3. - The Hope Of A General Resurrection.

Many of the Greek philosophers, such as Plato, believed that an immortal soul inhabited a body and that at death the soul left its bodily prison and soared upward to the divine spirit. However, in the Old Testament Sheol/Hades/Hell (Underworld) is the place of the rephaim, the Hebrew term for a weakened existence.

On your account Sheol beneath us
is astir to greet your arrival.
To honour you he rouses the ghosts
of all the rulers of the world.
He makes all the kings of the nations
gets up from their thrones.

Each has something to say
and what they will say to you is this,
So you too have been brought to nothing, like ourselves.
You, too, have become like us.
Your magnificence has been flung down to Sheol
with the music of your harps;
underneath you a bed of maggots,
and over you a blanket of worms. - Is. 14:9-11 - Ezk. 32:17-32 -

These beings, however, are not souls without bodies. Therefore, the psalmist expected that God would ransom his/her soul from Sheol. It was Israel's firm belief in the goodness of God that led the Jewish people to believe that the righteous dead would yet see God. This expectation was the foundation upon which the Jewish ideas concerning the 'resurrection' were built.

Like a sheep to be penned in Sheol,
Death will herd them to pasture
and the upright will have the better of them.
Dawn will come and then the show they made will disappear,
Sheol the home for them!

But God will redeem my life
from the grasp of Sheol, and will receive me.

Do not be afraid when a man grows rich,
when the glory of his/her House increases;
when he/she dies he/she can take nothing with him/her,
his/her glory cannot follow him/her down. - Ps. 49:14-17 -

After my awaking, He will set me close to Him,
and from my flesh I shall look on God. - Job 19:26 -

By the time of Jesus Christ, two positions were firmly entrenched within Judaism. The 'Sadducees' who were oriented to this world, rejected any belief in the 'resurrection'. They believed that such an idea was irrelevant to this life and was not part of the revelation which God gave to Moses. When they encountered Christ Jesus, the Sadducees sought to trap Jesus by their question concerning the seven brothers who married one woman. Jesus criticized their view of 'resurrection' life by indicating that earthly marriage patterns are not repeated in heaven. Jesus also condemned their understanding of Moses and the Sacred Scripture/Holy Bible.

Then some Sadducees - who deny that there is a resurrection - came to Jesus and they put this question to him. 'Master, we have it from Moses in writing, - Deut. 25:5-6 - if a man's brother dies leaving a wife but no child, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first married a wife and then died leaving no children.

The second married the widow, and he too died leaving no children; with the third it was the same, and none of the seven left any children. Last of all the woman herself died. Now at the resurrection, when they rise again, whose wife will she be, since she had been married to all seven?'

Jesus said to them, 'Is not the reason why you go wrong, that you understand neither the sacred scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the dead, men and women do not marry; no, they are like the angels in heaven. Now about the dead rising again, have you never read in the Book of Moses, in the passage about the Bush, how God spoke to him and said: I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob? - Ex. 3:6 - He is God, not of the dead, but of the living. You are very much mistaken. - Mark 12:18-27 - Matt. 22:23-33 - Luke 20:27-40 -

The Pharisees, in contrast, believed in a 'resurrection.' The Jewish historian Josephus reported that the Pharisees held that the good dead are transferred into other bodies. Although this report is not totally clear, it is certain that the Pharisees proclaimed a life after dead that required a resurrection. It was from the ranks of these scholarly Pharisees that the apostle Paul came.

If it came to relying on physical evidence, I should be fully qualified myself. Take any person who thinks he/she can rely on what is physical: I am even better qualified. I was born of the race of Israel and of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrew parents, and I was circumcised when I was eight days old. As for the Law, I was a Pharisee; as for working for religion, I was a persecutor of the Church; as far as the Law can make you perfect, I was faultless. - Phil. 3:4-6 -

Apostle Luke records that in apostle Paul's defense before the Sanhedrin (Jewish Council) Paul stressed that he was a Pharisee of Pharisaic descent and that he was on trail for affirming the 'resurrection'. - Acts 23:6 -

Israel's concepts of the 'resurrection' were born out of her relationship to God in her tumultuous history. At first glance the prophet Isaiah seems to express a view that the 'resurrection' is for the faithful one and that the wicked and evil one may not arise. The Jewish apocryphal 'Book of 2 Maccabees' apparently agreed that for some there will be 'no resurrection to life.'

At the time (Archangel) Michael will stand up, the great prince who mounts guard over your people. There is going to be a time of great distress, unparalleled since nations first came into existence. When the time comes, your own people will be spared, all those whose names are found written in the Book. Of those who lie sleeping in the dust of the earth many will awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting disgrace.

The learned will shine as brightly as the vault of heaven, and those who have instructed many in virtue, as bright as stars for all eternity. But you, Daniel, must keep these words secret and the book sealed until the time of the End. Many will wander this way and that, and wickedness will go on increasing. - Daniel 12:1-4 -

The path of the upright man is straight,
you smooth the way of the upright.
Following the path of your judgements,
we hoped in you, Yahweh,
your name, your memory are all my soul desires.

At night my soul longs for you
and my spirit in me seeks for you;
when your judgements appear on earth
the inhabitants of the world learn the meaning of integrity.

If favour is shown to the wicked,
he does not learn the meaning of integrity.
He does evil in the land of uprightness,
he fails to see the majesty of Yahweh.

Yahweh, your hand is raised,
but they do not see it.
Let them see your jealous love for this people and be ashamed,
let the fire prepared for your enemies consume them.

Yahweh, you are giving us peace,
since you treat us
as our deeds deserve.

Yahweh our God,
other lords than you have ruled us,
but we acknowledge no one other than you,
no other name than yours.

The dead will not come to life,
their ghosts will not rise,
for you have punished them, annihilated them,
and wiped out their memory.

Enlarge the nation, Yahweh, enlarge it,
to the nation grant glory,
extend all the frontiers of the country.

Distressed, we search for you, Yahweh;
the misery of oppression was your punishment for us.
As a woman with child near her time
writhes and cries out in her pangs,

so are we, Yahweh, in your presence:
we have conceived, we writhe
as if we were giving birth;
we have not given the spirit of salvation to the earth,
no more inhabitants of the world are born.

Your dead will come to life,
their corpses will rise;
awake, exult,
all of you who lie in the dust,
for your dew is a radiant dew
and the land of ghosts will give birth. - Isaiah 26:7-19 -

The New Testament consistently teaches love and hope in the 'Resurrection' of the believer based upon "The Resurrection Of Jesus Christ" as the firstborn from the dead. The 'Resurrection Of Jesus Christ' and His [Ascension] exaltation to the right hand of the Father, and the giving of the Holy Spirit are all to be seen as a single complex of events. Although the elements may be viewed as separate happenings, the New Testament, God inspired authors see them as closely integrated theologically. Together they represent the first-fruits of the New Age.

Christ Jesus is the image of the unseen God
and the first-born of all creation,
for in Him were created
all things in heaven and on earth:
everything visible and everything invisible,
Thrones, Dominations, Sovereignties, Powers-
all things were created through Him and for Him.

Before anything was created, He existed,
and He holds all things in unity.
Now the Church is His body,
He is its head.

As He is the Beginning,
He was first to be born from the dead,
so that He should be first in every way;
because God wanted all perfection
to be found in Him

And all things to be reconciled through Him and for Him,
everything in heaven and everything on earth,
when He made peace
by His death on the cross. - Col. 1:15-20 - 1 Cor. 15:1-58 -

We want you to be quite certain, brothers and sisters, about those who have died, to make sure you do not grieve about them, like the other people who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again, and that it will be the same for those who have died in Jesus: God will bring them with Him.

We can tell you this from the Lord's own teaching, that any of us who are left alive until the Lord's coming will not have any advantage over those who have died. At the trumpet of God, the voice of the archangel will call out the command and the Lord himself will come down from heaven; those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise, and then those of us who are still alive will be taken up in the clouds, together with them, to meet the Lord in the air.

So we shall stay with the Lord Jesus Christ for ever. With such thoughts as these you should comfort one another. - 1 Thess. 4:13-18 -

For we know that when the tent that we live in on earth is folded up, there is a house built by God for us, an everlasting home not made by human hands, in the heavens. In this present state, it is true, we groan as we wait with longing to put on our heavenly home over the other; we should like to be found wearing clothes and not without them. Yes, we groan and find it a burden still in this tent, not that we want to strip it off, but to put the second garment over it and to have what must die and taken up into life. This is the purpose for which God made us, and He has given us the pledge of the Spirit. - 2 Cor. 4:1-5 - Rev. 6:9-11 -

Blessed be God the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, who in His great mercy has given us a new birth as His sons, by raising Jesus Christ from the dead, so that we have a sure hope and the promise of an inheritance that can never be spoilt or soiled and never fade away, because it is being kept for you in the heavens. Through your faith, God's power will guard you until the salvation which has been prepared is revealed at the end of time. - 1 Peter 1:3-5 -

For us, our homeland is in heaven, and from heaven comes the Saviour we are waiting for, the Lord Jesus Christ, and He will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of His glorious body. He will do that by the same power with which He can subdue the whole universe. - Phil. 3:20-21 -

Do not be surprised at this,
for the hour is coming
when the dead will leave their graves
at the sound of His voice:
those who did good
will rise again to life;
and those who did evil, to condemnation. - John 5:28-29 -

So significant is "The Resurrection of Jesus Christ" that without it there would be "No Church" or "Christianity".

I never stop thanking God for.......
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Faith . Hope . Love - Welcome donation. Thank You. God bless. 

By bank transfer/cheque deposit:
Name: Alex Chan Kok Wah
Bank: Public Bank Berhad account no: 4076577113
Country: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!

I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.

HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -