Introduction
The typical North-American Christian worldview is one that values the spiritual but often sees little value in how God uses the physical. After all, Protestant America often views baptism as something that a Christian does to show that he is a Christian; the water may simply be incidental. The wine (or grape juice) and bread in the Lord’s Supper have little significance except that they are something the Christian eats and drinks to remember what Jesus did to save him.
This worldview of valuing the spiritual, but not the physical, also permeates how many view eternal life. For many Christians, when sometimes dies and his soul is in heaven, that provides the comfort they seek because the person “is no longer suffering.” For some, pointing to some other greater reality can even be viewed as being anti-heaven or taking away from the lack of suffering and joy that someone experiences now in heaven!
If the soul in heaven is our final reality, then who cares about the resurrection of the body on the Last Day? That event simply becomes a footnote rather than a main event for the Christian. If the soul in heaven is our final reality, then praying for those who have died in the faith (as our Lutheran Confessions assert has value) also serves no purpose.
However, when we look in the pages of the New Testament, we will find such a worldview as not only alien to the New-Testament writers, but also deficient.
The Sacraments
The salvation-creating and salvation-strengthening work that God does in and through the Sacraments are based on Jesus’ incarnation. Think about it? When did the rule and reign of God, our salvation, begin to take effect? It began when Jesus became incarnate–no incarnation, no salvation. Because Jesus became human to save us, and our salvation is connected to Jesus’ work for us as someone fully human, having both a body and soul. Our salvation required Jesus to have a body and soul because He saved us body and soul.
- Discuss the hypothetical situation of Jesus only saving our souls.
Romans 6:3-4:
Don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore, through baptism, we were buried with him into his death so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too can walk in newness of life.
- In what two ways does this passage point to a physical reality that awaits the Christian?
1 Corinthians 11:26: For as often as you eat this bread and drink from this cup [in the Lord’s Supper], you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.
- In the Lord’s Supper we receive Jesus’ body and blood for the forgiveness of sins. But what event does the Lord’s Supper point us toward?
- Discuss: The Last-Day anticipation of the Lord’s Supper pointing us as see the Last Day as the fulfilment of our salvation.
In Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, God uses material matter of His creation (water, bread and wine), applied to our bodies, to create and strengthen our faith. This physical aspect of the Sacraments also point us to another physical reality: sharing in the resurrection of Jesus when our bodies are raised and reunited to our souls.
- Discuss: How some of you may have been taught, or not taught, to value of God’s use of created matter in His Sacraments.
The Last Day as the hope the Christian has
If you were to read though the entire New Testament, you would find almost every book in the New Testament points to the return of Christ on the Last Day or the resurrection of the body as that which encourages us in the faith. The only books not having such references are Galatians, Philemon, 2 John, and 3 John. The sheer volume relating to Christ’s return and the resurrection of the body should form us also to have such a worldview of its importance.
Here are just some passages (not all!) that point to the resurrection of the body on the Last Day: Job 19:25-27, Isaiah 26:19, Ezekiel 37:13, Daniel 12:2, Matthew 22:29-32, Matthew 25:31-32, Mark 12:24-27, Luke 14:13-14, Luke 20:34-38, John 5:28-29, John 6:39-40, Acts 17:31, Acts 24:15, Acts 26:8, Romans 8:11, 1 Corinthians 15:12, 11 Corinthians 15:35-44, 1 Corinthians 15:52, 2 Corinthians 5:1-4, Philippians 3:20-21, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17, Hebrews 6:1-2, 2 Timothy 2:18, and Revelation 20:12-13.
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-16
- How did Paul comfort the Thessalonians who were mourning those who had died?
- What does that say about how we should comfort those mourning the death of loved ones?
But what of the souls in heaven, right now?
Scripture is clear that God’s action is moving toward the fullness of our salvation that will take place on the Last Day. Yet, that does not leave us unsure about those who have died in the faith. Although scripture says little about this “intermediate” reality, what is does say is comforting.
Read Philippians 1:21-23
- How does Paul describe what being in heaven right now is like?
Read Hebrews 12:22-23
- This passage describes what takes place when we worship. Yet, in this passage, what is the state of the souls in heaven?
- What is left unmentioned as to what is perfected?
Read Revelation 7:14-17
- How does Scripture describe heaven as it is right now?
Should a Christian funeral be a service of victory?
In the entire Bible, you will not find that of the death of the Christian is ever called a victory. Do you find this omission as odd?
- Did God create us to die?
- Why then do we suffer death?
- Thus, is death in itself a victory?
Read Romans 8:28-30
- Nonetheless, what does God do through death?
- Yet, what reality does Paul, in the end, point the Christian?
Although the Bible never speaks of the death of the Christian as a victory, it does refer to the victorious swallowing up of death taking place when death is undone. In the below passage, Paul quotes Isaiah 25:8, a passage that speaks of God’s final victory at the end of this age.
Read 1 Corinthians 15:42, 52-57
- When does the swallowing up of death take place?
- Thus, when does the Christian experience the victory over death, now in heaven or on the Last Day?
Why does the resurrection of the body matter?
Since our ultimate reality is not just spiritual, believing in and holding to the resurrection of the body helps us value all the more:
- Jesus’ incarnation to save us,
- Jesus’ crucifixion and death,
- Jesus’ resurrection,
- God’s use of created matter (Jesus’ physical body, water, bread and wine) in our salvation,
- that physical matter is not intrinsically bad, but corrupted by humanity’s fall into sin,
- that serving our neighbor doesn’t involve only the spiritual (praying for them) but also the physical (helping provide for their physical needs),
- that the souls in heaven are not in their final state and so they can benefit from our prayers just like the saints on earth do,
- that salvation in its fullness will not just be the absence of sorrow and pain, not just consist of spiritual joy, but also the fullness of what it means to be created, physical beings.
