From Eternity to Eternity Part 3

Read I Thessalonians 4:13-18 and II Corinthians 4:12-5:3. Biblical information must be in the mind and heart of the Christian in order for him to be able to overcome the catastrophes of life. Information that remains in a closed Bible cannot help the believer. Every crisis in life, including physical death, is designed to glorify God and to focus attention on His grace.

Job’s suffering was corrective. One must remember that Job lived before any part of the Bible was written. Therefore, we could not expect him to have as clear views of God’s character as persons who have the completed Scriptures. However, we must not underestimate the vast amount of knowledge the patriarch possessed. According to Job, chapters 29 through 31 prove there was deep-seated vileness which he could not help. He did not attribute his condition to either his circumstances or to the social condition of the land of Uz.

Job was not meant to know the explanation of his sufferings. Had God explained the reason, He would have destroyed the very purpose for which Job’s suffering was designed. The Divine purpose was to bring Job to the point where he rested in God Himself, apart from explanations. Job got to that place, according to chapter 42, and so must the elected ones, by the sovereign God. God’s purpose was to prove to the world the power of grace. (Read Job 5.)

Paul’s exposition of I Thessalonians 4:13-18 began on a negative note. This passage of Scripture is considered the greatest proof of the intermediate state of the righteous dead between death and the resurrection. The apostle began by saying he did not wish the brethren to be ignorant concerning those who were falling asleep. Paul turned from the subject of sanctification to the saints falling asleep (present passive participle of koimao, meaning those who were being put to sleep).

“Sleep” is appropriately used for the physical death of Christians because it is expressive of resting and awaking. Some say that death to the Christian is a time of rest for the body, a temporary repose from which the body shall be aroused, a refreshment for a more blessed pleasure, and the hope of a resurrection out of a long sleep that it might enter into eternal happiness. This belief originated in a mind lacking understanding of the subject of eternity and time. Paul used the Greek verb agnoeo (meaning ignorant, unaware, uninformed) on a number of occasions to reveal the ignorance to which the sheep of Christ are subjected (Rom. 1:13; 11:25; I Cor. 10:1; 12:1; II Cor. 1:8; I Thess. 4:13). Paul knew that while religionists are talking about the one-world church, doctrine divides, and service unites, and while talking about looking for Jesus, they will be receiving antichrists who are preparing for “the” antichrist. (See I John 2:18-3:9.)

Listening to Paul in the following statements should be enough to clarify our thinking that goes awry by putting the cart before the horse. Paul said to the Romans, “I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that often I have planned to come to you (and have been prevented so far) so that I may obtain some fruit among you also, even as among the rest of the Gentiles” (Rom. 1:13). The apostle also said, “For I do not want you, brethren, to be uninformed of this mystery—so that you will not be wise in your own estimation—that a partial hardening has happened to Israel until the fullness of the Gentiles has come in; and so all Israel will be saved; just as it is written, the Deliverer will come from Zion, He will remove ungodliness from Jacob. This is My covenant with them, when I take away their sins. From the standpoint of the gospel they are enemies for your sake, but from the standpoint of God’s choice they are beloved for the sake of the fathers; for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable. For just as you once were disobedient to God, but now have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, so these also now have been disobedient, that because of the mercy shown to you they also may now be shown mercy” (Rom. 11:25-31).

In I Corinthians 10, Paul said, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and all ate the same spiritual food; and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness. Now those things happened as examples for us, so that would not crave evil things as they also craved” (I Cor. 10:1-6).

Paul used the same verb when he warned about spiritual gifts in I Corinthians 12:1—“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be unaware.” The Bible is not as full of miracles as many claim. Miracles were among the rarest events in human history. We have the translation of Enoch between creation and the flood. The Tower of Babel comes between the flood and the patriarchs. Isaac comes between the patriarchs and Moses. Miracles were rare between Solomon and Nehemiah. John the Baptist never performed a miracle (John 10:41). God never performed miracles to gratify curiosity, but to satisfy the reasonable demand for evidence that His power was absolute. Biblical miracles had a progressive character: (1) water into wine—power over nature; (2) healing—power over disease; (3) casting out demons—power over Satan; (4) raising the dead—power over death and decay; and (5) miracles of the transitional period, a foretaste of the age to come—the coming kingdom. The absence of miracles is understood if one has the Biblical understanding of the kingdom.

Read II Corinthians 5:1. This refers to our present body—“the earthly tent which is our house is torn down.” But, “we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” “Eternal” means it has been there all the time. “For indeed in this house we groan, longing to be clothed with our dwelling from heaven, inasmuch as we, having put it on, will not be found naked. For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. Now He who prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit as a pledge. Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord—for we walk by faith, not by sight—we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him. For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad” (II Cor. 5:2-10). (Begin studying John 14, which we will cover later.) Read I Corinthians 15:50—“Now I say this, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” “Flesh and blood” will never inherit the kingdom of God, but “flesh and bones” will. There is only one reference to that—“See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have” (Luke 24:39). “Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable must put on the imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord” (I Cor. 15:51-58).

We come now to the passage that will occupy our attention until Christ comes again. As man was changed in Adam from what he was in creation, man must be changed in Christ from what he was in Adam. Paul said to the Thessalonian brethren, “But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words” (I Thess. 4:13-18).

The battle between literalizing and spiritualizing Scripture will never cease as long as men are in time. All Christians believe that some prophecies are to be understood literally and others spiritually. The reality of both cannot be ignored. There are both literal and spiritual descendants of Abraham (John 8:33-40; Rom. 4:16-25; 9:6-8). Surely there is no difficulty understanding the difference between the “seed” and the “children” of Abraham. Resurrection is both spiritual and physical (Eph. 2:1-10; Col. 3:1-4). Prophecies must be interpreted in harmony with God’s prophetic program. Therefore, to take the prophecies of the new heaven and earth and spiritualize them to mean the church (assembly) age makes as much sense as spiritualizing the incarnation. Would those who spiritualize the kingdom, throne, new Jerusalem, and the new heaven and earth go so far as to say Christ had a spiritual body during the days of His flesh on earth? Was Christ’s death only spiritual without a physical demise?

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The NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE—UPDATED EDITION is the source of all Scripture quotations in this message, unless otherwise noted.