden rain. Relatively peaceful prosperity and moral depravity appeared to have gone hand-in-hand. They "knew nothing about what would happen until the flood came and took them all away. That is how it will be at the coming of the Son of Man" (Matthew 24:39).

What should we learn from the reference to Noah? To look at the weather patterns and watch for signs that might inform us of a date that the angels are ignorant of? No, it rather reminds us to "be careful, or your hearts will be weighed down with dissipation, drunkenness and the anxieties of life, and that day will close on you unexpectedly like a trap" (Luke 21:34).

Jesus also presented the parable of the 10 virgins to hammer this idea home. I understand this better after having lived in Africa for several years. Once I was to perform a wedding at noon, and even by 3 p.m. the bride had not arrived — she had delayed her coming! Some of the attendants fell asleep while waiting. At one point I noticed the bridegroom himself beginning to nod off.

What was the message of Jesus' story? Lest you fall asleep, have your lamps filled with oil so that your light can shine. Be led by the Holy Spirit. Be generous, welcome the stranger, visit the sick, be Jesus in your community (Matthew 25:31-46). If we do so, that is like giving people food in due season, when they need it. "It will be good for that servant whose master finds him doing so when he returns" (Matthew 24:46).

We know that Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20), that his kingdom has begun in us and in his church, that there is a gospel work to be done now wherever we live, and that "in this hope we are saved" (Romans 8:24) – in the hope of the return of our Lord.

"The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise" (2 Peter 3:9). "So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him" (2 Peter 3:14).

James Henderson

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## The Resurrection of the Body and Why It Matters

When Christ returns, the dead will rise — they will be resurrected. "With what body do they come?" some ask. Will their atoms be re-assembled? Will there be male and female? Will we recognize one another? Will we look young, or old? Many other questions are asked.

It is understandable that we ask. But it is also understandable that we cannot understand what immortal life will be like, just as a fetus cannot understand what adult life is like, or a blind person has difficulty in understanding color. Perhaps being glorified will be like entering new dimensions that we have never known before. We do not have the words to describe it because our words are based on our experiences in this age. Just as we cannot describe the aroma of coffee, we cannot describe our future life.

Scripture does not give us a detailed description of what life will be like when we have glorified bodies. It tells us 1) that we will be with God forever and 2) that all who trust in Christ will find it to be an immensely enjoyable life. We will enter our Master's happiness, and in his presence there are pleasures forevermore. We will never be bored, for we finite beings will always have new things to learn and enjoy about God's infinite goodness.

Scripture also tells us that when Christ returns, we will be like him (1 John 3:2). Paul tells us that our bodies will be changed when the final trumpet sounds (1 Corinthians 15:51-52). This brings us back to the question of what our bodies will be like.

There are two approaches to this question. The first is to ask what kind of body Jesus had after his resurrection, and the second is to see what Paul wrote about our bodies in the resurrection. We have limited information about both, but we can see how they might fit together.

### The resurrected Jesus

After his resurrection, Jesus could be recognized as Jesus. Special intervention was needed to prevent two disciples from recognizing him (Luke 24:16). Jesus had flesh and bones, and some (but not all) of the marks of crucifixion (v. 39). He could be touched, and he could eat. He could also appear in locked rooms, or ascend into heaven (John 20:19-20; Acts 1:9).

But is this the way Jesus now is? Is there a five-foot-six-inch body of flesh and bones somewhere in outer space? Is Jesus normally invisible, or does his body shine in glory, or does he look like a lamb that has been slain — a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes? (Revelation 5:6). Or are all of these appearances merely appearances, not necessarily a permanent shape or form?

Here are some basic facts: First, the tomb was empty and the body of Jesus was gone. Second, resurrected Jesus had a body, although that body had some extraordinary properties. One way to connect these two facts is to conclude that the body of Jesus was brought back to life and changed. The new Jesus had physical continuity with the old Jesus, but there were important differences.

I do not believe that Jesus has to remain visible to our eyes. When he appeared, his body reflected photons; when he disappeared, it did not. Yet in both states, Jesus had a body. He inhabits eternity, and he does not have to conform to the finite electromagnetic quantum world that we are able to investigate. For that reason, I do not believe that Jesus' body has to conform to the dimensions that we know.

Our questions about "size" and "location" are based on limits that probably do not apply to Jesus Christ. Such questions may make no more sense than asking what purple smells like — we are asking about a condition with terminology that is not suited for that condition.

### Our resurrection

Paul tells us that we will be changed — metamorphosed (1 Corinthians 15:51). The body will then be imperishable, immortal, glorious, powerful and spiritual (verses 42-44, 53). But it will be a body, and it will have some continuity with the old body.

Paul compares this change to the sprouting of a seed (v. 37). A tree does not look like an acorn, but it has physical continuity with the acorn. A butterfly looks nothing like a caterpillar, but it has physical continuity with it. Our metamorphosis may involve an even more dramatic change in what we are like. We cannot predict what it will be like any more than we can predict whether some unfamiliar seed will grow into a tree, or a flower.

The point is that there is continuity as well as change. The old body is not abandoned, nor is it totally kept. We do not worry about reassembling all of the atoms that were once part of our bodies (that would be impossible, for bodies decompose after death and their atoms become incorporated into other things, sometimes of other people's bodies). But Paul still talks about the resurrection of the body.

He expects to find the tombs empty and the bones all gone. I do not know how this works, and I suspect it involves realities I know nothing about. Lacking any further information, I simply have to accept what Paul was inspired to write: the body will be raised, and it will have new qualities.

Some may ask, What is a spiritual body? Isn't that a contradiction of terms? Paul is talking about a body that is different from the bodies we know, but he is not talking about a body that is "made" of spirit. In verse 44, when he says that our current bodies are "natural," he uses the Greek word _psychikos,_ which is the adjective form of the word _psyche,_ or soul. He is not talking about a body made out of soul, but a body that is characterized in some way by the soul.

Similarly, when he says the body will become a spiritual body, he uses the word _pneumatikos,_ the adjective form of _pneuma,_ or spirit. He is not talking about a body made out of spirit any more than he is talking about a body made out of soul. But the body will be characterized by spirit, perhaps in the same way that a spiritual person is (Galatians 6:1), with an ability to understand spiritual things. We will not understand what this body is like until it is given to us.

### Why bother with the body?

Why does God bother with our bodies? Wouldn't it be simpler to take our spirits to heaven and live forever with the Lord without any need for a resurrection? I do not claim to have a complete answer. I do know that God created physical matter, and it is therefore good. God did not make it just to destroy it later. He will keep the physical world in a renewed form, in a new heavens and new earth.

The physical body is not some evil thing that we need to escape from (as many non-Christians have taught). Jesus had a physical body, and there was nothing wrong with that. Jesus was made flesh for the very purpose of redeeming all things (Colossians 1:19-20). God is not abandoning the physical world — he is rescuing it. Romans 8:21 tells us that the physical creation will be liberated from its bondage when we are transformed into glory. This salvation involves the "redemption of our bodies" (v. 23).

Our bodies will be redeemed, not discarded. Our bodies will be raised immortal and imperishable, freed from the decay that affects the physical world today. Christ has made it possible, as shown in his own resurrection with a body that transcends the limits of space and time.

The fact that the physical world will be redeemed, the fact that our bodies will be raised, means that we should value the physical world that God has placed us in and made us part of. We are to care for the creation and care for our bodies. We have environmental concerns and health concerns; we have interests in the biological and physical sciences. We are not to abandon the world we live in, but we are to improve it in whatever small ways we can.

Similarly, we are not to abandon the social world we live in, but are to improve it when we can, working against evil and promoting justice. The fact that our bodies will be redeemed and raised emphasizes our need to be involved in the world in a positive way. We are not escapists, merely biding time until time ends, but we are involved, letting Christ live in us and grow in us until we are raised with him in glory and we see him as he is and we share in his eternal joy.

Joseph Tkach

## Immortality: The "Mother of All Changes"

There's nothing certain in life except death and taxes, goes the old saying. We might be able to deal with taxes by making more money or getting government to lower them... but death? What can we do about death? Nothing.

That's why the hope of all Christians is to live again — and live forever—by a resurrection from death, an event the Bible says is to occur at Jesus Christ's return. But this brings up an intriguing question: What kind of body will God provide for us? If you've ever wondered about this, you are not the first. There's a discussion of the "body question" in the New Testament where the apostle Paul tried to enlighten his parishioners in Corinth.

In this letter, after explaining that the dead in Christ would be resurrected to immortal life, Paul asked: "But someone may ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?'" (1 Corinthians 15:35).

If we are Christians who believe in the resurrection of the dead, then we already believe, by faith, that with God all things are possible — that, though we die, we will live again in the resurrection. I got to thinking of a fascinating analogy from nature that might help us see that all things are possible with God — the dead can live again! I'm speaking of nature's marvel of metamorphosis. The word simply means "change of form."1

### A stunning marvel

If you know anything about the life history of a moth or butterfly, you know it undergoes metamorphosis. It gets a completely new body. You can see this for yourself. Take the eggs of a moth or butterfly — let us say, tobacco hornworm eggs (about the size of a pinhead) — and place them on leaves that they would eat.

Watch over time as the eggs hatch into larvae, each measuring about half an inch in length. The larvae will grow as they gorge themselves on the leaves. At full maturity about three weeks after hatching, the caterpillar larvae will be about three inches long.

Each hornworm will then wrap itself in a cocoon that it creates under a thin layer of soil. After a time, the chrysalis with its brown color and varnished-like finish will begin cracking and out will struggle, not a worm, but a completely different life form — a Carolina Sphinx moth.

One form of life, with a distinctive caterpillar body and nature, will have metamorphosed or changed into a new form of life, a moth. This "death" of the hornworm, its intermediate existence in a cocoon and then the "resurrection" of a moth is a profound and moving sight to see!

### What happens in a chrysalis?

Have you ever thought of a butterfly as a caterpillar with wings? Think again. What happens inside a chrysalis is a wonder of creation, and a striking analogy for the transformation from mortality to immortality that is the hope of all Christians.

When the caterpillar has eaten enough, it finds somewhere safe and spins itself a cocoon. It then molts its outer skin, secreting a new covering that is much thicker and stronger. In this form it cannot eat, excrete and usually does not move. To all outside appearances it looks dead. But it is far from lifeless. Inside, a miracle of transformation begins to take place.

The first thing that happens is that most of the caterpillar's old body disintegrates. Enzymes are released that digest all the caterpillar tissue, so that the caterpillar is converted into a rich organic soup. It digests itself from the inside out—a process called "histolysis." However, not all the old tissue is destroyed. In a number of places in the insect's body are collections of special embryonic cells, called "imaginal buds" or "histoblasts." Until now they played no part in the insect's life. These cells start developing early in the caterpillar's life, but then they stall, remaining inert in the caterpillar's body. As soon as metamorphosis gets under way, these cells start growing again.

The job of these imaginal bud cells is to supervise the building of a new body out of the soup that the insect's digestive juices have made of the old larval body. One will become a wing; others form the legs, the antennae and all the organs of the adult butterfly. In this way, the entire internal contents of the caterpillar — the muscles, the digestive system, even the heart and nervous system — is totally rebuilt.

What eventually emerges out of the chrysalis is not just a caterpillar with wings. It is a new creature, no longer confined to crawling around and preoccupied with eating. Although the potential to become a butterfly is inherent in the caterpillar's old body, the change cannot happen until the old creature in effect dies. Then, and only then, the wonderful process of metamorphosis begins to unfold, until eventually, a totally new kind of creature emerges from the "tomb."

Borne aloft on its beautiful wings, the butterfly can experience life in a way a caterpillar could not begin to imagine.

### Mortal to immortal in resurrection

I'm going to suggest an analogy between metamorphosis in nature and the "metamorphosis" in resurrection that will occur to humans when Christ breaks into our history in visible glory and power.

I don't mean to say that the resurrection is like natural metamorphoses. The worm and the metamorphosed butterfly and moth are physical and mortal creatures. They both die. In the hornworm's pupa stage, its caterpillar structures are reorganized and replaced by those typical of the Carolina Sphinx moth. But our metamorphosis at Christ's return will occur because God gives us a transformed, spiritual body, not another mortal or physical body that develops out of the old physical body. The dead in Christ will be called forth by the power of God and given new bodies. This will be the mother of all metamorphoses!

Nevertheless, natural metamorphosis is intriguing in that it can point beyond itself to God's work with us in the resurrection. The worm ceases to be a worm and lies dormant in a pupal cell in which it finds new, metamorphosed life as a moth or butterfly. We human beings first live a physical, mortal human life. Then we die, awaiting the coming of the Lord, at which time we will receive spiritual bodies.

### Thinking about the "new body"

So what kind of bodies will God provide for us in the resurrection? Paul answered the question by explaining the process with the help of another analogy from the natural world: "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else" (verses 36-37).

Yes, that is a marvel. A field of wheat from a handful of seeds. A large oak tree coming from a tiny acorn! A worm buried in a tomb-like cocoon reappears as a different life form, with a totally different body. That's analogous to what will happen to us in the resurrection of the dead. Paul explains: "The body that is sown is perishable [our present state], it is raised imperishable... it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body" (verses 43-44).

The metamorphosed body we are to receive will be a "spiritual body." Paul didn't say we receive a nonmaterial, _spirit_ body, but a "spiritual body." What did he mean by the phrase? The Greek word is _pneumatikos,_ like in a pneumatic or air-filled tire. _Pneumatikos,_ "spiritual," means, in a general sense, to exist in a manner corresponding with or appropriate to the Spirit. That doesn't tell us anything specific about the make-up of spiritual bodies.

Another apostle, John, also understood that there's no explaining what our metamorphosed bodies or life will be like in the resurrection except in general terms: "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).

Our post-resurrection "spiritual" existence will be decisively different from our present fleshly, earthly existence. A singular continuity will exist within this fundamental discontinuity. We will still be ourselves "on the other side," but fully regenerated in nature and immortal in body.

### New bodies for old

What will our changed — metamorphosed — new bodies have that they do not possess now? Paul explains: "Listen, I tell you a mystery.... The dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality" (1 Corinthians 15:50-53). The mortal will be covered with immortality. There is continuity, but also fundamental discontinuity.

Resurrection bodies will be imperishable and immortal. None of our present fleshly weaknesses will exist. Never to be tired. Never to be thirsty or hungry. Never to be sick and in pain. Never to suffer from anxieties and fears. Never to sin. Never to die.

Paul knew what it meant to suffer deprivation and pain in this temporal, physical body, which is our present heritage. He longed to rest in peace, waiting for the resurrection:

#### If the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands.... For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. (2 Corinthians 5:1-4)

The book of Revelation exults in this time after the resurrection, when we will have new bodies: "God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away" (21:3-4). God's gift to us of a new spiritual and immortal body and a mind and heart regenerated and perfected through Christ and in the Holy Spirit will make all this possible.

Physical human bodies grow old and infirm, become sick and pained, decay and die. The Bible testifies that in the resurrection we will receive a new body from God that will give us true and eternal freedom and joy:

#### All creation anticipates the day when it will join God's children in glorious freedom from death and decay. For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pangs of childbirth right up to the present time. And even we Christians, although we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, also groan to be released from pain and suffering. We, too, wait anxiously for that day when God will give us our full rights as his children, including the new bodies he has promised us. (Romans 8:21-23, New Living Translation)

A new body in which to live forever in a restored world, where nothing will ever go wrong again. It is indeed the mother of all changes!

Paul Kroll

1 _The Random House Dictionary of the English Language_ defines metamorphosis in biological terms as a "profound change in form from one stage to the next in the life history of an organism."

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## With What Body Are the Dead Raised?

The resurrection of believers to immortality at Christ's appearing is the hope of all Christians. It's not surprising, then, that when the apostle Paul heard some members of the church in Corinth were denying the resurrection, he challenged their misperceptions.

Paul first rehearsed the gospel message, which they believed, that Christ had been resurrected. Paul reviewed how the crucified Jesus was laid in the tomb a dead corpse, but three days later was bodily resurrected to glory (1 Corinthians 15:3-4). He then explained that Christ was raised to life as our forerunner—pointing the way to our future resurrection at his appearing (verses 4, 20-23).

### Christ resurrected

Paul validated the truth of Christ's resurrection by referring to more than 500 witnesses to whom Jesus appeared after he rose to life. Most of the witnesses were still alive when he wrote his letter (verses 5-7). Christ had also appeared to the apostles and to Paul himself (verse 8). The fact that so many people saw Jesus this side of his grave confirmed he had been raised bodily, though Paul didn't make an issue of this in the chapter.

But he did tell the Corinthians it was foolishness — with absurd consequences for Christian faith — to doubt a future resurrection of believers, since they believed Christ had been raised from the grave. To disbelieve in a resurrection was to logically deny that Christ himself had been resurrected. If Christ had not been resurrected, believers would not have any hope. Christ's resurrection guarantees that believers will also be resurrected, Paul told them.

Paul's message about the resurrection of believers is thoroughly Christ-centered. He explains that the work of God through Christ in his life, death and raising him to life enables the future resurrection of believers, leading to the defeat of death itself (verses 22-26, 54-57).

Paul had steadfastly preached this good news — that Christ had been raised to life and that believers would also be resurrected at his appearing. In an earlier letter, Paul wrote: "We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him" (1 Thessalonians 4:14). Such a promise was "according to the Lord's word" (verse 15).

The church, following the hope and promise of Jesus in the Scriptures, has taught a belief in the resurrection throughout its history. The Nicene Creed of A.D. 381 says, "We look for the resurrection of the dead and the life to come." The Apostle's Creed of around A.D. 750 says, "I believe in...the resurrection of the body and life everlasting."

### Resurrection body question

In 1 Corinthians 15, Paul responded to the Corinthians' specific disbelief of and mistaken view about the bodily resurrection: "But someone will ask, 'How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?'" (verse 35). The issue was how the resurrection would work, namely what kind of body, if any, would those raised to life receive. The Corinthians wrongly thought Paul was teaching it was the same kind of mortal, sinful body they possessed in this life.

What need is there for a body in the resurrection, they wondered, especially the present corrupt body? Had they not already achieved the goal of spiritual salvation and actually needed to get rid of their body? In the words of theologian Gordon D. Fee: "The Corinthians are convinced that by the gift of the Spirit, and especially the manifestation of tongues, they have already entered into the spiritual, 'heavenly' existence that is to be. Only the body to be sloughed off at death, lies between them and their ultimate spirituality."1

The Corinthians had not understood that the resurrection body would be of a higher and different order than the present physical body. This new "spiritual" body would be necessary for life with God in the kingdom.

Paul used a farming example to point to the greater glory of the resurrection body over our present physical body, appealing to the difference between a seed and the plant that grows from it. The seed may "die," or cease to exist, but the body — the plant — that comes from it is much more magnificent.

"When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else," Paul wrote (verse 37). We can't predict what our resurrection body will be like by pointing to our present physical body's characteristics, but we know that it will be of vastly greater glory, as is the oak tree in comparison to its seed, the acorn.

We can have faith that the resurrection body, having glorious life without end, will make our eternal life much more splendid than our present physical life. Paul wrote: "So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power" (verses 42-43).

The resurrection body will not be a clone or exact replica of our physical body, Paul is saying. Nor is the body we receive at the resurrection composed of the identical atoms of the physical body we had in this earthly life, which decayed or was destroyed at death. (If that were so, which body would we receive – our body at age 2, 20, 45, or 75?) The two kinds of bodies will be as different in quality and glory as is the beautiful butterfly that emerges from the cocoon that previously housed a lowly worm.

### Natural and spiritual bodies

There is no use to speculate on exactly what our resurrection body or immortal life will look like. However, we may say some general things about the major difference between the two types of bodies.

Our present bodies are physical, like an animal's, subject to decay and death, and sinful. The resurrection body will possess a different order of life—immortal and imperishable. In Paul's words, "It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body" (verse 44)—not a "spirit" body, but a spiritual body in the sense of being appropriate for the life of the age to come. The believers' new body in the resurrection will be "spiritual" — not immaterial, but spiritual in the sense of having been created by God to bear the likeness of Christ's glorified body, transformed and "adapted to the life of the Spirit in the coming age."2 The new body will be real; believers will not be bodiless ghosts or specters.

Paul contrasts Adam and Jesus to underscore the difference between our present body and our resurrection body. "As was the earthly man [Adam], so are those who are of the earth; and as is the heavenly man [Jesus], so also are those who are of heaven" (verse 48). Those who are in Christ when he appears will have a resurrection body and life in Jesus, not Adam's form and being. "Just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man" (verse 49). The Lord, said Paul, "will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body" (Philippians 3:21).

### Not subject to death

This means our resurrection body will not be perishable flesh and blood as we know it now—not dependent on food, oxygen, and water for life. Paul was dogmatic: "I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable" (1 Corinthians 15:50).

At the Lord's appearing, our mortal bodies will be transformed into immortal bodies that are eternal and not subject to death and decay. Hear Paul as he tells the Corinthians: "I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet [a metaphor signaling the future appearing of Christ]. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed" (verses 51-52).

Our being raised bodily to immortality is our joyous and sustaining hope as Christians. In Paul's words: "When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality," at the appearing of Christ, "then the saying that is written will come true: 'Death has been swallowed up in victory'" (verse 54).

### Is our brain all there is to who we are?

Nobel Laureate Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of the DNA molecule, has written that we "are in fact no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules...nothing but a pack of neurons."3 Vilayanor S. Ramachandran, a renowned neuroscientist, claims: "All the richness of our mental life—all our feelings, our emotions, our thoughts...our religious sentiments...[our] own intimate private self — is simply the activity of...our brains. There is nothing else."4

Neuroscientists do not find evidence of a distinct mind or "soul" when they do their research. They only see "brain work"—the firing of neurons when we think, emote or are engaged in a creative activity. Further, when a person's brain is injured, his or her ability to reason, relate to others and create can be impaired, depending on the injury. On such visible evidence, scientists and philosophers naturally conclude that this is all there is to who we are — brain, neurons and body.

Christians believe that the essence of what a human being is—call it mind, self, being or "soul"—survives the death of the body and brain. Jesus said, "Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul" (Matthew 10:28), thereby distinguishing between physical body (including the brain) and the essence of personhood—our conscious being.

Scientists such as Gerald L. Schroeder ( _God According to God_ ) and best-selling author on Christian topics, Dinesh D'Souza ( _Life After Death: The Evidence_ and _What's So Great About Christianity_ ), provide a number of analogies to help us think outside the box about a parallel existence of both brain and mind—our consciousness.

Think of the brain as the radio receiver and radio waves as the mind. If the radio is turned off, one might conclude that radio waves don't exist. But turn on the radio and tune it to a station, perhaps playing a piece of music, and the existence of radio waves suddenly becomes evident. For the radio waves to be manifest, we must turn on the radio receiver. Turn the radio off or smash it, and there is only silence. Now, the radio waves appear not to exist. The radio doesn't create the radio waves, but they can't be played for us to hear without it being turned on and in working order.

Let's look at the analogy of a DVD of a movie. For the contents of the DVD to be seen, it must be played through a computer's hardware or DVD player. Smash the computer or player and the movie disappears as though it didn't exist. But the DVD contents do still exist and can be played on another computer or DVD player.

In a similar way, the mind is impaired if the brain is impaired, and the mind disappears from our view if the brain dies and decays. But it is not hard to see that a mind could be "played" again if given a different body by the God who created us in the first place.

Dr. Schroeder explains what the real conundrum is about the mind-brain connection: "The puzzle of the mind-brain interface is not in the recording and biochemical storage of the incoming sensory data. That is brainwork... The puzzle is in the replay. There is no hint in the brain of how you hear or see what you have heard or seen.... The location of that perception is the puzzle."5

The promise of Christ in the Scriptures is that a person's mind or soul will be "brought back" by the power of God, despite the death and decay of the present physical body. God will provide a new and glorious body for us in the resurrection.

### Endnotes

1 Gordon D. Fee, _The First Epistle to the Corinthians._ New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 778.

2 Ibid., 788.

3 Francis Crick, _The Astonishing Hypothesis: The Scientific Search for the Soul_ (New York: Touchstone, 1994), p. 3.

4 V.S. Ramachandran, _A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness_ (New York: Pearson Education, 2004), p. 3.

5 Gerald L. Schroeder, _God According to God: A Physicist Proves We've Been Wrong About God All Along_ (New York: Harper One, 2009), pp. 151-152.

Paul Kroll

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## The Resurrection: Our Hope for the Future

The apostle Paul tells us, "If there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith" (1 Corinthians 15:13-14). In other words, if there isn't any resurrection, our faith is pointless. If Christianity is simply about this physical life and then we die to never exist again, then it really doesn't matter what we do or how we live or what we believe.

Paul said in verse 19, "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all people." If there is no future for us, then our lives would more sensibly focus on having a good time while we can (verse 32). If there is no resurrection, then it would not be helpful for us to believe in Christ, because that might mean sacrifice and persecution.

If there is no resurrection, then the crucifixion of Christ didn't achieve anything for us, and we are still in our sins (verse 17). But there is a resurrection, not only for Christ but also for us, and this is an important part of the Christian faith. Let's look at the significance of this doctrine—not just for the future, but for day-to-day living, as well. It is relevant every day of our lives.

### Biblical evidence

The Old Testament doesn't say much about the resurrection. Ezekiel says a little bit, and Daniel says a little bit, but our belief is based mostly on the New Testament. Jesus talked about the resurrection in several parables. He even called himself the resurrection and the life (John 11:25). The resurrection is mentioned several times in the book of Acts, and in the book of Hebrews, but in most passages we don't learn much except that there will be a resurrection.

There are two passages that describe the resurrection in a little more detail—Paul's first letter to the church in Thessalonica, and his first letter to the Corinthians.

In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, Paul writes,

#### Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord's word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.

Paul isn't saying much here about the resurrection except its timing. There will be a resurrection, and the reason we know that is because Jesus, the example of true humanity, was raised from the dead. We believe in his resurrection, so we believe that he will also bring back to life all who believe in him, and this will happen when Jesus returns to earth. Christians who have died will rise, and Christians who are alive will be changed and rise into the clouds to meet the Lord as he returns, and we will be with him forever.

In 1 Corinthians Paul goes into more detail, explaining not only that there will be a resurrection, but he also comments briefly on what we will be like in the resurrected state. First, he compares the resurrection to the planting of a seed. The seed looks like a seed, but the plant that grows from it looks quite different, depending on what kind of seed it is (verses 37-38).

#### So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. (verses 42-44)

After we are resurrected, we will be different, perhaps as different as a leaf is from a seed. The important differences are that we will be imperishable, glorious, powerful, and spiritual—and we will look like Christ:

#### And just as we have borne the image of the earthly man, so shall we bear the image of the heavenly man. I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. (verses 49-53)

Here Paul is using a different figure of speech, that of putting on new clothes. The point that he stresses the most, the point that he mentions the most, is that we will be imperishable—our bodies will not deteriorate, and we will never die. We will have new, glorious bodies, transformed by the Holy Spirit to be like Christ.

### Eternal significance

What significance does this doctrine have for us? The significance is that we will live forever—and not just live forever, but we will live forever with Christ—and not just that, but we will have glorious bodies that are like his, with power and glory and life that's far better than what we know now. There is a great reward waiting for us, a reward that far overshadows the difficulties we sometimes have in Christianity. The eternal reward is important. As Paul said, if faith is good for this life only, then it isn't good enough. But there is an afterlife, there is a resurrection, and there are wonderful rewards waiting for us. No matter what kind of sacrifices we make in this life, they are well worth making, because we will be given 100 times and more in the world to come. The resurrection is an important part of this picture.

### Day-to-day significance

Our belief in the resurrection has important consequences for our day-to-day lives, too, as noted above. For example, knowing about the resurrection helps us deal with the difficulties and persecutions of believing in Christ when most people around us do not. When our life and ministry runs into problems, we do not just quit. We do not say, Let's eat and drink and be merry, because nothing really matters much. No, there is a future, and life does matter, and we want to live with our future in mind.

The doctrine of the resurrection goes hand in hand with the doctrine of the judgment. As Jesus said, some will rise to a resurrection of life, and others to a resurrection of judgment. God cares about the way we live. He has something to say about the way we live, and he will call us into account for the way we live. The gospel tells us that we will be accepted on the day of judgment—we will be found righteous through faith in Christ. The gospel is built on the reality of the resurrection and the judgment. The existence of the resurrection explains why the gospel is necessary, and why it is good news.

The gospel is good news not only for people who believe, but also for people who do not yet believe. There is an infinite significance to the gospel. We are not talking about a few years of better feelings, or even 70 years of good things—we are talking about eternal life, an eternity that is infinitely better than anything this life has to offer. Whatever we do in serving Christ, whatever we do in supporting the gospel, is worth doing. It is important for all who need to hear the gospel.

The fact of the resurrection emphasizes the importance of sharing the good news with other people. This is the way Paul ends the resurrection chapter: "Therefore [because there is a resurrection], my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain" (verse 58). The resurrection is not just an interesting bit of trivia about the future—it has practical consequences for our lives today. It gives us reason to work, and reason to persevere through whatever difficulties we might face.

The resurrection is also relevant for day-to-day Christian conduct. We see this in Romans 6: "We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life" (verse 4). The resurrection to come means that we have a new life now, a new way of life. Paul explains in verse 6 that "our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin"

Paul is talking about a change in behavior. When we identify ourselves with Christ, we put to death the deeds of sin. We put them out of our lives, and we walk and live in a new way, just as Christ was raised from the dead into a new life. So our behavior reflects the death and resurrection of Christ. Out with the old, and in with the new. In verses 11-13, Paul tells us,

#### In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness.

Because there is a resurrection, we are to live in a new and different way. Instead of serving the desires of the flesh, we want to serve the Lord, because we will be with him forever. God's grace doesn't mean that he does not care about the way we live. He does care, he still makes commands, and understanding the resurrection helps us walk in newness of life.

As 1 John 3:2-3 says, "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure."

John goes on to say in verses 4-6 that when we live in Christ, we do not go on sinning. We quit. But if we do sin (as we all do), then we have a defense attorney standing by, Jesus Christ, and the atoning sacrifice has already been given for us. So there is no condemnation for us, but there is still the fact that people who believe in the resurrection also change the way they live. Knowing that we will live with Christ forever changes the way we live with him right now.

Last, knowing about the resurrection gives a new perspective to death. We know that death does not end it all; we know that we will see our loved ones again; we know that life will go on forever. Hebrews 2:14-15 tells us that Jesus shared in our humanity "so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil—and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death."

By knowing about the resurrection, we are freed from the fear of death. That enemy has been conquered, and we share in the victory that Christ has won! He has triumphed over death, and we share in his life, freed from the fear of death. As we read in 1 Thessalonians, we do not grieve like other people do. We still have grief (and that's OK, because death is still an enemy, even though a defeated enemy), but we have a hope that others do not have.

Knowledge of the resurrection helps us die faithfully, in hope and confidence for the future. We know that the best is yet to come. As 1 Thessalonians 4:18 says, "Therefore encourage each other with these words."

Joseph Tkach

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## The Last Judgment

What should God do about evil? Many people have mixed feelings about what God should do. On one hand, they want him to punish evildoers, so people will stop doing evil. On the other hand, they want him to be "nice," to be lenient, quick to forgive, because no one is perfect. Sometimes they want exceptions for themselves, but not for everyone else.

The Bible says that there will be a "last judgment" when Jesus returns, and he will assess what people have done. Some people will be given immortality and eternal life with God; others will not. What will this judgment be like?

We could start with verses that mention the judgment, but it will be more helpful to begin with the larger context – with God, and with what he wants for and from the human beings he has created.

### God's purpose for humanity

God and his purpose are exceedingly large topics, so we will have to summarize a great deal. The story begins before creation. God is Father, Son, and Spirit in eternal relationships of love and giving. The Bible also tells us that Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, was "slain from the creation of the world" (Revelation 13:8). Even before God created humanity, he knew that the Son of God would have to die for us. Our sin did not catch him by surprise. He knew in advance that we would fail, yet he created us anyway, because he already had anticipated a solution for the problem.

God created humanity "in his own image" (Genesis 1:26-27). We were made a little bit like God – we were created to have relationships of love that reflect the love that God has within the Trinity. God wants us to interact with each other in love, and to have a love relationship with God as well. The vision at the end of the Bible is that God will live with his people (Revelation 21:3). God created us because he wanted to share eternal love with us.

The problem is that humans did not live in love, either for one another or for God. "All have sinned and fall short" of what God wants for us (Romans 3:23). So the Son of God, the Creator of humanity, became a human so that he could live and die for his people. "There is one God and one mediator between God and mankind, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all people" (1 Timothy 2:5-6). Jesus enters the story again at the end of the age, when he returns to earth and becomes the judge at the last judgment (John 5:22).

Will Jesus be angry because people have not lived up to his purpose for them? He knew that would happen even before he started, and he already carried out the plan to pay whatever price was necessary to atone for our sins and restore us to right relationship with God. He submitted to God's righteous judgment on evil and experienced the consequences of our sins leading to death. He poured out his life that we might have life in him. "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them" (2 Corinthians 5:19). We have already been judged, found guilty, forgiven, and given new life through Jesus Christ. Jesus was judged in our place, on our behalf, taking our sin and death upon himself and giving us in exchange his life, his right relationship with God, that we might live in eternal fellowship and communion of holy love with him.

This does not necessarily mean that everyone will appreciate what Christ has done for them. Some people will resist the new situation, rejecting the right of Christ to be their judge. Don't they have the right to choose and decide for themselves? Some people will resist the verdict of guilty. Were their sins really that bad? And some will resist the payment. Can't I just work off my debt, without being eternally indebted to Jesus? Some will reject God's purpose for them, because they do not want to live in love with their Creator. Their attitudes and response to the grace of God will be revealed (if they were not already displayed) at the last judgment.

In effect, people will judge themselves by their response to the Judge, Jesus Christ. Will they choose the way of love, humility, grace and kindness, or will they prefer self-seeking, self-importance, and self-determination? Will they want to live with God on his terms, or somewhere else on their own terms? Will they accept his definition of good and evil, or will they insist on their own definition? Will they insist on their "right" to do things that he says are evil? In this judgment, failure is not due to God rejecting them, but in them rejecting God, and his judgment of grace in Jesus Christ.

### A day of decision

With this overview, we can now examine verses about the judgment. It is a serious event for all human beings: "Everyone will have to give account on the day of judgment for every empty word they have spoken. For by your words you will be acquitted, and by your words you will be condemned" (Matthew 12:36-37).

Jesus summarized the Judgment to come in terms of the fate of the righteous and the wicked: "A time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out — those who have done good will rise to live, and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned" (John 5:28-20). This verse must be understood in the light of another biblical truth: everyone has done evil. The judgment includes not just what people have done, but also what Jesus has done for them. He has already paid for their sins.

Jesus also described the judgment in a parable — as sheep being separated from goats:

#### When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. (Matthew 25:31-33)

The sheep are the ones who helped the needy (verses 35-36). They are told to "take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world" (verse 34). The others are told: "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels" (verse 41). Although a novice reader might think that this parable gives us details about courtroom procedure in the judgment, it cannot be taken in that way. There is no mention of forgiveness, for example, or of faith (the sheep were unaware that Jesus was involved in what they were doing – verse 37). Helping the needy is a good thing, but it is not the only thing that is involved in the final judgment.

The Jews already believed in a day of judgment; Jesus used their belief as the setting for his parable. The parable taught two new points: that the Judge was the Son of Man, Jesus himself, and that he wants people to help (rather than despise) the needy since God does not despise us but gives us his grace, especially the grace of forgiveness. Compassion and kindness toward those who need mercy and grace will be rewarded in the future with God's own feely given grace towards them.

Paul also refers to the day of judgment, referring to it as "the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed" (Romans 2:5). He says, "God will give to each person according to what he has done. To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger" (verses 6-8).

Again, this cannot be taken as a complete description of the judgment, for it makes no mention of grace or faith – concepts that Paul says are essential. He says that we are justified (a courtroom term, meaning acquitted on the day of judgment) not by our works, but by faith (Galatians 2:16). Good behavior is good, but it cannot save us. We are counted as righteous not on the basis of our own actions, but because we receive and thereby share in the righteousness of Christ (1 Corinthians 1:30).

Most of the verses about the last judgment say nothing about the grace that is a central part of the Christian gospel. This fact should warn us not to place too much weight on these partial descriptions. We should not isolate them from their context. That is why we need to start with the larger context – God's purpose for humanity – rather than specific verses that can, at best, give only a partial picture. When thinking about the judgment, we always need to remember that God created us for a purpose, that he wants us to succeed in that purpose, that he sent Jesus to make the realization of that purpose possible, and that Jesus is the Judge. The Judge is the Gracious One who has acted in our place and on our behalf in our favor. He has already done everything necessary for us to be forgiven and renewed in our very natures so we might share in God's own eternal life as his beloved children. He was the Judge who was judged in our place and who perfectly submitted to God's No to all sin and evil.

Every human will face the judgment. Those who are in Christ will find their reward: "Just as people are destined to die once, and after that to face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Hebrews 9:27-28).

Those trusting in him and made righteous by his redemptive work do not need to fear the judgment. John assures his readers: "Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment" (1 John 4:17). Those who belong to Christ will be rewarded; unbelievers who refuse to repent and admit their need for Christ's mercy and grace, and the right of God to judge that which is evil, are the ungodly, and they will receive a different result: "The present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly" (2 Peter 3:7). "The Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to hold the unrighteous for punishment on the day of judgment" (2 Peter 2:9).

God will do something about evil – but in forgiving us, he does not just brush our evil deeds under the carpet, as if they did not matter. No, he has paid the price on our behalf to bring an end to evil and to rescue us from its power. He has suffered the consequences of our evil and overcome them. In a figure of speech, we might say that he has earned the right to forgive us. He takes evil seriously, and he knows how to remove it from us.

### A day of salvation

A time will come when good and bad will be separated and evil will be no more. For some, it such a time will be when they are exposed as self-seeking, rebellious, and evil. For others, it will be a time of salvation, when they will be rescued from the evildoers, and rescued from the evil that lies within each person. "Judgment" does not necessarily mean "condemnation"! It means that the good and evil are sorted out, clearly distinguished from one another. The good is identified and separated from the evil. The evil is identified and separated from the good. The good is preserved and the evil is destroyed. Those who submit to Christ's judgment will allow themselves to be separated from the evil within and receive new life from Christ. The evil will be sent away and condemned. So the day of judgment is also a time of salvation:

##### * "God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him" (John 3:17).

##### * God "wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth" (1 Timothy 2:4).

##### * "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance" (2 Peter 3:9).

God judges in Christ so that no one has to be condemned along with their sin and evil. This does not mean that everyone _will_ come to repentance and accept God's judgment in Christ on their behalf. Some may reject God's judgment in Christ and his forgiveness, and they will experience condemnation along with the sin and evil they needlessly cling to, refusing to receive all the benefits of Christ's atoning and judging death in their place and on their behalf. But repentance and salvation is God's desire for the people he has created. He did not create them for destruction, but for living forever in love, peace, and joy. Although humans took a wrong turn into self-seeking and wickedness, God's desire is to rescue us from our foolishness. He sent Jesus into the world to save us, not to condemn us. The last judgment is good news, not bad, since it means evil has no future.

If God did not intervene, humanity would be self-condemned to a life of wickedness, selfishness, and mutually inflicted pain. The day of judgment does not alter the outcome of what we have chosen, but rather reveals more clearly the painful results of rejecting God's judgment and provision in Christ. The day of judgment shows good and evil diverge and those two pathways lead to eternally opposite outcomes. One leads to eternal death and the other to eternal life. For all who accept what Christ has procured for us through his submission to judgment, for us and for many others, it is a day of salvation rather than a day of condemnation. It is God's desire that people enjoy the salvation he has provided for them in Jesus and not enter into condemnation.

In terms of legal requirements, every human being has fallen short. The law reveals nothing but condemnation for us. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, says Paul in Ephesians 2:1. But the gospel reveals life out of death—resurrection into a new and eternal life with God. This is what we were made for, and the day of judgment will be the time when our salvation is revealed and experienced in its fullness. It is good news, hope-filled news.

But there will be some surprises. God is in the business of saving sinners, of saving ungodly people out of their ungodliness (Romans 5:6-10). Jesus told the Pharisees that there would be some surprises. Citizens of several ancient cities would find more favor in the judgment than people who thought they had no need of repentance:

#### [Jesus] began to upbraid the cities in which most of his mighty works had been done, because they did not repent: "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago.... It will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you." (Matthew 11:20-22)

#### The men of Nineveh [Assyria] will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it... The Queen of the South [who came to listen to Solomon] will rise at the judgment with this generation and condemn it. (Matthew 12:41-42)

#### If the mighty works which were done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment than for you. (Matthew 10:15)

Jesus did not say that the people in those cities will necessarily receive their salvation. But he did not condemn them, either. They will come out of the judgment looking better than some of the Jews of Jesus' day. If the day of judgment has only two categories – sheep or goats – they would be among the sheep.

They would have repented if Jesus had ministered among them. Will Jesus condemn them for their failure to be born in the right time and place? This does not sound like the God who sent Jesus into the world to save it rather than condemn it. Indeed, it sounds as though Jesus has already declared them to be the sort of people who are willing to repent, rather than those who resist. They have been judged – and found acceptable. Although they did not know Jesus, his death saved them.

We do not know exactly how this works with the people of ancient Nineveh, or for the people of 15th-century Australia, or babies in Mongolia. But we trust that God will take care of them in a way that is true to his nature, true to the way that he has revealed himself to be in Jesus Christ. We see in Jesus a God who desires to save, and a God who is always fair.

We conclude that he will give everyone an opportunity to understand the gospel and to repent, and hence to enjoy salvation. When and where and how is up to him. Perhaps judgment has already been pronounced for people of the past, and the day of judgment will simply reveal what is already true about them. Perhaps there will be time for them to see the beauty of what Jesus has done for them, and for them to respond.

The Bible does not give us the details on that – it just presents God's desire, and what Jesus did to achieve what God wants. It promises an ultimate separation of good and evil. Those who accept God's gift get what they want, and those who do not want God's gift will not be forced to accept it, since it cannot be forced.

We do not need to worry about people, like those in Nineveh/Assyria, who didn't seem to have a fair chance since they had no opportunity to see what Jesus did and taught. Nor do we need to worry about people in the modern age who don't seem to have a chance. We can trust that God will be fair working in ways we cannot imagine that exceed the boundaries of time and space by which we are naturally bound. We can be sure that the accidents of history (where and when a person was born, for example) do not thwart God's purpose for the people he created.

Nor do we need to worry that our clumsy attempts at preaching the gospel will cause someone to be lost, who would have otherwise been saved. Our flat tire, our fear, even our failure, is not going to thwart what God wants to do. Just as we are not saved by the good things that we do, no one is going to lose out on salvation because of our weakness. Even our faithlessness cannot prevent God from being faithful.

This does not take away our responsibility to respond to what we know about what Jesus did and said, and it does not take away our responsibility to respond to Jesus' command to go and make disciples throughout the world. God is the Savior, and we are not. We can trust him to do his work, but the question before us – our decision and our judgment – is how we respond to him. It is an opportunity to experience and participate in his working out his salvation.

The Judge in the last Judgment is Jesus Christ, who died for the people he will judge. "The Father judges no one," said Jesus, "but has entrusted all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22). He has paid the penalty of sin for them all and has made things right. The One who judges the righteous, the unevangelized, and even the wicked, is the One who gave his life so that others might live eternally. Jesus Christ has already taken the judgment of sin and sinfulness upon himself. The picture of the merciful Judge, Jesus Christ, tells us that he wishes that all would receive eternal life — and he has provided it for all who are willing to trust him.

Those who know what Jesus has done can look to the judgment with confidence and joy, knowing that their salvation is sure in him. The unevangelized — those who have not had opportunity to hear the gospel and put their faith in Christ — will also learn that the Lord has already provided for them.

The judgment should be a time of joy for everyone, as it will usher in the glory of the everlasting kingdom of God, where nothing but goodness will exist throughout eternity. Those who want to live with Christ in this goodness will be able to; those who do not want to live with him, and who reject his forgiveness, grace and mercy will not be forced to.

Theologian S.C. Guthrie suggested a helpful way to think about this:

#### The first thought that comes to Christians when they think about the end of history ought not be anxious or vindictive speculation about who will be "in" and go "up," and who will be "out" and go "down." It ought to be the thankful and joyful thought that we may confidently look forward to the time when the will of the world's Creator, Reconciler, Savior, and Renewer will prevail once and for all — when justice will triumph over injustice, love over hatred and greed, peace over hostility, humanity over inhumanity, the kingdom of God over the powers of darkness. The last judgment will come not against but for the good of the world... That is good news not just for Christians but for everyone!

This is what prophecy — including the last or eternal Judgment — is all about: the triumph of the God of love over everything that opposes his love and grace. God makes gracious and just provision for everyone, even for those who at death appear not to have believed the gospel. We do not know exactly how God's limitless love and mercy will work in every situation, in every individual's existence. But we do know that provision is made possible through Christ's redemptive work, just as it is now for those who believe. If some manage to eternally reject God's judgment and mercy in Christ and fall under the condemnation that evil brings, we know it will not be because there is a limit or fault in the mercy and grace of Jesus Christ.

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## God's Wrath

The Bible tells us that "God is love" (1 John 4:8). He chooses to do good, to help human beings. But the Bible also speaks of God's wrath, his anger. How can a being of pure love also have anger?

There is no contradiction between love and anger. Actually, we should _expect_ that love (a desire to do good) would also include anger or opposition against anything that hurts. God is consistent in his love, so he is opposed to anything that works against his love.

Anything that opposes God's love is sin. God is against sin – he wants to counteract it, eventually eliminate it. Because God loves humanity, he dislikes sin. However, "dislikes" is too mild. God has strong feelings against sin. He _hates_ sin, because it is an enemy of his love. This is what the Bible means by the wrath of God.

God loves human beings, even sinners (that's the only kind of human there is). Even when we were sinners, God sent his Son to die for us, to save us from our sins (Romans 5:8). We conclude that God loves the people, but hates (is implacably opposed to) the sin that hurts them. If God were not against everything that is against his creation and against a right relationship with him, God would not be loving. God would not be _for_ us if he were not against whatever was against us.

However, occasionally the Bible says that God is angry at people. This is a figure of speech. God's desire is not that he wants to inflict pain on the people, but that he wants them to change their ways and to _escape_ the pain that sin causes. His anger lasts only as long as they insist on sinning. This shows that God is not angry at the people for who they are, but only because of what they are doing. He is not angry at _them_ – he is angry at their behavior. God wants a good outcome for the people, not a bad one. He did not create them for destruction, but for redemption and salvation (John 3:17). In contrast, God's anger at sin is permanent. God will never change his mind about the evil of evil and come to say, well, it really wasn't so bad, it really wasn't evil, but partially good or purely good.

God's wrath comes about because God's holiness and love have been violated by human sinfulness. Human beings who live their lives apart from God are antagonistic toward his way. People living in such estrangement are acting as enemies of God. Since humanity assaults everything good and pure that God is and stands for, God must oppose the way of sin. This holy and loving opposition to sinfulness in every form is called "God's wrath."

God is sinless – is perfect holy Being by nature. If he did not oppose sinfulness in man, he would not be good. If he was not wrathful and warring against sin, if he did not care, God would then, in effect, be saying that sinfulness is not evil and can be tolerated. That would be a lie, because sinfulness is evil. But God cannot lie and be untrue to his essential Being, which is holy and loving. If God were to tolerate sin in not having a sustained hostility to it, it would mean that he accepted sinfulness as legitimate and that he finds human suffering caused by evil to be acceptable.

But God is supremely righteous – and he is pure love. Thus, his nature and Being cannot tolerate sinfulness and anything that violates who and what he is and who he created us to be. Therefore, it is impossible for a just God not to have "wrath" toward sin. Paul explains God's wrath as a just judgment that flows out of sinfulness against a holy God (Romans 1:18-26).

However, God has already taken the actions necessary in order to end the enmity between humanity and himself. These actions flow out of his love, which is the essence of his being (1 John 4:8). In love, God allows his creatures to choose for or against him. He even allows them to hate him, although he opposes such a choice because it hurts the people he loves. In effect, he says "no" to their "no." In saying "no" to our "no," he reinforces his "yes" to us in Jesus Christ. God has supremely expressed this love by sending his Son, Jesus Christ – true God of true God – to pay the penalty of sin and to end sinfulness (1 John 4:9-10) and reconcile us back to himself.

God has, at great cost to himself, taken all the necessary steps to have our sins be forgiven and blotted out. Jesus died for us, in our place. The fact that his death was necessary for our forgiveness shows the seriousness of our sin and guilt, and shows the results that sin would otherwise have for us. God hates the sin that causes death for us.

When we accept God's forgiveness in Jesus Christ, we admit that we have been sinful creatures in opposition to God. That's what it means to "accept" Christ as our Savior. We accept that we were sinful and in need of a Savior. We accept that we were alienated and in need of reconciliation. We acknowledge that through Christ and his redemptive work we have been given reconciliation, transformation and eternal life in God as a _free gift_. We repent of our "no" to God and thank him for his "yes" to us in Jesus Christ. Ephesians 2:1-10 describes the human journey from being the objects of God's wrath to receiving salvation by his grace.

God's purpose from the beginning was to express his love toward humans by forgiving the world's sin through the work of Jesus (Ephesians 1:3-8). This is instructive about humanity's situation in relationship to God. Whatever "wrath" God had, he also planned to resolve, even before the world was created (Revelation 13:8). He initiated from the foundations of the world a real reconciliation through Christ (Ephesians 2:15-18; Colossians 1:19-23). This reconciliation comes about not through human desires or efforts, but through the Person of and saving work of Christ on our behalf. That saving work was carried out as "loving wrath" _against_ sinfulness and _for_ us as persons. People who are "in Christ" are no longer objects of wrath, but live in peace with God.

In Christ, human beings are saved from wrath through his redemptive work and the indwelling Holy Spirit, who transforms us. God has reconciled us to himself (2 Corinthians 5:18); he harbors no desire to punish us. We respond and receive his forgiveness and new life in right relationship to him by turning to God and turning away from everything that is an idol in human life (1 John 2:15-17). Salvation is God's rescue program in Christ – "who rescues us from the coming wrath" (1 Thessalonians 1:9-10).

To repeat, human beings have become, in our very natures, enemies of God, and this animosity and distrust of God causes a necessary and spontaneous countermeasure from a holy and loving God – his wrath. But from the beginning, God has purposed out of his love to end the human-caused wrath by the saving work of Christ. It is through God's love that we are reconciled to him in his own saving work in the death and life of his Son (Romans 5:9-10; John 3:16).

In effect, even before it started, God planned to eliminate his own wrath against humanity. It is a hypothetical construct, since the solution was provided before the problem arose. God's wrath is not like human anger. Human language does not have a word for this sort of temporary-and-already-resolved opposition against humans who are opposed to God. They _deserve_ punishment, but God's desire is not to punish but to rescue them from the pain that their sin causes.

The word _wrath_ can help us understand how strongly God hates sin, but our understanding of the word must always include the facts that

1. God's anger is targeted toward sin, not the people in themselves,

2. God has already acted to end whatever wrath he had toward humans, and

3. his anger against sin will never end, because sin hurts the people he loves.

We thank God that God's wrath disappears when sin is conquered and destroyed. We have assurance in the promise of his peace toward us because he has once and for all dealt with sin in Christ. God has reconciled us to himself in the saving work of his Son, thus ending his wrath. God's wrath, then, is not against his love. Rather, his wrath serves his love. His wrath is a means to bring about his loving purposes for all.

While human wrath rarely if ever accomplishes loving purposes to even a small degree, we cannot project upon God our human understanding and experience of human wrath. Doing so is to commit idolatry, to think of God as if God were a human creature. The wrath of human beings does not work the righteousness of God, says James. God's wrath will not last forever, but his steadfast love will.

Here are some key Scripture passages that demonstrate this relationship between God's love and his wrath unlike what we experience between fallen human beings.

* James 1:20: "Human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires" (NIV throughout).

* Hosea 11:9; 14:4: "I will not carry out my fierce anger, nor will I devastate Ephraim again. For I am God, and not a man—the Holy One among you. I will not come against their cities.... I will heal their waywardness and love them freely, for my anger has turned away from them."

* Micah 7:18: "Who is a God like you, who pardons sin and forgives the transgression of the remnant of his inheritance? You do not stay angry forever but delight to show mercy."

* Nehemiah 9:17: "But you are a forgiving God, gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love."

* Isaiah 54:8: "'In a surge of anger I hid my face from you for a moment, but with everlasting kindness I will have compassion on you,' says the Lord your Redeemer."

* Lamentations 3:31-33, 39: "No one is cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to anyone.... Why should the living complain when punished for their sins?"

* Ezekiel 18:23: "Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign Lord. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live?"

* Joel 2:13: "Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity."

* Jonah 4:2: "He prayed to the Lord, 'Isn't this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.'"

* 2 Peter 3:9: "The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

* 1 John 4:18: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears [punishment] is not made perfect in love."

God's wrath against sin and his elimination of wrath against humans are simultaneously presupposed in his sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to win the final victory over this enemy of God. If God did not war against all forms of sinfulness – if he had no "wrath" against it – he would have seen no need to send his Son in human form as Jesus (John 1:1, 14) to destroy this enemy of his very Being and his purpose for humanity, to live eternally in right relationship with him. God's holiness is committed to making us holy. His righteousness aims to make things right, make all things new. His judgments, his revelation of what leads to life and what leads to death, are to _avoid_ condemnation, the consequences of refusing to submit to his judgments fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

When we read that God so loved the world that he sent his Son – and that whoever believes in him will not perish (John 3:16) – we are to understand from this very act that God is "wrathful" against sin. But in his war against sinfulness, God does not condemn sinful humans, but saves them from sin for reconciliation and eternal life. God's "wrath" is not intended to "condemn the world," but to condemn and destroy the power of sin in all its forms so that humans may have an eternal relationship of love with him.

## About the Authors...

**James Henderson** serves as a leader of Grace Communion International in England.

**Michael Morrison** received a PhD from Fuller Theological Seminary in 2006. He is now Dean of Faculty at Grace Communion Seminary, and associate pastor of a church in Glendora, CA. He is the author of several books, numerous e-books, and is the editor of this book.

**Norman Shoaf** worked for Grace Communion International as a writer and editor.

**Joseph Tkach** has been, since 1995, the president of Grace Communion International. He earned a D.Min. degree from Azusa Pacific Seminary in 2000. He is the author of _Transformed by Truth: The Worldwide Church of God Rejects the Teachings of Founder Herbert W. Armstrong and Embraces Historic Christianity,_ and several e-books.

**Paul Kroll** worked for Grace Communion International as a writer and editor.

The last two articles were written and edited by several GCI personnel.

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## About the Publisher...

Grace Communion International is a Christian denomination with about 50,000 members, worshiping in about 900 congregations in almost 100 nations and territories. We began in 1934 and our main office is in North Carolina. In the United States, we are members of the National Association of Evangelicals and similar organizations in other nations. We welcome you to visit our website at www.gci.org.

If you want to know more about the gospel of Jesus Christ, we offer help. First, we offer weekly worship services in hundreds of congregations worldwide. Perhaps you'd like to visit us. A typical worship service includes songs of praise, a message based on the Bible, and opportunity to meet people who have found Jesus Christ to be the answer to their spiritual quest. We try to be friendly, but without putting you on the spot. We do not expect visitors to give offerings—there's no obligation. You are a guest.

To find a congregation, write to one of our offices, phone us or visit our website. If we do not have a congregation near you, we encourage you to find another Christian church that teaches the gospel of grace.

We also offer personal counsel. If you have questions about the Bible, salvation or Christian living, we are happy to talk. If you want to discuss faith, baptism or other matters, a pastor near you can discuss these on the phone or set up an appointment for a longer discussion. We are convinced that Jesus offers what people need most, and we are happy to share the good news of what he has done for all humanity. We like to help people find new life in Christ, and to grow in that life. Come and see why we believe it's the best news there could be!

Our work is funded by members of the church who donate part of their income to support the gospel. Jesus told his disciples to share the good news, and that is what we strive to do in our literature, in our worship services, and in our day-to-day lives.

If this e-book has helped you and you want to pay some expenses, all donations are gratefully welcomed, and in several nations, are tax-deductible. If you can't afford to give anything, don't worry about it. It is our gift to you. To make a donation online, go to www.gci.org/participate/donate.

Thank you for letting us share what we value most — Jesus Christ. The good news is too good to keep it to ourselves.

See our website for hundreds of articles, locations of our churches, addresses in various nations, audio and video messages, and much more.

Grace Communion International  
3129 Whitehall Park Dr.

Charlotte, NC 28273-3335

1-800-423-4444

www.gci.org

### You're Included...

We talk with leading Trinitarian theologians about the good news that God loves you, wants you, and includes you in Jesus Christ. Most programs are about 28 minutes long. Our guests have included:

Ray Anderson, Fuller Theological Seminary

Douglas A. Campbell, Duke Divinity School

Elmer Colyer, U. of Dubuque Theological Seminary

Gordon Fee, Regent College

Trevor Hart, University of St. Andrews

George Hunsinger, Princeton Theological Seminary

Jeff McSwain, Reality Ministries

Paul Louis Metzger, Multnomah University

Paul Molnar, St. John's University

Cherith Fee Nordling, Antioch Leadership Network

Andrew Root, Luther Seminary

Alan Torrance, University of St. Andrews

Robert T. Walker, Edinburgh University

N.T. Wright, University of St. Andrews

William P. Young, author of _The Shack_

Programs are available free for viewing and downloading at www.youreincluded.org.

### Speaking of Life...

Dr. Joseph Tkach, president of Grace Communion International, comments each week, giving a biblical perspective on how we live in the light of God's love. Most programs are about three minutes long – available in video, audio, and text. Go to www.speakingoflife.org.

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##

Grace Communion Seminary

Ministry based on the life and love of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

Grace Communion Seminary serves the needs of people engaged in Christian service who want to grow deeper in relationship with our Triune God and to be able to more effectively serve in the church.

Why study at Grace Communion Seminary?

 Worship: to love God with all your mind.

 Service: to help others apply truth to life.

 Practical: a balanced range of useful topics for ministry.

 Trinitarian theology: a survey of theology with the merits of a Trinitarian perspective. We begin with the question, "Who is God?" Then, "Who are we in relationship to God?" In this context, "How then do we serve?"

 Part-time study: designed to help people who are already serving in local congregations. There is no need to leave your current ministry. Full-time students are also welcome.

 Flexibility: your choice of master's level continuing education courses or pursuit of a degree: Master of Pastoral Studies or Master of Theological Studies.

 Affordable, accredited study: Everything can be done online.

For more information, go to www.gcs.edu. Grace Communion Seminary is accredited by the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, www.deac.org. The Accrediting Commission is listed by the U.S. Department of Education as a nationally recognized accrediting agency.

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## Ambassador College of Christian Ministry

Want to better understand God's Word? Want to know the Triune God more deeply? Want to share more joyously in the life of the Father, Son and Spirit? Want to be better equipped to serve others?

Among the many resources that Grace Communion International offers are the training and learning opportunities provided by ACCM. This quality, well-structured Christian Ministry curriculum has the advantage of being very practical and flexible. Students may study at their own pace, without having to leave home to undertake full-time study.

This denominationally recognized program is available for both credit and audit study. At minimum cost, this online Diploma program will help students gain important insights and training in effective ministry service. Students will also enjoy a rich resource for personal study that will enhance their understanding and relationship with the Triune God.

Diploma of Christian Ministry classes provide an excellent introductory course for new and lay pastors. Pastor General Dr. Joseph Tkach said, "We believe we have achieved the goal of designing Christian ministry training that is practical, accessible, interesting, and doctrinally and theologically mature and sound. This program provides an ideal foundation for effective Christian ministry."

For more information, go to www.ambascol.org

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