Church: Reformed Baptist Church of Franconia | Text: — | Date: January 13, 2019 | Speaker: Fred Zaspel

More seriously, we are back then to our studies of death and life after death. We wanted to explore the subject to have more clarity of our thinking about it. We have looked at the subject of the makeup, the constitution of man, made body and soul, and that the scriptures are plain that the soul has a continued existence after death. We saw then that after death is what we call the intermediate state. For the redeemed, it is immediately we pass into the presence of Christ with a bodiless soul. For the lost, they pass immediately into judgment. Exactly what that judgment looks like for a spirit being, we don’t know. The terminology of fire and such is used quite often. It is a place of torment, a place of pain, and a place of forsakenness, and we’ve seen all that.

And then we started to look at the doctrine of the resurrection, where after this intermediate state, then we are raised at the coming of Christ to our resurrection body. And we’ve been tracing that, and we haven’t gotten too far into it. What we started with was looking at the roots of the resurrection doctrine in the Old Testament, beginning with Genesis and moving forward. Most impressive early on, as far as I’m concerned, is the faith of Abraham. When God commanded him to offer Isaac, Hebrews comments for us that Abraham just decided that if God said that the promise would be through Isaac and his seed, and if now God calls me to sacrifice Isaac, God will have to raise him from the dead. And so the doctrine of the resurrection is alive with the patriarchs, and we’ll see a little bit more of that this evening.

And then we tried to trace it on through the Old Testament with at least some of the major samples. We saw it in Job; we saw it in Psalms, where the doctrine of the resurrection is actually a doctrine to be sung because it looks forward to that happy day of perfection in the presence of God. We saw the most explicit statements of the doctrine of the resurrection in the Old Testament were in Isaiah—Isaiah 25, Isaiah 26—most pointedly there in Isaiah 26. And then also probably the clearest in the Old Testament is Daniel chapter 12, verses 1 and 2.

Matthew Chapter 11

And we ended up last time—and why don’t we begin there again—in Matthew chapter 11. I had to hurry so much through it, I want to make one more point. Matthew chapter 11, you’ll remember in the opening passage, the disciples of John the Baptist have come to Jesus asking, “Are you the one?” And you remember that John the Baptist evidently has a slight kind of doubt. There’s an uncertainty. Here he’s announced that Jesus is the Messiah. This is supposed to be the time when the good guys are winning and the bad guys are losing. And here John the Baptist, presumably one of the good guys, is in prison. And Herod, one of the bad guys, seems to be winning. And so he sends his disciples. John the Baptist sends his disciples to Jesus. “Are you the one that we’re to be looking for or not?”

And then Jesus answers in verses 4, 5, and 6. “You go back and tell John what you see and hear.” And then he gives a litany of quick references back to the book of Isaiah. The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the good news preached to them. These are quotations that come, the first couple from Isaiah 35, the poor having the good news preached to them, that’s Isaiah 61. But then it says also there, “the dead are raised up.” And that, I assume, must be a reference back to Isaiah 26 verse 19 that we saw last time, where Isaiah says, “Your dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy. For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead.”

So Isaiah makes that prophecy that in the day of the Messiah, it will be a day of resurrection. Jesus tells John the Baptist’s disciples, “You go back and tell John what you’ve seen. These prophecies are being fulfilled. And one of them is the dead are being raised.” Now, that introduces an interesting question because the point of reference for Jesus here is back in chapter 9 of Matthew, where the ruler’s daughter—this ruler comes to Jesus and says, “I have a daughter who has died.” And Jesus as much as says, “Well, we’ll see about that.” And he goes back to the ruler’s house, and that’s when Jesus so famously says, “She’s just sleeping.” And everybody laughs Jesus to scorn, and then she’s raised from the dead. And people are just astounded at this authority of Jesus to raise even the dead.

So that’s Jesus’ point of reference when he’s talking to the disciples of John the Baptist. Now what’s interesting in that is that Jesus links that to Isaiah’s prophecy in Isaiah chapter 26, the prophecy of the resurrection. And the reason that’s interesting is because that when Isaiah prophesied that the dead would rise, he was not talking simply of the resuscitation of a girl here in Judea. He’s speaking on a big scale. He’s speaking of a day of resurrection when the righteous will be raised to be with God. And yet Jesus makes that link, and we’re left then to make the connection and say that this that Jesus has done in raising this girl from the dead is a preview, a foreshadowing of the resurrection of the kingdom of God that will come in the last day. That day has broken in in Jesus’ first coming, and it will come in full in his second coming.

The other point that I wanted to make there then with regard to Matthew chapter 11: keep in mind what we’re doing here is just jumping through many different passages here to see this doctrine as it develops in the scriptures. I wanted to point out that Jesus grounds his doctrine of the resurrection in the Old Testament scriptures. It’s not a new doctrine; it’s not something he came up with and announced as something new, but he links it back to Isaiah the prophet. We will see a little bit more of that this evening, in fact, in a couple of places.

Jump ahead—we’ll be back to Matthew—but jump ahead just briefly to Acts chapter 24, and you’ll see that the Apostle Paul does the same thing. Acts 24 verses 14 and 15. Paul here is before Felix—you’re not supposed to call him Felix; Felix is a cat. Felix, I guess. Anyway, verses 14 and 15: “But this I confess to you, that according to the Way,” which evidently was the first terminology for Christianity, the Way, “this I confess to you that according to the Way, this new faith that I’m preaching, which they call a sect, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets.” Now there’s shorthand terminology for what we call the Old Testament: the Law and the Prophets. Now, the longer version of it for them was the Law, the Writings, and the Prophets. Sometimes the shorthand was just the Law. But here, the Law and the Prophets is clearly a reference to what we call the Old Testament. “So, I worship the God of our fathers, believing everything laid down by the Law and written in the Prophets, having a hope in God, which these men themselves accept, that there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” Speaking then of Pharisees who believe in the resurrection of the dead, Paul says, “I have that same hope and I ground it in the Old Testament scriptures as well.”

Matthew Chapter 22

All right, we’re going to see a little bit more of that then this evening. Now look at Matthew chapter 22. Back to Matthew. Matthew 22, verses 23 to 33. I think it’d be best if I take the time to read the passage.

“The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question.” These Sadducees then, these are the liberals of old Judaism; they denied the resurrection of the dead. And so they asked Jesus a question, saying, “Teacher, Moses said that if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now, there were seven brothers among us; the first married and died, and having no children, left his wife to his brother. So too the second and the third, down to the seventh. And after them all, the woman died. In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”

Gotcha. That’s the idea. Here’s a conundrum for you. And Jesus responds, verse 29, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? He is not God of the dead, but of the living.” When the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching.

All right, an interesting passage where Jesus calls for support of the doctrine of the resurrection the words of God to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 and verse 6, where God says, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Now if ever there were a proof text for the resurrection, that’s got to be it, right? Somebody asked you, “Where would you go to prove the doctrine of the resurrection?” I doubt you’d go to Exodus chapter 3 and verse 6. “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. See, there’s a resurrection.”

Well, as I say, the Sadducees were the liberals of Judaism. They denied the continued existence of the soul. They denied the resurrection of the dead. They denied the existence of angels. They evidently denied the authority of the prophets and affirmed only the authority of Moses in the first five books of the Old Testament. And that, I think, explains why Jesus answers them from Exodus, because he’s taking them on their own ground. But the argument then that they bring to Jesus stems from the law of Moses in Deuteronomy chapter 25, the law of what we call levirate marriage, where if a man dies, Moses prescribes his brother is to take the widow and raise up children for him and so on. This actually has some roots back into Genesis; we see it there as well, and it’s the law behind the story of the book of Ruth as well, Ruth and Boaz.

So there’s a conundrum. If all of these are raised from the dead—keep in mind these people don’t believe that there is a resurrection, and so they’re trying to prove that to Jesus and catch him in a conundrum—if all of these people are raised from the dead, then either we have a situation of incest, where this woman is married to seven different men all at the same time, brothers no less, or the only other alternative you would have to that would be arbitrarily to assign one of them as her husband in the resurrection. Either way, it seems that they’ve got Jesus in a real conundrum. How are you going to answer that?

Well, Jesus’ response is brief. Verse 29, “You are wrong because you don’t know the scriptures.” That says it pretty crisply, doesn’t it? “And because you don’t know the power of God.” And I think he answers that in reverse order. “You don’t know the power of God.” Verse 30, that power—I think he’s referring to that power already displayed in Jesus’ miracle of raising the dead back in Matthew chapter 9. But also he’s saying here, “You assume that God is not able to handle such a conundrum as this. And you are assuming that in the afterlife, relationships will be an exact counterpart to the present.” And that’s the assumption on their part that Jesus challenges and says that in the resurrection, relationships will be different. He says that they will be like the angels, who neither marry nor are given in marriage. The purpose of procreation is not necessary then and so on. And so he’s saying there’ll be a new state of affairs.

Now I know that raises questions. If you have a happy marriage, you wonder about that. If you have an unhappy marriage, you’re probably glad for that, if there’s no longer marriage and giving in marriage in the eschaton. But what is Jesus saying here? He’s saying that the angels evidently don’t have the same kind of marriage relationship that we have. Relationships are different. He doesn’t give us much more than that. How to explain further, I don’t know. But the relationships are different enough to allow—and I think this is the assumption here—that this wife of seven brothers in the resurrection will be able to love all of them equally, and all of them love her. Just like a mother today can love many children and all of them love her, relationships are changed in such a way that this won’t be a problem. Now, that’s all the information we’re given on that score. If you have more questions on that as to what that will look like in detail, you have to ask someone better than me. But the gist of it is clear enough. Relationships are different. This is not a problem. It won’t be an incestuous relationship.

All right, “You don’t know the power of God.” But the other part, “You don’t know the scriptures.” And that he answers in verses 31 and 32. “As for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God: ‘I am the God'”—and here’s Exodus 3—”‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob’?” And then he adds his own little comment: “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

Now when he says, “He is not the God of the dead, but of the living,” he is evidently emphasizing the present tense here. “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.” Now in the Hebrew text, the present “be” verb is not there. The word “am” is not there in the Hebrew text. It’s implied like it normally is. But in Jesus’ rendering of it in the Greek, it is there. He’s making a point with the present tense. So God says to Moses in the 14th century BC, of Abraham, who lived 400 years earlier, “I am”—not “I was”—”I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And he makes the point: God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

Now, a couple of things here. One, he’s citing a passage from Moses, and so he says, “Moses says,” so he’s evidently trying to beat them on their own ground. But he’s drawing out the implications here, evidently, of the present tense. God is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. And so he’s affirming, then, the continued existence of the soul, which is fundamental to the doctrine of resurrection. The assumption in pressing the present tense here—”I am the God of Abraham,” here 400 years later, “I am the God of Abraham”—the implication is that he is still his God today.

But, all right, he’s affirmed then the continued existence of the soul. He’s dealt with them on that level. The question is then, how does this answer the doctrine of the resurrection? And I think that’s the larger point which is left implied here in giving God this title, “I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Here God defines himself to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 in terms of his covenant faithfulness, and his covenant title is he’s the God of the fathers. He’s the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. He’s the God who binds himself in covenant relation to these patriarchs.

Now then, the question is, how does God as a covenant-faithful God of Abraham speak to the doctrine of the resurrection? What’s he doing here? What is the implication he’s drawing out? Well, the answer I think is found in the question then, what did God promise to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob? These are familiar verses to you. I’ll read them so we won’t take the time to look them up. What did God promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?

Genesis 17 verses 7 and 8: “I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be a God to you and to your offspring after you. I will give to you and to your offspring after you the land of your sojournings, all the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession, and I will be their God.” You’ll see the same kind of thing going on in Genesis 12 verse 7 and Genesis 13 and verse 15. That’s God’s covenant with Abraham.

He reaffirms the covenant to Isaac in Genesis 26 verses 3 and 4: “Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you, for to you and to your offspring I will give these lands and I will establish the oath that I swore to Abraham your father. I will multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and give to your offspring all these lands, and in your offspring all the nations of the world, of the earth, shall be blessed.” Now stay with me here; you’ve got to follow—this is tight thinking that Jesus is giving.

It’s reaffirmed again to Jacob, Genesis 28 verse 13: “Behold, the Lord stood above it and said, ‘I am the Lord, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac. The land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring. Your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south, and in you and your offspring shall all the families of the earth be blessed.'”

So God then is identifying himself as the God of men who are already deceased, but they are men to whom God made a specific promise: “I will give to you and to your offspring all of this land.” And so Jesus then has turned the tables on the Pharisees and left them with a conundrum. God promised these men this land. Did they receive it? No. Did God’s promise then fail? So he’s put them now on the back foot. God bound himself in an oath with a covenant to give them a land that they never received. So did that promise fail and fall to the ground when these people died? Does God’s promise die when people die? Well, the answer to it would be no; they’ll be raised in the resurrection to receive it.

Now it’s subtle, but I don’t know what else you can draw from this passage. And in fact, Hebrews 11 confirms that. Abraham died in faith, not having received the things promised. And then Hebrews 11:22, he says the same of Joseph. By faith, Joseph, at the end of his life, gave directions concerning his bones. It was an act of faith on Joseph’s part that they carry his body back to the land. And the same then is said in essence of Jacob as well. When he is in Egypt, he ordered that his body be brought back to the same place as well. Evidently, all expecting that God would still come good on his promise, but he would come good on it in resurrection.

Well, we saw that Abraham believed that God would fulfill the promise in resurrection. We saw that with Isaac when he was called to offer Isaac in sacrifice. And here Jesus then answers the Pharisees, not only by affirming the continued existence of the soul after death, but in referring to God as Abraham’s father or as his covenant God, he will fulfill the promise in resurrection. And he’s left them then in turn with the conundrum. All right, Jesus does that often. It’s tight thinking, some careful, subtle approaches, but once you look through the question, you think, “Yeah, what else can you do with that?” And they died in faith, not having received the promise, but by faith they ordered that their bones be brought back. Faith in what? Faith in God’s promise. They expected the resurrection, and that’s in the Torah and the words of Moses.

John Chapter 5

Okay, some more in the Gospels. Let’s look at John chapter 5, a very clear one here that’s very well known. John chapter 5. Now you’ve heard me talk a lot about the idea of inaugurated eschatology—that there’s a “now” and a “not yet.” That the end times have come, and yet they have not come. They’ve not come fully. They will be fully realized in the eschaton, but we are in the messianic age now in an inaugurated way. We have a passage like that here, John 5, verses 25 and following: “Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming and is now here when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live.”

All right, there it is. Resurrection—the day of the resurrection is here now. He has to be speaking now in spiritual terms of what we call spiritual resurrection, the doctrine of regeneration, that this is the day in which we participate in Jesus’ resurrection—not physically, not bodily, but spiritually—been raised out of our death into life. And that day, Jesus says, is here and now.

But keep reading. “For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself, and he has given him authority to execute judgment because he is the Son of Man. Do not marvel at this, for an hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” So inaugurated eschatology does not nullify future eschatology. There is a realized sense in which we participate in Jesus’ resurrection today spiritually, but it will come in full in the eschaton that that day, Jesus affirms it clearly, is coming. It is both; it’s not either/or, it is both/and. Now and then resurrection. Now spiritually, then physically and fully. I think it’s pretty clear here, by the way, that Jesus’ language reflects that Daniel chapter 12 and verse 2 that we saw. It’s just a loose quotation of Daniel 12:2.

John Chapter 6

Alright, turn over the page, John chapter 6. This is just a marvelous passage. Jesus has fed the 5,000; afterwards it becomes—he uses that as the backdrop for his “Bread of Life” discourse. They have eaten this bread and they’re interested in Jesus because he could fill their stomachs. I think the sense here, they’re coming after Jesus now, they’re wanting to make him king. They’re just doing the math. If he can take five loaves, two fishes and feed a multitude like this, let’s give him two spears and a shield and a sword and he can equip an army. We’re ready to go. And Jesus is faulting them on their carnal interests only, and they don’t see what his true value is.

And so he says in verse 35, “I am the bread of life.” They’re wanting this bread of life from God. “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. But I said to you that you have seen me and you do not believe. All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out. Why? Because I’ve come down from heaven not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me. And this is the will of Him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that He has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

Jump down to verse 44. “No one can come to me except the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.” Verse 54, the same: “Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.” All of this to emphasize that Jesus has come to save, and the salvation that he has come to bring is salvation in its fullest, consummate sense, including the resurrection. So resurrection is essential to Jesus’ saving work. It’s the consummation of salvation. We’ve seen that before earlier in the series: that the doctrine of resurrection is important because God’s purpose for us is as we are, wholly body and soul, and salvation to be complete must entail bodily resurrection. And Jesus says, “That is why I’ve come, to save, and to save in its fullest sense, and to raise the dead.”

Matthew Chapter 27

All right, I’ve tried to hurry through this so I could get to this one more passage that we can look at this evening. And that’s back to Matthew, and I go back to Matthew because it’s later actually. This is at Matthew chapter 27, the account of Jesus’ crucifixion with some very strange event happening. Matthew 27, and I’ll begin reading with verse 50.

Matthew 27:50: “Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, and the earth shook and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. When the centurion and those who were with him, keeping watch over Jesus, saw the earthquake and what took place, they were filled with awe and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God.'”

Now I think—I’m reading here the ESV. Does somebody have the NIV? Raise your hand somebody if you have the NIV. Cayman, if you would read for us then verses 51 to 53. Okay, tell me about the punctuation in verse 52. 51 and 52, you have, “and the earth shook, the rocks were split,” and do you have a comma there? And you have a period there? Okay, good. And then, “and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised,” that’s a separate sentence? Yeah, okay, that’s helpful. And that’s what I—essentially what we have here in the ESV as well.

The way to—part of the confusion of this is it raises a lot of questions. Who are these saints who are raised at this point? How widely was this witnessed? How many people saw them? What kind of bodies did they have in this resurrection? Did they die again or was this just a resuscitation? And the most difficult question is, did they really stay in the tombs until Jesus’ resurrection? It can sound here like they were raised from the dead at his crucifixion on Friday and then came out of the tombs on Sunday after Jesus rose from the dead. And I’m convinced that is not how this should be read. And so, depending on your translation, the punctuation needs to be changed.

But I think what he’s saying here is that this earthquake had two consequences, which really point then to the two consequences of Jesus’ death. The two consequences of the earthquake are the curtain in the temple is torn and the rocks are split open, including the tombs. And to speak of it then more theologically, the two consequences of Jesus’ death are access to God through atonement—tearing of the curtain—and the final defeat of death—the resurrection of those who are his. And so the graves were opened as well. Presumably these Old Testament saints, their graves were open.

If that’s the case then, what kind of bodies did they have? Presumably resurrection bodies. But what it’s saying here is not that they were raised on Friday but didn’t leave the tomb until Sunday. I think what it’s saying is that the graves were split open on Friday at Jesus’ death, but then they were raised from the dead when Jesus was raised on Sunday. So the tombs were open, period, and many of the bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, and coming out of the tombs after the resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many. So at Jesus’ death, the rocks split; at his resurrection, these were raised out of their tomb and went into the holy city and testified.

So I would assume then that these are a kind of accompanying of Jesus in resurrection, into the eschatological resurrection, into their glorified bodies. What happened to them after that? I can only assume that they were translated to heaven. We’re not given those kinds of details. A lot of questions are left unanswered. Presumably, these are Old Testament saints, which then tells us that the resurrection of believers prior to Jesus depends upon Jesus for their resurrection no less than we do. Just as our resurrection is tied to him, so their resurrection is tied to his as well.

And it’s interesting that Matthew places this brief little resurrection account in chapter 27 at the crucifixion, not in chapter 28 in the account of the resurrection. And I think the point of that is to say he’s linking the death and resurrection of Jesus inseparably as the twin aspects of his work. It is by both his death and resurrection together that his saving work is accomplished and that the new age is ushered in. And those then are themes that will open up more in the epistles that we’ll see beginning next time in the book of Romans and so on, and especially in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.

All right, now what we’re seeing then is a progress of understanding of the doctrine of the resurrection. Looking back to the Old Testament, we can see some of these places where it’s rather subtle, but it’s there. And then we find some passages in the Old Testament where it’s finally very clear. And we find in the New Testament references back to the Old, and Jesus in particular looking into some very subtle places to see where the doctrine of the resurrection is assumed and implied. And then what we’re going to see now is that doctrine of resurrection given more specific detail later in the New Testament, and we’ll see that, Lord willing, next time.

All right, any questions before we move along? All right, if you would like, look at Romans chapter 8 for next time, and 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, and hopefully we can cover those next time. Let’s stand and be dismissed in prayer. Pastor Boyd, would you pray for us please?