I find it so interesting that when a Christian dies, whether of a disease or of old age, Christians will rejoice, saying things like, He is home now, healed and free as if Death was his Savior instead of his enemy. As if this earth existence is just a temporary bad thing and what really matters is going somewhere else called heaven, and getting out of here is our ultimate salvation. Then why did God even put us on earth? Why not just be born into heaven? I get that it is somewhat comforting to understand that a loved one is in Gods presence, but we need to realize that this is not the glorious hope of the gospel, and it represents a serious discrepancy in our view of Gods creation and his redemptive purpose for his creation. Gods purpose is far greater than simply going to heaven when we die. Folks, I want to suggest to you that Death is not our Savior, it is our ultimate enemy. Gods purpose for creating humans in the universe was not to make us go through some trialling stuff so we can look forward to getting the heck out of here, his purpose was for us to actually live in this miracle we call the universe. Death should be mourned, not celebrated. Death is the ultimate affront to Gods purposes, and death is when we should really realize that creation is not as it should be and that we are awaiting for Christ to make it right and new again. This is why Jesus defeated death by physically resurrecting in this cosmos, not so that we could stay physically dead and spiritually go to another world called heaven, but so that in the age to come, we will physically resurrect too as this creation is renewed to a transfigured universe without the sting of death. So we mourn death, because death is the great enemy of Gods cosmos; yet as Paul said, we dont mourn as those without hope. We mourn as those with hope, because Christ has risen, therefore we shall also rise. As NT Wright said, What God did for Christ at the resurrection he will do for the entire cosmos in the future. The cosmos, and all finally within it, is headed towards resurrection, ascension, and glorification, in the final act that God shall do in Christ, when he brings everything in heaven and on the earth into unity with Christ as head. The early fathers called this the restoration of all things, which Peter said was spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. As some Eastern fathers have called it, the transfiguration of the cosmos. So what happens when we die? According to Paul, it is a sleep-like intermediate state, and yet it is somewhat conscious, perhaps like a dreamstate, as we are in the presence of the Lord, but it is not the end goal, for we are awaiting to be physically embodied beings again in the universe, in an immortal and glorified state, as that is Gods true cosmic design for the human being, and this will happen when Christ comes again and makes all things new. We need to recover the earth-hope/cosmic-hope of the gospel that all of the prophets and apostles proclaimed and that Jesus died and resurrected to guarantee.
Posted on: Thu, 13 Nov 2014 03:03:14 +0000
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