It’s Easter Sunday, and so I gave my family the traditional Easter greeting, “Christ is risen!” Instead of responding with the traditional “He is risen indeed”, Sophie absent-mindedly responded “You too”.
The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this faux pas was actually more appropriate than maybe even the traditional answer, which confirms that the second person also believes, but gives no fresh information.
Now it is, after all, because Christ was born in human flesh, lived a perfect life, died on behalf of sinners paying their price and then resurrecting on the third day that we ourselves have the hope of following Him. He is the first-fruits of the Resurrection, the body that dwells in eternity which God had in mind for humans, for His people, all along, can only be acquired this way, by faith and by our death in faith (or ascribed faith in the case of those who did not have the ability to accept the Gospel and would not have rejected it) in Jesus Christ.
Where He goes in this new body, remembered this morning, we go so that we will be where He is. And it is also written that “when we see Him, we shall be like Him”. We will already be in resurrection bodies when our eyes behold him coming to the earth. For those still living it will be as the twinkling of an eye, not two nights and a day in a stone tomb where no-one had yet been laid, as in the case of our Saviour.
It doesn’t matter what has happened to your atoms in the meantime. Maybe your organs, with or without your consent, have gone to save lives or have simply been fed to circus cats. They will be back in full force, perfectly healthy, in a body free from disease or imperfections capable of inhabiting eternity, capable of disregarding the very laws of physics that have constrained your life, senses and even most of your imagination until the time of your changing. If you were cremated and your ashes scattered to the winds and waves, or if you were carefully buried and your body consumed by worms, the worms by ducks and the ducks by various Yorkshiremen, it still doesn’t matter to God. Your resurrection body is part of the New Creation. The atoms He has in Mind for You are still exactly there, in the Mind of God, just as the current style atoms for Adam were prior to the Six-Day Creation. Your body will be returned to you recognisable and yet unrecognisable, as was Jesus when He appeared to them that knew Him best.
This is promised to those who trust in the Lord Jesus Christ for their salvation. He is risen, indeed. Will it be you, too?
Praise the Father who has become our Father in His Son. He is risen as are we in Him.
Thank you for your comments today,
Keith Pimental
joyous easter to you also.
Happy Easter Господин Xyлиганов (and family).
By way of maintaining french listening practice, I listened to the Easter service live (from Lyon, I think ?) on the France Culture radio channel. It was beautiful. The singing was luscious and the sermon interesting. The priest picked up on the word “run” taken from one of Paul’s letters and compared the uses of the word “run” down the ages to the significance it would have had for those immediately aware of the resurrection. Running to spread the word of the risen Jesus as if themselves floating and full of joy.
Even though i still do not have your faith in the accounts given in the NT and in Torah, I still enjoy seeing and hearing the Christian services and ritual (and the rituals of Judaism also-except the circumcision ceremony !) . However, I’m no longer a hard lining Atheist as I now realise how little we ,the human species, understand. As scientifically advanced as we undoubtedly are, there is still an enormous amount we cannot explain. So, resurrection into another realm of existence is perhaps no more unusual or surprising than the behaviour of particles at the quantum level as given by current scientific thought.
Alan.
Indeed. In fact in the Bible it is written that if there were no resurrection, the Christians would be the most miserable of all people, as this is the core of our hope. The world and this life only loses its absurdity and gains sense and hope in the context of the resurrection and the new creation. Just as they say the meaning of Christmas is Easter, so the meaning of Creation is the New Creation.
“Finish then Thy new creation
Pure and spotless let us be
May we see Thy great salvation
Perfectly restored in Thee
Changed from glory into glory
Till in heaven we take our place
Till we cast our crowns before Thee
Lost in wonder, love and praise”.
What happens to our atoms?
From the 12th minute it sort of answers the question, so far this is my favorite theory and incredibly fascinating, it satisfies both the believer and the scientifically minded person.
Regards, Bart
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/through-the-wormhole-is-there-life-after-death/
Great! Many thanks Bart.
Воистину воскресе!