As I was musing over this one morning on one of my walks, I found myself praying to God.  He asked me to take a good look at all this wealth, blessing and provision.  Then he asked me to imagine myself (as he often does) a million years into the future.  Looking back on those few days in the pastor’s neighbourhood helps me to keep things in perspective.  It helps me to realize that my entire life is simply a short temporary stay in (as it were) a borrowed house.  What my Father has in store for me, when I get where he wants me, will be so magnificent that those few days among the well-off will seem like slumming.

God planted a garden

God had taken the elements of the ground (Hebrew: ‘adamah) and created a man (Hebrew: ‘adam).¹  He picked a spot of ground on the same planet and planted a rich and beautiful garden.² The garden was given to Adam for three expressed reasons:

1. enjoyment.

The trees and other contents of the garden of Eden were designed to be “pleasant to the sight.”³  Long before scientists would invent the word ecosystem God had created one, and Adam had the pleasure of watching it work.  The interplay between flora and fauna was – no doubt – amazing.

Even now, after thousands of years of corruption and dysfunction caused by sin – the planet is a marvel to behold.  This planet’s ecosystem combines a varied geography with the peculiarities of myriads of species of plant and animal life, and produces an unsurpassed beauty.  But it is more than just beauty.  Our planet is a delight to behold because it all fits together in such an orderly system.

The ancients looked at creation and saw evidence for the existence of God because the world is a design that functions well.  They reasoned from the design to a designer.  They argued that if one found a watch in the sand, he would never imagine that the watch just emerged out of nothingness.  Its design was too complicated for that.  Just looking at the planet leads people back to its creator.

Eden was like that.  Every blade of grass, every tree, every marvellous species of animal life – caused Adam to reflect upon the one who created it all.  It was all “pleasant to the sight” and reminded Adam of the one who gave him eyes to see. Rather than distracting Adam, all this stuff enhanced Adam’s relationship with God.  That is what the next paradise will be for.

1. life

The trees of the garden were designed to be “good for food.”⁴  God had created Adam – not immortal like he was, but mortal: dependant upon the ground from which he was made.  The ground would produce plants which would sustain the life of his soul.  God had created him from the ground, and then breathed into his body the breath of life. The resulting combination was a living soul.⁵  If Adam had not eaten, his body would have starved to death, and returned to the ground from which it had been fashioned.  God wanted to preserve the man he created.  He gave Adam what he needed to sustain his life.

Paradise was more than just a nice place to look at.  It was designed to sustain life.  That is also what the new heavens and new earth will do.  Death and all associated with it will pass away.⁶ Look at our future home and you will see a river of life flowing through it, and a tree of life in the midst of it.⁷  Paradise will be eternal life for redeemed humanity.

1. meaning

Adam was placed in Eden “to work it and keep it.”  That marvellous ecosystem

will require the human touch to ensure that it continues to be all that God intended it to be.  Adam enjoyed his work.  Each day brought new discoveries.  He “gave names to all the livestock and to the birds of the heavens and to every beast of the field.”⁸  Every new discovery brought Adam even more appreciation of his God, as he categorized and celebrated the magnificent provision.

That is what the next paradise will be like.  We will have an eternity to continue seeing what we have never seen before, and marvelling at the elaborate richness of our inheritance.

God performed surgery

Nevertheless, the paradise of Eden was missing something that led God to pronounce it “not good.”⁹  Adam needed “a helper fit for him.”  Instead of forming this creature out of the ‘adamah as he had done all the others, God decided to perform the first recorded surgery, and fashion her out of ‘adam himself. Have you ever stopped to ask why the creator did so?  He was creating a bride for his son, Adam.  She would prefigure the bride for his Son, Jesus.  She must be “a helper fit for him.” She must fit the criteria for the bride of Christ.

1. She must be IN HIM.

Eve began as part of Adam.  She was in Adam.  She literally came from him.  If there had never been an Adam, there could never have been an Eve.  She depended upon him for her life and for her destiny.  The LORD God took her from Adam and brought her to Adam.  Adam called her “bone of (his) bones and flesh of (his) flesh.”

In the same way, the next paradise (the new heavens and new earth) will be populated only by those who are in Christ. To be in him then, we must be in him now.

1. She must be FIT TO RULE.

Adam was a servant of God, and a ruler for God.  He had been created so that he could have dominion over the “fish of the sea and the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that was moving on the earth.”¹⁰  God had placed all of his domains under man’s dominion.  If Eve was going to be “a helper fit for him” she must be able to rule at his side, to help him rule, to reign with him.

Does not the Scripture say that we, the bride of Christ, will reign with him¹¹ in his eternal kingdom?  The next paradise, the new heavens and new earth will only be populated by kings and queens.  We learn to serve under Christ so that we can someday rule with him.

1. He must sleep before SHE CAN LIVE!

The most remarkable picture that this surgery presents us with is a picture of Christ’s sacrificial death.  “The LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.”¹²  Sleep in the Bible is a metaphor for death.  Adam’s deep sleep was not death, but it was described in terms that prefigured Christ’s sleep in the tomb.  Just as Adam had to fall asleep in order for Eve to be created, so Christ had to die on the cross in order to give life to his bride.

It was also essential that Adam wake from his sleep.  He had to experience his resurrection so that he and his bride could come together and enjoy paradise together.  So, the surgery in Eden prefigured the atonement, and the aftermath of the surgery prefigured the next paradise: the new heavens and the new earth.

Genesis 2 concludes with the record that “the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”¹³  This would be the last time something like that could be said, for shame and sorrow followed on the heels of sin – which was introduced into humanity’s story in the very next chapter.  But the picture of paradise in Genesis 2 rightly ends with both bride and bridegroom enjoying the garden and each other’s company without shame.  Humanity’s shame will be replaced with God’s glory.  John describes the holy city as shining with the glory of God, the glory of kings, and the glory and the honour of the nations.¹⁴

I enjoyed my recent stay in the neighbourhood where “the other half lives.” It has got me to thinking about my destiny.  Do you share that destiny? Are you in Christ?  Are you his bride?  There will be a paradise tomorrow, but it only awaits those who are in Christ today.

1. Genesis 2:7.
2. Genesis 2:8.
3. Genesis 2:9.
4. Genesis 2:9.
5. Genesis 2:7.
6. Revelation 21:4.
7. Revelation 22:1-2.
8. Genesis 2:20.
9. Genesis 2:18.
10. Genesis 1:28.
11. 2 Timothy 2:12; Revelation 20:6; 22:5.
12. Genesis 2:21.
13. Genesis 2:25.
14. Revelation 21:22-26.

Republished from marmsky.wordpress.com with permission

It is clear from what Paul says in this chapter that some in the Corinthian churches were trying to downplay the doctrine of the resurrection.  Paul encourages the Corinthians to continue to preach it, because the victory that the believer has is the resurrection.  If you take away the resurrection, Christianity is an empty religion with no real hope, and believers are “of all people most to be pitied” (19).   The reason is that all human beings are born mortal. We have a death sentence hanging over us because of Adam’s rebellion.  We imitate Adam by being creatures who return to the dust.  But the resurrection gives us an opportunity to imitate Christ, the man from heaven (48).  This will happen at the last trumpet, when Christ returns (52-53).    The resurrection is our victory.

LORD, give us the courage and the wisdom to keep preaching the resurrection.

Republished from marmsky.wordpress.com with permission

The context of Paul’s earthly tent passage is Paul’s jars of clay passage.  He is defending his speaking ministry by saying that he speaks by faith, “knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence” (4:14). His faith is not in a conscious intermediate state, but in the resurrection from the dead.  He does not want to be found naked (the intermediate state) but to be clothed with immortal life at the resurrection (5:4).  Since he has this hope, he is able to face tribulation and death confidently, knowing that anything he faces in this life is but a “light momentary affliction” (4:17).  His hope is in a permanent “building from God” (5:1).

LORD, we put our faith in you, and confidently expect you to bring us out of this temporary state and into a permanent one.

General Resurrection

In proclaiming Himself to John the Apostle in the vision on Patmos, one of the things the Lord said about Himself was, “{I} have the keys of hell and of death” (Rev. 1:18).  He was thus informing John, and the churches, of His power to release those who had died, from the bonds of death.

In each of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation chapters two and three, promises are made to overcomers which can only become true through the resurrection of those addressed, as all of them are now dead.   In addition, to the church of Smyrna He says, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life” (2:10).  What is this, but a promise that if they die as martyrs for the faith, there will be a resurrection?

In Revelation 11:18 we find the words, “The time of the dead, that they should be judged (is come)”.    The verse goes on to say that God’s servants, prophets, and saints, will be rewarded, and that those who destroy the earth will be destroyed.   Obviously this judgement cannot take place unless there is a resurrection first.

The final picture of the resurrection is in Revelation chapter 20.   Commenting on verse 5  Dr. Schofield writes:  “Although it is shown in both the O.T. and N.T. that the resurrection of the just to life eternal, and the resurrection of the lost to everlasting condemnation, are distinct from one another…here for the first time the precise interval between the two resurrections is revealed as a period of 1000 years.”    Those who take part in the first resurrection are blessed, because the second death will have no power over them  (v. 6). In v. 13  details of the resurrection to judgement are given – the dead are raised even from the sea, and death and hell (margin: the grave) deliver up the dead.

In the next chapter, and almost at the end of the Biblical record, we read that beautiful verse, Rev. 21:4.   The resurrection having taken place, “there shall be no more death”.

Resurrection of Christ

In Revelation 1 a glorious vision of the resurrected and glorified Christ is opened to our eyes.   As He speaks to John, He declares, “I am he that liveth and was dead” (v. 18).   He repeats this affirmation in His letter to Smyrna, “These things saith the first and the last, which was dead and is alive” (2:8).

In  the vision seen in Revelation chapter 4 a Lamb appears.    It was “a Lamb as it had been slain”, but it was now very much alive.   The Lamb, of course, represents the Lord Jesus Christ, who had died and been resurrected.  The Lamb appears a number of times in the book of Revelation, though the emphasis is usually on His death rather than His restoration to life; nevertheless His eternal glory is clearly depicted, as in 17:14.

CONCLUSION

Because the emphasis of this thesis has been on resurrection, we have not taken up the many verses speaking of eternal life.  Yet it is obvious there can be no eternal life for the masses born into this world who have already died, unless there is a resurrection.     And this we have abundantly verified from both Old and New Testament Scriptures.

We have seen the prophecies of both the general resurrection and of  Christ’s resurrection in the Old Testament, and the confirmation and

fulfillment of these prophecies in the New Testament.

Why is the resurrection such a vital truth?   Because on it hinges many important Christian doctrines.   Christ’s return, the gift of immortality to believers, the final judgement, the new heavens and the new earth are all dependent on the resurrection of the dead.

Regarding the resurrection of Christ, George Lindley Young (1866-1944) says,

“The fact of Christ’s resurrection sustained his claims, confirmed his atoning work, and    determined him to be the Son of God in truth…It was our Lord’s resurrection that made possible this ascent to the Father; made possible the forwarding of his mediatorial work;    even makes possible the completion of his redemptive work at his final return, his raising    of the dead and the bestowment on them of immortal glory.   Indeed the future and endless life of our Lord’s followers is somehow bound up with the great fact of his triumph over death…” ¹

To conclude, I quote Tanya Ferdinandusz (ellipsis is the author’s): “Think of a loved one who has died.  Picture her or him standing taller, stronger, and more beautiful than you remember, unmistakably and gloriously alive, smiling…and walking towards you.   That’s our resurrection hope!  Believe, and praise God!”²

Beryl Ching, spent over 40 years on the mission field in India. Returning to New Zealand to “retire”, Beryl was for a long time secretary of the Conditional Immortality Association. ‘Resurrection as Revealed in the Old Testament and Confirmed in the New testament’ is the full title of her Thesis presented to the Faculty of the Freelandia Institute Biblical Theological College in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Biblical Studies.

1. quoted in “Resurrection: His and Ours” by David A. Dean, Advent Christian General Conference of America, Inc., 1977
2. Tanya Ferdinandusz, Daily Bread, January-March 2005, p. 67.  Scripture Union International.