A significant aspect of my job as a pastor is to visit those who are suffering from illness. Several times a week I spend significant time with hurting people, many of whom are nearing the end of their life.
When death does come, some people try to offer comfort by saying something like, “That’s not her. That’s just her body in the grave. She is in heaven.”
But is this how we should think?
While I write this, my daughter sits across the living room from me whose body, for the second day in a row, has a fever. I stayed home to make sure she has the fever-reducer medicine to care for her body, to care for her.
As parents, we invest great amounts of energy and attention caring for the bodies of our children, and rightly so.
God created our bodies, not just our souls (or, if you prefer, spirits). God values us as His image bearers, body and soul.
And in Christ He will lose neither. He is our redeemer, not in part, but in whole.
No one will regret investing all their hope in resurrection.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees our own resurrection at the end of time when Christ returns and God’s gracious eternal plan of redemption is consummated.
The NT writers never tell us to wrap our desires up in going to heaven when we die. Rather, it is the resurrection that provides the beautiful ending (and goal) of the redemption’s story.
“I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Phil. 1:6).
“That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10-11).
“For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first…Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thess. 4:16).
“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection? But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain” (1 Cor. 15:12-14).
No NT writer ever commands us to encourage one another with the truth that someone’s spirit is in heaven (although it is comforting to know that my grandfather is currently enjoying heaven).
We must remember that heaven is just one leg of a round trip. It’s a temporary resting place for those who have died. But it’s not their home. It’s not the end of their story.
The end of their story is resurrection. New creation.
God is getting it all back. The whole earth, the entire cosmos, and yes, even our bodies. It’s all going to be remade, renewed, cleansed, and re-created (Rom. 8:18-25; Rev. 21:1-8).
No one will regret investing all their hope in resurrection.