May 30 – LD 22, Day 3: The Resurrection of the Body
by Prof Herman Hanko
Read: I Corinthians 15:1-11
Many things will happen
when our Lord Jesus Christ comes again at the end of time. Christ is seen in
the heavens coming on the clouds, which he makes his chariot, and coming with
the host of angels. He will, at the moment of his coming, be seen by all men.
This will indeed be a
miracle, for we cannot imagine how, if the Lord is seen in the sky above
Further, when he comes
not only will the bodies of God’s people be raised, but the people of God still
on the earth will be changed (I Cor 15:51, 52). The
bodies of all the wicked shall also be raised and those living will also be
changed, but their bodies will be united with their souls that have been in
hell and their bodies will be changed to exist in hell.
The last judgment will
take place at that time. All men who ever lived will be gathered before the
great white throne on which Christ sits, and all men will be judged. The
righteous will be taken into heaven and the wicked cast into hell. New heavens
and a new earth will be created, and we shall inherit this new creation.
What a day that will be!
But here, in Lord’s Day
22, our teacher wants us to think especially about the resurrection of our
bodies.
Our bodies are important
to us, but they are also important to God. When God created man, God formed him
body and soul, and so, if for no other reason, our bodies are important because
God created them. We are to take care of our bodies and the mutilation or
endangering of our bodies is always a sin.
In the Old Testament
times, respect for the bodies of those that died was characteristic of all the
saints. Abraham bought a parcel of ground in
But believers put the
bodies of loved ones in the ground because they bury them in the hope of the
resurrection. Paul talks, in I Cor 15:36-38 of a seed
that cannot grow into a new plant until it is put into the ground. And so our
bodies become new only by being planted in the earth.
resurrection, for it must first be planted in the earth. But God will raise up our bodies And so God considers our bodies so
important that he saves our bodies as well as our souls. Only the salvation of
our bodies does not come about until the at the coming
of Christ.
Thus we are taught that our only comfort in life and in death, for body and soul, is that we
belong to Jesus (See Lord’s Day 1).