Hoping For Heaven

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An article the other day in the BBC online News Magazine said this:

A survey has suggested that many people believe children need to learn about Christianity to understand English history. But which bits of religious education do people need to brush up on…?

One of them, it said, is heaven and hell. I quote:

It’s hard to grasp what a solid reality the afterlife was to most British people before the 20th century.

That’s right, and it’s a terrible indictment of how far we’ve fallen away from robust Biblical Christian faith. So it’s good that on this Advent Sunday evening my title is HOPING FOR HEAVEN. I want us to focus our attention on the apostle Paul’s great chapter on the resurrection – 1 Corinthians 15, and the second part of that, verses 35-58.

And let’s be clear at the outset that the hope of heaven is a theme of Christian discipleship without which none of the rest of it makes sense. Its severe neglect in our day is a key reason for the enfeeblement of the Christian church in our nation. We’ve lost sight of where we’re headed. We desperately need to listen afresh to the apostle Paul. So:

First, WITHOUT A ROBUST HOPE OF RESURRECTION WE’LL MOVE WHEN WE SHOULD STAND STILL AND WE’LL STOP WHEN WE SHOULD KEEP GOING

That’s a mouthful of a heading, I know. It derives from 1 Corinthians 15v58. As I said, I want to start at the end. Here’s that verse:

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Cor. 15v58)

There are two images here. There’s the image of the follower of Christ standing his or her ground, holding the line. The reason that’s difficult is that there are all kinds of pressures pushing us to move off the ground of faithfulness to Christ and his word. Satan uses all the tactics he can think of. We latch on to the attractions of sin that promise so much and deliver so little. The Godless world around us both entices us and bullies us to conform to its ways. So the pressures we face to move off the foundation of Jesus is very great. But we mustn’t budge.

There’s also the image of getting on with the work – going places for God. And those same pressures from the world, the flesh and the devil are working very hard to stop us working for Jesus.

So Paul says on the one hand stand firm – let nothing move you. And on the other hand always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord – let nothing stop you. Why not? Because you know that all this hard work for the cause of Christ is not in vain. That is, you already know what the end result of all your work is going to be. How? Well, that takes us back to the first word of this verse: “Therefore…” That is, “Because of everything I’ve said in this chapter so far”, stand firm and keep going. And what’s he been saying? We can sum it up in one word: RESURRECTION. That’s our hope in a nutshell. Resurrection. And that’s what motivates us to faithful following of Jesus in the face of otherwise overwhelming pressures.

Now that’ll make sense to you if you’re a believer. But some of you here will have no clear hope of resurrection at all. Let me say a word to you.

Some of you, as you look towards death, will simply anticipate darkness. If that’s you, and if deep down you yearn for an alternative to a future of black darkness, then please take a long hard look at Jesus, who said of himself that he is the light of the world.

Others of you won’t be certain. You just have vague notions of some kind of existence beyond death but it’s all incoherent and unclear in your mind. To you I would say that we don’t need to be vague and unclear, because there is one who has uniquely been through death and come back to tell us what lies beyond. And that, of course, is Jesus. So find out from him what the truth is.

What we all need in the face of the difficulties of life and the reality of death is a robust hope of resurrection.

Admittedly it’s a long time ago now, but I remember well the year when Vivienne and I were engaged. In many ways it was a hard time for us. But what enabled us to get through it was the knowledge that the difficulties of the engaged state were temporary. Before long we’d be married and those difficulties would end. And so they did. Plenty of new difficulties came along, of course, but that’s another story. All the difficulties of engagement are just a distant memory for us now. The knowledge we all have as believers of our future resurrection life is what enables us to get through our hardships now. However severe those hardships may be, they are temporary.

The great reformer John Calvin, commenting on this chapter, said:

If the resurrection hope was taken away, the whole structure of religion would collapse in ruins, as if the foundation had been torn out.

Which brings me to the next section:

Secondly, IT IS CHRIST WHO GIVES US THE HOPE OF RESURRECTION IN THE FACE OF DEATH

Shift up the page now to verses 56-57. Here they are:

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (v56-57)

God is God. He made us. He is Lord. He knows what is best for us. That’s what he’s set out in his law – the maker’s instructions. We owe it to God to live according to his law. We even owe it to ourselves if we know what’s best for us. But at the heart of our troubles is that we don’t want God to be God. We’d rather that we ran our own lives without reference to him. And that’s what we do. And that’s sin. So the due penalty of the law falls to our account. And there’s the sting. That’s what makes death deadly. Because the wages of sin is eternal death. Far from the hope of heaven, the price of our sin is that all we have to look forward to is hell – not heaven.

Or that would be case, but for Jesus. In a way that’s wonderful beyond words, Christ has drawn the sting. When he poured out his blood for us on the cross, he was dying the death we deserved. He was paying what we owed. Then after his death on the third day he rose from the dead into a transformed resurrection life. By so doing he made sure that death itself would be buried for ever. The resurrection of Jesus was what Paul calls back in v 23 “the firstfruits”. Those who belong to him will share in the resurrection that he has pioneered.

Randy Alcorn’s book ‘Heaven’ is a systematic, very helpful and inspiring discussion of what the new heaven and the new earth will be like according to Scripture. He says:

The physical resurrection of Jesus Christ is the cornerstone of redemption – both for mankind and for the earth. Indeed without Christ’s resurrection and what it means – an eternal future for fully restored human beings dwelling on a fully restored Earth – there is no Christianity.

The resurrection hope that we have is entirely dependent on Jesus. It comes through him alone. He it is who gives us the victory. It is Christ who gives us the hope of resurrection in the face of death.

But how are we going to experience that? That brings me to my next heading:

Thirdly, UNDERSTAND THE STAGES ON OUR JOURNEY TO THE KINGDOM OF GOD

What does Paul have to say about this? Take a look now at verses 50-55:

I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.” “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (v50-55)

To understand what’s going on there clearly, there are three key points to grasp. They’re there as those bullet points on the outline.

First, what’s the situation for us now? We are mortal humans – both body and soul – and our home is here on this decaying earth for this stage of our lives. It’s not that we are essentially human souls who have temporarily taken up residence in earthly bodies like renting a holiday cottage. Our bodies are as much us as our souls. To be human means to be body-and-soul.

Secondly, what happens when we die? To understand that, we need to know that, in some way that’s beyond our ability to grasp clearly, there is another place, separate from this cosmos we inhabit but just as real even though we cannot see it. The Bible calls that other place heaven. And heaven is the dwelling place of God.

At the ascension, the risen Jesus went to heaven. That is where he is now, at the right hand of God. There with him are the angels. When we die, our dead body remains here, but our soul is taken to heaven to be with Christ. This is a temporary state, with body and soul separated by death. This heaven, separate from earth, is not our permanent home. It is not our final destiny.

The apostle Paul calls this stage “sleeping”. This is the sleep of death. The clergyman-poet John Donne used this image in his poem ‘Death Be Not Proud’, which ends:

One short sleepe past, we wake eternally,And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

There’s a lot we don’t know about this state. But we do know that if we’ve put our trust in Christ, then when we die we’ll be safe with Christ. And we’ll be waiting. What for? That’s the third key point.

So, thirdly, there is a day when Christ will return to this world, this earth, from heaven where he is now. We don’t know when that will be, but we do know that day is getting closer all the time and it could be soon so we need to be ready for it now. When Christ returns he will, as it were, bring heaven with him. The angels will accompany him. So will the souls of all those who’ve already died and are sleeping. And that will be the day of resurrection.

Those who’ve already died will be raised from death, body and soul, as Jesus was. They’ll enter into a new resurrection existence, body and soul. Those still alive here on that day will be transformed into this new resurrection existence without passing through death, “in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye,” as Paul says. And this whole world, this earth, this cosmos will itself be raised from death and renewed. As Paul says in Romans 8.21:

… the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. (Romans 8v21)

It will be renewed into a glorious new resurrection existence which will be a fitting home for all the countless millions of resurrected people of God. Heaven and earth will be united eternally, and God and his people will live together in peace and joy.

Joni Eareckson Tada is an American Christian woman who broke her back many years ago in a diving accident as a teenager. She’s paraplegic. She says:

Somewhere in my broken, paralyzed body is the seed of what I shall become. The paralysis makes what I am to become all the more grand when you contrast atrophied, useless legs against splendorous resurrected legs. I’m convinced that if there are mirrors in heaven (and why not?), the image I’ll see will be unmistakeably ‘Joni,’ although a much better, brighter Joni.

And that brings me to my final heading.

Fourthly, THE NEW HEAVEN AND EARTH WILL BE OUR HOME FOR EVER

The new heaven and earth is the Kingdom of God to which we look forward. And it is the nature of this resurrected world and resurrection existence that Paul discusses so wonderfully in verses 35-49. We can’t go through it in detail now. I urge you to do that for yourselves. But you can see in verse 35 the question that he’s answering:

But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” (v35)

In other words, what’s this resurrection life going to be like? Now to the extent that that’s a question so loaded with scepticism that it’s effectively a denial that resurrection is possible, Paul says (verse 36):

How foolish! (v36)

He says we already understand that seeds are transformed into plants, and that different kinds of creatures have different kinds of bodies that are suitable to them. And so it will be when we compare the age to come with this age.

We will have renewed resurrection bodies. They will be God-given to suit our new eternal existence. They will be the same bodies we have now, but different. Transformed. Resurrected. Perfected. But the same. Just as a seed is the same as the plant that it becomes, but different. Verses 42-44:

So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. (v42-44)

We will be physical beings – body and soul – in a physical world, but imperishable, glorious, powerful and spiritual. Spiritual not in the popular sense of being insubstantial and without any physical existence. Far from it. We will have spiritual bodies – spiritual in the sense that they will be bodies ideally suited to the new, eternal age of the Kingdom of God.

And the best way we can envisage this is to look at the reality of the risen Jesus during those forty days when he showed himself on earth before returning to his Father in heaven. We will be like him. So Paul says in verse 49:

And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man [that’s Adam], so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven. (v49)

We will be like the risen Christ.

The new earth will be the perfect physical and eternal home for the vast number of redeemed and resurrected people of God. We will be God’s people in God’s place under God’s rule – for ever. That will be the fullness of God’s blessing. We will glorify God and enjoy him for ever. We will enjoy feasting and fellowship with the rest of God’s people. And we will enjoy God’s good creation – with all the best, we might say, of town and country.

All the best of earthly life will be present and transfigured. Everything we’ve put on hold for now to serve the Kingdom of God we’ll be able to enjoy. Personally I’m looking forward to building some spectacular bridges; and going mountaineering (for which, this side of the new heaven and earth, I am too scared and too decrepit). I’d also like to learn to cook.

What are you looking forward to? What is your hope? Is it in line with this amazing God-given resurrection vision in 1 Corinthians 15? Because, given all the pressures on us from the world, the flesh and the devil, unless we have a robust hope of resurrection we’ll move when we should stand still, and we’ll stop when we should keep going. Verse 58:

Therefore, my dear brothers, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. (v58)

Last week we heard that John Chapman had died. He was a great Australian evangelist, known to many as Chappo. He lead two key missions here at JPC in the ‘90s when this church grew significantly. He was 82 when he died. I listened to a talk he gave a few years ago. He said then that at his age the approach of death made you think. In his typically droll way he said that he was 78; and the life span of the average Australian male was 79.

I remember when he was here he would tell how at times on waking in the morning he would just feel like rolling over and going back to sleep. But he would say to himself (and you’ll have to imagine the Aussie accent), “Chappo, did Jesus rise from the dead? Yes. Well then, get up and get on with your quiet time. There’s work to do.” That is 1 Corinthians 15.58 in action.