Tuesday, December 25
From the earliest days of the church the promise of Christ’s return has, perhaps more than anything else, sustained the hearts of God’s faithful people, especially during trials. Whatever their frightful struggles, whatever their inconsolable sorrows and pain, they had the hope of Christ’s return and all the wonderful promises the Second Advent contains.
Read 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. What promises are included in this passage? What does this say about the hope of restored relationships?
Christ’s second coming will affect all humanity in profound ways. An important aspect of the establishment of God’s kingdom is the gathering of the elect. “And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other” (Matthew 24:31, NKJV). At the moment of this gathering, the righteous dead will be resurrected and receive immortality (1 Corinthians 15:52, 53). “The dead in Christ will rise first” (1 Thessalonians 4:16, NKJV). This is the moment we all have been waiting for. The resurrected ones will reunite with those who have been longing for their presence and love. This is how Paul exults at this event: “O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55, NKJV).
It is not the diseased, aged, disfigured bodies that went down into the grave that come up in the resurrection, but new, immortal, perfect bodies, no longer marked by the sin that caused their decay. The resurrected saints experience the completion of Christ’s work of restoration, reflecting the perfect image of God intended at Creation (Genesis 1:26, 1 Corinthians 15:46-49).
At the moment of Jesus’ second advent, when the redeemed dead are resurrected, the righteous alive on earth will be changed and also be given new, perfect bodies. “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53, NKJV). So, these two groups of redeemed, the resurrected and transformed righteous, “shall be caught up together … in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17, NKJV).
In our scientific age, even some Christians try to find a natural explanation for everything, even “miracles.” What does the promise of the resurrection teach us about why only the supernatural acts of God can save us?
