#DailyDevotion The Resurrection Of The Body Is Our Teaching, Not Becoming Angels
Acts 4:1-4 While they were talking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees stepped up to them, 2much annoyed because they were teaching the people and preaching that in Jesus the dead rise. 3They arrested them, and since it was already evening, they put them in prison until the next day. 4But many of those who had heard the Word believed, and the number of the men grew to about 5,000.
So remember from last Sunday the Apostles Peter and John healed a beggar at the Temple gate. The crowd was amazed and the Apostles let the crowd know it was by the authority Jesus’ name whom they and the rulers had crucified but God had raised him from the dead.
The priests instead of repenting of their sin and believing the Apostles’ message have the two arrest now because “they were teaching the people and preaching that in Jesus the dead rise.” Now the Sadducees were going to be doubly annoyed at this because a. they had Jesus killed and b. they don’t believe in the resurrection of the body on the Last Day.
Now hopefully this Easter season we all can get this into our hearts and our minds. Jesus didn’t rise on the third day so we can be bodiless spirits floating around on the clouds. He didn’t rise from the dead so we could become angels or our loved ones guardian angels. Jesus rose on the third day so that we too, at the end of this age, rise bodily from the dead like he rose bodily from the dead. What did he tell his disciples? “Touch me and see that I am not a ghost but have flesh and bone.” So while we may not know exactly what sort of body well will have at the eschaton (Last Day), we know it will be like Jesus’ body, flesh and bone, and glorified as his body has been glorified.
We often spend a lot of time speculating on what happens to us when we die. If you are in Christ, who cares. It is a drop in the bucket of eternity compared to the life we will spend with God in our resurrected spiritual bodies. We need to spend more time contemplating what we will be like when we are resurrected. We need to spend more time thinking about what the New Heavens and New Earth are going to be like. We need to spend more time thinking about what it will be like to see our Redeemer in our own flesh with our own eyes and not another’s. We need to speak more about the resurrection and less about about some temporal time as bodiless spirits in heaven. That is not our hope. That is not the central teaching of Jesus Christ.
The central teaching of Jesus Christ is that he has died for our sins and is risen from the dead. Because he is risen all will rise from the dead on the Last Day. Some will rise to eternal life and shine like the brightness of the stars. These are they who have put their faith in Jesus Christ and his name. The others will rise to eternal perdition and be cast into the lake of fire made by God to punish the fallen angels. What a glorious day that will be when we are raised whole and undefiled with bodies no longer hampered by sin but living only by the power of the Holy Spirit. Our lives today compare not to what we will live like with one another no longer driven by selfishness and self-centeredness but by love of God and love of neighbor. Come Lord Jesus!
Heavenly Father, grant that we may live by faith in our risen Lord Jesus Christ and by that faith begin to live the resurrected life in this age as we await the resurrection of our bodies in the next. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.