Sermon Revelation 21:1 - 22:6 The Resurrection of the Dead and the Life Everlasting

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Pitts Creek and Beaver Dam Churches

Sermon Revelation 21:1 - 22:6 The Resurrection of the Dead and the Life Everlasting

Pentecost

May 19, 2013

Today we will conclude our look at the Apostles Creed. We began at the beginning of Lent talking about our belief in God the Father who created and has authority over all that is. Our look at Jesus the Son took us through his divine conception, human birth, suffering and death. On Easter Morning we celebrated his resurrection from the dead and then his ascension to the right hand of God where he rules us as our Lord. For several weeks now we have been looking at the third person of the trinity, the Holy Spirit, who gives us the church where we are made holy and able to forgive one another. On this Pentecost Sunday we will see how the Holy Spirit leads us to our ultimate hope, our own resurrection and eternal life. But first, let's pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

Five centuries before Jesus Christ, there lived in Athens a great philosopher. His name was Socrates. Socrates had been sentenced to death. While awaiting his execution he thought about what happens after we die. Socrates believed in an immortal soul, a soul that lives forever. He thought that this soul inhabited his body at birth and would leave it a death. This immortal soul contained all of his thoughts, memories, and personality. So his identity would continue after death when his immortal soul left his body behind to decay in the ground.

This idea of an immortal soul was very attractive to early Christians because Christians believe that Christ defeated death so that our souls will live on even after we die. But there was a problem with this. And this problem was with the word, “immortal”. Christians believe that only God is immortal, not us. We are limited and finite. We are not immortal. Therefore we do not have immortals souls.

The Christian idea is that we are created by God. And we believe that our existence is sustained by God every moment. Without God we would instantly cease to exist. Therefore our souls, to live on after we die, can only do so by the grace of God. And in Jesus Christ all believers are promised that our souls will live forever. So when we die God preserves our souls, our thought, our memories, and our personalities. Some souls will be in heaven living in perfect joy in the presence of God. Other souls will be in hell enduring a refining fire. But this is not the end of the story. The Bible is very clear about this. One day our bodies will be resurrected from the dust of the earth and will be reunited with our souls.

Some Christians in the second century after Christ had problems with this. A Christian teacher, whom we have talked about before, named Marcion brought some gnostic beliefs into the church. He taught that the body was imperfect, incomplete, evil and would decay in the ground, but our souls being perfect and spiritual would live forever in heaven. The church rejected this idea because of the reality they had witnesses. After Jesus' death his soul did not go to heaven as a disembodied spirit. Instead Jesus' physical body was resurrected from the dead and reunited with his soul. They saw and touched this living body with mortal wounds. They heard him speak and ate with him. Jesus was alive in a physical body, and his soul, his thoughts, memories and personality, were there too. So the church affirmed its belief that God created both body and soul, and in the resurrection body and soul will be reunited. Our souls go to heaven after we die until one day when our bodies will be resurrected and reunited with our souls and we, body and soul, will live together in a restored creation in the presence of Jesus Christ.

You may remember a woman named Joni Eareckson. Joni was a teenager in Baltimore when in 1967 she dove into the Chesapeake Bay. She had misjudged the depth of the water and broke her neck. She is a quadriplegic, paralyzed from the shoulders down. She is also a very faithful Christian. And people are always asking her about her Christian hope. She replies that her hope, as a Christian, is that one day in the resurrection she will have full use of her arms and legs.

Christian hope is that Christ will return to earth and with him will come a new Jerusalem. There we will live forever, our souls in resurrected bodies. We will be blessed with glorified bodies free from arthritis, heart disease, liver problems, and effects of old age. We will live in holy city free from war, pestilence, drought and flood. Sin will be abolished. All the kings on earth will bow down to our Lord Jesus Christ. And our joy will never end. Here is the great vision of Christian hope that has guided the church for two thousand years.

^NIV Revelation 21:1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. ² I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. ³ And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ⁴ He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." ⁵ He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." ⁶ He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life. ⁷ He who overcomes will inherit all this, and I will be his God and he will be my son. ⁸ But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars-- their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." ⁹ One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, "Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb." ¹⁰ And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. ¹¹ It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. ¹² It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. ¹³ There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. ¹⁴ The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. ¹⁵ The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. ¹⁶ The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. ¹⁷ He measured its wall and it was 144 cubits thick, by man's measurement, which the angel was using. ¹⁸ The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. ¹⁹ The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third chalcedony, the fourth emerald, ²⁰ the fifth sardonyx, the sixth carnelian, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth chrysoprase, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. ²¹ The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of pure gold, like transparent glass. ²² I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. ²³ The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. ²⁴ The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. ²⁵ On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. ²⁶ The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. ²⁷ Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life. ^NIV Revelation 22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. ⁴ They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. ⁵ There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. ⁶ The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place." 

This is where we are heading, our Christian hope. Our belief in God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit ensures that we will live in the new Jerusalem. Our souls in heaven will be reunited with our resurrected bodies to live in glory forever with our God. Amen.