The Good News the Resurrection Brings

When I die, I shall rot,” Bertrand Russell declared. With dreadful honesty the famed British philosopher was drawing the logical conclusion of his own materialistic philosophy of life. Two thousand years earlier, the apostle Paul drew the same inevitable conclusion from an identical premise: “without hope,” because “without God” (Eph. 2:12).

The most important question a person can ask is not, “Is there life after death?” but “Is there a God?” And a further question closely follows: “Am I accountable to Him?”

Without life after death, all of Christian faith would lose its significance. Clarence Macartney, brilliant Presbyterian preacher of a generation ago, wrote:

“In certain respects the great article of the Apostles’ Creed is the last: ‘I believe in … the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.’ Without that article, the other great affirmations have no meaning. Suppose one were to say, ‘I believe in God the Father,’ but not in life everlasting; or ‘I believe in the Holy Ghost,’ but not in the life everlasting; or, ‘I believe in … the holy Catholic church, the communion of saints,’ but not in the life everlasting. All those affirmations would be meaningless without the great chord struck in the final sentence of the Creed.” He then notes that without that affirmation the creed would be like a great cathedral wrapped in the gloom of night. But with it, “the Creed is like a great cathedral illuminated by the sun and showing all the glory of the architect, sculptor, and painter.”

Strangely, the Bible tells us little about heaven or the nature of life after death. Much is stated in only negative terms—no tears, no pain, no sorrow, no sighing. Life after death will be very unlike our present life on earth. Yet for some of us, perhaps, eternal life would seem less attractive if God were to tell us a great deal about its nature. We are attracted by the more sensuous joys we find so desirable here on earth. They are the best our minds can grasp (see Rev. 4:3, for instance). And God condescends to use them to comfort us and woo us to the unimaginable delights that are now beyond our power to appreciate or comprehend.

Like Christ

The Bible’s central teaching on everlasting life focuses on four great truths. First, we shall be like Christ. That is God’s goal for each of us. We shall be good—like Christ.

In a recent poll, Americans were asked what they wanted most in life. The largest number wanted good health; next in order was a secure job. These are worthy goals. If we are honest, most of us will readily admit we should greatly like both. But if they are our highest goals, we are headed for disaster. Not everyone in this life will find either good health or a secure job. And with such goals we will be setting ourselves against God, since his ultimate goal for us is that we might be good like Christ.

With Christ

Second, the Bible says everlasting life is with Christ and with God in his eternal kingdom. Though we know little about the furniture of heaven, we know it will be a perfect society of good people. Above all, it will be unending life with the One who is ultimately the source of all good.

What new and exciting tasks shall we be set to by God’s infinitely creative mind? We have no way of conjecturing. We need not fear boredom, however—unless goodness itself is boring to us. Our own tiny corner of the universe with its inconceivable variety offers only a fascinating down payment on the infinite possibilities of the future. The wildest dreams of far-out science fiction cannot begin to hint at what the infinite creativity of the omnipotent, omniscient mind has in store for us.

Integrity Of Body And Soul

Third, the Bible focuses on the integrity of our being. Everlasting life in the plan of God reveals his concern for the whole of each person’s humanity—body and soul. In Scripture, therefore, the resurrection of the body marks our entrance into the eternal mode of existence.

We humans are neither matter nor spirit, but an essential unity of both. Death breaks that. True, the Bible speaks of an existence beyond the grave as the Spirit returns to its Creator (Eccl. 12:7), and we, though “absent from the body,” are “present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8). But Scripture qualifies this interim as an “unclothed” existence awaiting consummation at the grand day of resurrection. We humans can fulfill our destiny only as we are once again brought into wholeness by resurrection from the dead.

No doubt the idea of bodily resurrection brings as many problems to our minds as does human existence without a body. A famous atheist of a century ago, Robert Ingersoll, specially criticized the Christian doctrine that all bodies will one day be raised from the dead. With what body would they possibly be raised? He tried to disprove the doctrine by telling of a man who was buried in a churchyard beside an apple orchard. Later that year, an apple from a tree bordering the cemetery fell near his grave, and a seed sprouted and grew, sending roots into the grave. Eventually the tree bore apples, which the orchard’s owner sold to nearby villagers.

“Now,” Ingersoll asked, “whose body will be raised at the last day?” The chemical elements of the buried man’s body entered through the roots of the tree into the apples, and ultimately became part of the bodies of a variety of villagers. Are we all going to be rather like Siamese twins in heaven?

Anticipating Ingersoll, ancient skeptics in Corinth had likewise raised similar objections, asking the apostle Paul, “With what kind of body will they [the resurrected believers] come?” (1 Cor. 15:35). Paul pointed out that we are aware of varied kinds of physical bodies. By his omnipotent power God will make us a body—a physical body of a kind exactly suited to us and to our new kind of existence in heaven. By his creative power God is not limited to any specific atoms—certainly not to those exact atoms in our body at the time of our death. He can create a new body from chemical elements of his choice, ones exactly suited to our needs, and to our spirit with which it will be rejoined in perfect unity (see 1 Cor. 15:35–44).

This is really not so difficult to understand. Scientists tell us that the human body is constantly wearing away and simultaneously reproducing itself. The chemical elements in any part of our body are not the same as those of a few years ago. But except for the enamel of our teeth and the hardest parts of our large bones, the actual atoms that make up our body now are different from those in our body four or five years ago. And the substance of the soft parts is completely exchanged every few months. Yet we know that our body is the identical one we had last year.

Perhaps the same thing will be true of our resurrection body. The same molecules will not compose it then. We do not know the chemical composition of that body, but we know it will be a body, not just a disembodied spirit. And in spite of changes, it will be just as much our body as our body today is the one we had a year ago. It will be our body because it will be perfectly suited to us and to our spirit. It will complete us by making us that unified whole of body and spirit God intended from the first.

Separation

The fourth scriptural focus regarding everlasting life is most disquieting. Awful as it seems, heaven is not for everyone: our heavenly Father makes it ready for those who are prepared to live in it. Painful as this is to contemplate, it is nevertheless difficult to see how in a moral universe things could be otherwise.

Character is formed and solidified in this life. By faith in Christ, so Scripture teaches, we are forgiven our sins and enter into life with God. Judicially, God receives us from the day we believe as being all we ought to be, since we possess the righteousness of Christ. The Bible calls this justification by faith. But this is only the first step in a process that prepares us for everlasting life in God’s good kingdom. Bit by bit, our heavenly Father transforms our inward self into perfect Christlikeness. To do this he uses the process of life and death, climaxed when we are ushered into his immediate presence. Without this transformation, we would not be fitted to live with God in his good kingdom. We would not even enjoy it!

We are not puppets moved by divine caprice, but humans whose character is formed more and more surely through the experiences of life. Some choose evil, and their character is formed and solidified in evil. They unfit themselves for God and his holy kingdom. Only by destroying their personal integrity, trifling with their wills, and ignoring their moral character built over a lifetime could God transform them into beings suited to his perfect society. For reasons we do not fully understand (see Rom. 9:22), God allows them to forge their own evil destiny.

But for those God is preparing to dwell with him forever in his kingdom of the good, the old familiar words of the confession become a shout of triumph: “I believe in the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting.”

KENNETH S. KANTZER

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.