Hudsonville Protestant Reformed Church
5101 Beechtree
Hudsonville, Michigan 49426
Services: 9:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.
Homepage on Internet: http://www.prca.org
Vol. 8, No. 5
Table of Contents:
The Resurrection Body
God's Covenantal Promise (3)
Who Are the 144,000?
The Resurrection Body
There are many questions that cannot now be answered about the resurrection of the dead, about the bodies we shall have in the resurrection, and about heaven, the home of God's people in their resurrection bodies. Nevertheless, Scripture gives us enough information to allow us to believe the resurrection of the body, and to know that it is something to be hoped and prayed for.
Scripture says the most about our resurrection bodies in I Corinthians 15. There we are told four most precious things:
(1) That body shall be incorruptible (vss. 42, 52). Not only will we be free from the effects of sin - sickness and death and the grave - but it will never again be possible, as it was for Adam, that sin and death return. Incorruptible means "not able to be corrupted!"
(2) That resurrection body shall also be glorious (vs. 43). Its glory will be the glory of Christ Himself and of God in Christ. "These vile bodies," Paul says, "shall be changed into the likeness of Christ's most glorious body" (Phil. 3:21). That, too, is important for it is what heaven and the life of heaven are all about.
(3) The resurrection body will also be powerful (I Cor. 15:43). Isaiah 40:31 tells us a little bit about that. To be able to run and not become weary is almost inconceivable, but that is only a small part of what we shall have through the resurrection. Not only will the powers that Adam lost be restored, but we shall have much more besides - we shall have the power to know even as we are known (I Cor. 13:12). Above all, we shall have the power to love and serve and obey God without sin. What a wonderful thing that will be!
(4) Finally, the body of the resurrection will be spiritual (I Cor. 15:44). Here too, it is difficult to know all that Scripture means, but it certainly means this at least - that we shall no longer be "flesh and blood" with bodies adapted to this earth and its life, but shall be able to inherit that which flesh and blood cannot inherit or see (vs. 50).
The changes that shall take place in our bodies when they are raised from the dust of death are so great that Scripture is forced to use a picture to try and give us some conception of it all. The change between a grain of wheat - a hard, apparently lifeless thing - and the green and living plant that grows from it is a small picture of the way we shall be changed (I Cor. 15:37).
There are pictures in creation as well. The metamorphosis of a caterpillar into a butterfly is one such picture (and the Greek word "metamorphosis" is one of the words Scripture uses for the resurrection - translated "changed" in Phil. 3:21. From a worm that crawls in the dust to one of the most beautiful of all God's creatures it is changed and is yet the same creature - the same individual - as before.
When we think of these wonders of the resurrection, then it becomes the focus of our hopes. Then we say, "O, my Lord Jesus, come quickly! Come and change these vile, sin-ridden bodies, subject to death and corruption and make us in body as well as in spirit, like unto Thyself!" Rev. Ronald Hanko
God's Covenantal Promise (3)
Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. - Acts 2:38-39.
For two issues now we have been discussing this passage in Acts 2. In the last issue I was concentrating on vs. 39, and particularly the question: What is the promise of God?
I pointed out that our clearest discussion of that question is found in Heb. 6:13-20. There God's promise is said to be an oath. God did not have to swear an oath, according to Heb. 6. In fact, it really should not have been necessary, for God had determined in His counsel to save His people; that counsel is immutable; that should have been enough.
But God is merciful to His people. He understands how weak our faith is and how easily we doubt. And so, as a merciful concession to our weakness, God adds to His immutable counsel an oath which He swears so that "by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have a strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us" (vs. 18).
We must, however, not only consider God's promise from a formal point of view, but we must also ask the question: what are the contents of the promise? What is it that He promises?
The answer to that question, according to Heb. 6, is: "Blessing I will bless thee, and multiplying I will multiply thee." Now there are a few things about that too which we have to notice.
In the first place, that promise as defined in Heb. 6:14 is a quotation from Gen. 22:16-17. It was God's promise to Abraham.
In the second place, that very promise is God's promise to us as well. We must not say as the Baptists do that Abraham had his own promises pertaining to Israel's national life, earthly Canaan, and the natural seed of the Jews; while the promises to us are different. This is nonsense, and a complete distortion of the passage in Heb. 6. The text switches from a promise made to Abraham to a discussion of the heirs of the promise (vs. 17) whom he defines as being the saints in the new dispensation - "we might have a strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before us…." It is all the same. God's promise is to Abraham and all the heirs of the promise, and those heirs include us.
Thus the promise "and multiplying I will multiply thee" was made not only to Abraham, but also to us. God will give Abraham a mighty seed. God will also give us a mighty seed.
Does this mean that God promises His people that they will have large families of eight or nine or ten children? Of course not. It means that God will give to His people the true seed of the covenant in their children. If it does not mean that, it makes no sense at all.
For Abraham and Israel it meant that Christ would be born of their line. It meant that in Christ, the true seed of Abraham would be saved (see Rom. 2:28-29). It means for us that that host which no man can number, greater than the sand of the sea, will be taken from our children and children's children.
So we must go back to Acts 2:39.
That promise, Peter says, that oath which God swore, that He would bless and multiply His people, is given to us and to our children.
I suppose that the crucial question here is: What is meant by the words "is unto….?" Do these words mean that God is saying, I am giving you and your children a promise that I will fulfill if you on your part fulfill certain conditions, obligations, requirements, etc.? Is this what God is saying? So some would interpret it.
But God never says that in His promises. God didn't say that to Abraham, Peter did not say that to the Jews anxiously inquiring concerning their great sin. Peter did not say, "The promise is unto you and your children provided that you accept the promise." Peter did not even say, "The promise is unto you and your children provided you repent and be baptized." He told them to repent and be baptized because the promise was to them and their children. That is the force of the little word "for."
What Peter says is this: God gives His promise to you and your children. God not only objectively gives that promise, but God fulfills His promise to us and our children as well. God makes us and our children the heirs of the promise. God blesses us and our children and multiplies us and our children. Peter's words cannot be taken in any other way.
And that is why we and our children must be baptized, for baptism is the sign and seal of God's promise. Our children are heirs of the promise as well as we, and in the same sense as we are heirs.
What a wonderful truth proclaimed by Peter! Prof. Herman Hanko
Who Are the 144,000?
The question for this issue is very simple, but the answer is not so simple. The questioner asks, "Who are the 144,000 - are they Jews?" The reference is to Revelation 7:1-8 and 14:1-4, where we learn the following concerning these 144,000:
(1) they are the servants of God (7:3);
(2) they are sealed (7:3-8) with Jesus' Father's name in their foreheads (14:1);
(3) they are represented as standing with the Lamb on Mount Sion (14:1);
(4) they are redeemed from the earth (14:3) and from among men (14:4) and are the firstfruits unto God and to the Lamb (14:4);
(5) they are virgins (14:4), without fault (justified) before the throne of God (14:5).
These 144,000 are commonly understood to be Jews who will reign with Christ on earth during a future millennium. Mount Zion, where they stand, is taken to be the earthly city of Jerusalem in the earthly land still called "Israel" today.
This is the premillennial and dispensational understanding of the passage, part of the teaching which looks for a future, earthly reign of Christ in the present city of Jerusalem with and over the Jews (Premillennialsts say over Christians also). Those who hold this view claim that they only take the Bible 'literally" and do justice to the passages.
The great Reformation principle for the interpretation of Scripture, however, is not literalism, but the principle that Scripture must interpret itself. Here Scripture itself shows that the "literal" interpretation cannot possibly be the correct interpretation of the passage. Let us note the following:
(1) The term "servants of God' is never elsewhere limited to Jews only, but is one of the common NT names for Christians, both Jews and Gentiles (I Cor. 7:22; etc.);
(2) The sealing referred to, no matter what it may mean, belongs to all those who are in Christ (II Cor. 1:22; Eph. 1:13; 4:30; II Tim. 2:19).
(3) Mount Sion in the book of Revelation is identified with the glorified church (ch. 21:9-10; cf. also Heb. 12:22-23), not with the earthly city of Jerusalem. To stand with the Lamb on Mount Sion is synonymous, therefore, with the heavenly glory of the church.
(4) "Redemption" refers in Scripture to salvation by grace, through faith, as it is granted both to Jews and Gentiles alike and finished in heaven (Rev. 5:9; Eph. 4:30);
(5) The description of people as 'virgins" can not be limited to the Jews, but must be applied to NT Christians of every nation in their holiness and purity in Christ (Matt. 25:1; II Cor. 11:2).
Who, then, are these 144,000? There can be no doubt about it that they are Christians out of every nation, in heaven with Christ. That they are described as Jews is not surprising, either, since that is the common language of the NT. The NT rejects the teaching that "Jews" are exclusively the physical descendants of Abraham as we have noted in other articles (Rom. 3:28-29; 9:6-8; Gal. 3:29; Phil. 3:3), but identifies all believers as true "Jews," true children of Abraham, and true children of God.
Does it matter? Indeed it does, for if these passages refer only to the physical descendants of Abraham, then they have no application to us as NT Christians. It has to do with whether we shall stand as part of this multitude, and where we shall stand if indeed we are part of this throng. Rev. Ronald Hanko
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