Death Part 2

VI. The entire person of the elect, including his body, is the purchased possession of God. 1CO 6:20; JOB 14:12-15; 19:25-27. A. The inward part of man lives on after the body dies. LUK 16:22-24; REV 6:9-10. B. Cultures and religions worldwide have believed in life after death of the body. 1. “O happy day, (says he), when I shall quit this impure and corrupt multitude, and join myself to that divine company and council of souls who have quitted the earth before me! There I shall find, not only those illustrious personages to whom I have spoken, but also my Cato, who I can say was one of the best men ever born, and whom none ever excelled in virtue and piety. I have placed his body on that funeral pyre whereon he ought to have laid mine. But his soul has not left me; and, without losing sight of me, he has only gone before into a country where he saw I should soon rejoin him. This my lot I seem to bear courageously; not indeed that I do bear it with resignation, but I shall comfort myself with the persuasion that the interval between his departure and mine will not be long.” (Cato Major De Senectute, Cicero, 1st C. B.C.) 2. Christianity is unique in that it has a testimony of One who died and resurrected bodily to declare the certainty of life after death. REV 1:18; 19:10. 3. This testimony changed the world by delivering men from the fear of death. HEB 2:14-15. Death 2-2-25 Page 2 VII. Death and the grave are the great leveller of men. They are the common home of all, good or bad. ECC 9:2-3; JOB 21:23-26; 3:16-19. A. The grave is man's long home. JOB 17:13; ECC 12:5. 1. But it is a temporary home. JOH 5:28-29. 2. It is the earth-womb that has a long gestation. JOB 1:21. 3. Mother Earth had ever been barren until Christ resurrected to die no more. 4. This is why proper baptism is a figure of the temporary death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ which is the proof and guarantee of the temporary death, burial and resurrection of sinners. B. It is a land of darkness and disorder from which no sinner can will his spirit back. 2SAM 12:23; 14:14; JOB 10:21-22; ECC 8:8. C. Then, the grand thoughts of man perish. PSA 146:4 c/w JAM 4:13-14. 1. All of natural man's schemes and dreams are arrested by death. He will not carry on his ambitions “from the other side.” Death is not like prison on earth for a mobster! 2. The station and relationships of this world do not carry over. a. Consider the pagans who thought it proper to have their servants slain upon death so as to continue their service in the afterlife. b. It is proper that marriage vows state, “Till death us do part.” ROM 7:1-2. 3. The acquisitions of this world have no influence beyond the grave. a. Consider the pagan Egyptians who would be buried with their treasures and implements which they supposed would be useful to them in the afterlife. b. You can't take it with you. PSA 49:16-17; 1TI 6:7; JOB 1:21; ECC 5:15. 4. Men’s deceived thoughts about God, heaven, hell, etc. also end with death. LUK 16:19-31. VIII. Death and the grave met their match in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. He was manifest to destroy the works of the devil, and did so. 1JO 3:8 c/w HEB 2:14-15. A. Only Christ, by virtue of a perfect, sinless life had power to lay down His life and take it up again. JOH 10:17-18; ACT 2:24. B. As a show of His mighty power, the bodies of many sleeping saints arose likewise. MAT 27:51-53 c/w COL 2:15. C. In destroying the works of the devil, Christ took away: 1. the dominion of death. ROM 6:9. 2. the law of sin and death. ROM 8:2. 3. the sting of death. 1CO 15:55-56. 4. the fear of death. HEB 2:15. 5. the keys of hell and death. REV 1:18. a. That fact that He liveth (present tense) now and was (past tense) dead, declares His resurrection. b. That He is alive for evermore declares His immortality. c. He thus holds the keys of hell and death. (1) key: In pregnant sense, with reference to the power of custody, control, admission of others, etc., implied by the possession of the keys of any place; hence, as a symbol of office, and fig. the office itself. (2) Christ holds authority over hell and death. (3) The key that locks the damned in hell also locks the saved out. Death 2-2-25 Page 3  d. The death and hell which were the bane of the creation shall be cast into the lake of fire at the Second Coming. REV 20:14. IX. Believers have the comfort and assurance that there is a bodily resurrection at the end of time, of which the resurrection of the body of Jesus Christ is the firstfruits. 1CO 15:19-23; REV 1:5. A. What was legally confirmed and personally realized by Jesus Christ shall then be fully brought to pass: death swallowed up in victory. 1CO 15:54. B. Those justified by Christ shall be resurrected at the last day. JOH 6:39-40, 44, 54 c/w JOB 14:12. 1. This will be at His coming again, His second appearing. JOH 14:1-3; HEB 9:28. 2. The resurrection will be general, both of the just and unjust. ACT 24:14-15; JOH 5:28-29; MAT 13:30, 38-39, 47-50. 3. Mind how this contrasts a popular fable which holds: a. Jesus returns invisibly to resurrect the righteous. The rest are left behind. b. Life and death continue on earth during a great tribulation. c. Jesus comes a third time to resurrect tribulation martyrs. d. A thousand years later, Jesus resurrects the wicked dead. C. The resurrection of the body was the hope of the believing ancients and patriarchs. JOB 19:25-27; HEB 11:19. D. The resurrection of the body was the hope of O.T. prophets and martyrs. ISA 26:19; HOS 13:14; HEB 11:35. E. The resurrection of the body is the true hope of Israel. ACT 24:14-15; 26:6-8; 28:20; 1PE 1:3-4, 13. F. The resurrection of the body is the hope of all believers now, as ever. 1TH 4:13-18. G. Resurrection hope has a purifying effect. 1JO 3:1-3. 1. Without the Christian hope, men will give themselves to their own desires (JER 18:12). This explains materialism, philosophies of despair, free sex, and the drug culture. 2. The great dilemma of mankind is that it wants the hope of an afterlife but it doesn't want a hope that means curtailing lusts in this life and so it places its hope in something else that accommodates its lusts. H. Resurrection hope has a healing effect. 2CO 1:8-9. 1. Since the gospel is a message of hope, the gospel brings healing. LUK 4:18; PSA 107:17-20. 2. Perhaps it is through the gospel of hope that we have access to the leaves of the tree of life which are “for the healing of the nations.” 1CO 2:7 c/w PRO 3:13, 18 c/w REV 22:2. I. This hope puts our present trials into perspective. ROM 8:18; 2CO 4:17-18. J. This hope fosters patience and a sound mind. ROM 8:24-25; 2TI 1:7-10; 1PE 1:13. Death 2-2-25 Page 4