#DailyDevotion The Lord Is The God Of The Living
Luke 2037“That the dead rise, Moses showed in the story about the bush when he called the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38He’s not the God of the dead but of the living. All who are with Him are alive.” 39“Teacher,” some Bible scholars told Him, “You have told the truth.” 40No one dared to ask Him another question.
In Jesus’ discussion with the Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection, they had asked the question about whose wife a woman would be who had been widowed multiple times. Jesus teaches them and us that at the resurrection we are like the angel in that a. we don’t die and b. we don’t marry. So now he brings it all to a head with the comment that the dead rise because when the LORD named himself, he called himself he God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. These persons are with the LORD and he is still their God. If they were dead, the reasoning is, they wouldn’t have a God any longer. However, Jesus says, “All who are with Him are alive.”
This brings us to the very nature of life and death. On the one hand there is medical life and death, that is what we can see and observe. On the other hand there is actual life and death. So in the garden, God told Adam the day he ate the fruit is the day he would die. Adam ate the fruit. Adam died that very day. He was no longer with the LORD. The life of the LORD was no longer in him. Was Adam still respirating, blood-circulating and having brain synapses firing off? Sure, but that is not life as God knows it.
The zombie apocalypse happened way back in the garden. Paul tells us in Eph. 2:1 “You, too, were dead in your transgressions and sins,…” Seriously, the world is full of the undead. But there is a cure for zombieism. Jesus’ death and resurrection is the cure. His promises give us life. Jesus says in John 1125“I am the Resurrection and the Life…Anyone who believes in Me will live even if he dies. 26Yes, anyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” You get that? If you believe in Jesus still lives even if they are medically dead. Bigger than that, we never die when we have faith in Jesus. Just as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are with the LORD and living so we too who have faith in Jesus are with him and more importantly he is with us. Jesus is the Lord of the living. As Christians we never die. We may close our eyes in death but we are still alive for we are with the LORD.
Eternal life is a very present possession. It is yours now in Christ Jesus. The effects of possessing eternal life means there is a resurrection. That is Jesus’ point about the three patriarchs. They are alive with the LORD. If they are alive then there must be a resurrection. We are not meant to be disembodied spirits. We are human beings. God became a human being. The God-Man(human being) rose from the dead still as a human being and ascended to the right hand of the Father. Since this is so, you too, who believe in him are joined to him and his resurrection. It is not God’s will you become angels. God did not become and angel and die for them (Heb. 1). He became one of us. Becoming one of us he preserves us in our human nature, redeems it and resurrects it on the Last Day. This is our hope as Christians. We confess it in all the creeds. I believe in the resurrection of body. And so it will be. Place your hope and the hope of your loved ones in the hope of the resurrection.
Heavenly Father, you gave your life, the life of your Son Jesus Christ to the world so we may regain the life you first gave to our parents. Grant us faith in Christ Jesus that we may possess his life now and on the day of the resurrection to dwell with you and the Holy Spirit in your Son, in whose name we pray. Amen.