Friday: Further Thought ~ The New Testament Hope

Further Thought: Read Ellen G. White, “The Thessalonian Letters,” Pages 255-268; “Called to Reach a Higher Standard,” Pages 319-321, in The Acts of the Apostles.

Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com

“The Romans,” wrote Stephen Cave, “were well aware of the Christians’ belief that they would one day rise bodily from the grave and did everything they could to mock and hinder those hopes. A report of a persecution in Gaul in 177 CE records that the martyrs were first executed, then their corpses left to rot unburied for six days before being burned and the ashes thrown into the river Rhône — ‘Now let us see whether they will rise again,’ the Romans are reported to have said.” — Stephen Cave, Immortality: The Quest to Live Forever and How It Drives Civilization (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), Pages 104, 105.

This little object lesson in theological skepticism, however dramatic, is beside the point; it proved nothing about the biblical promise of the resurrection. The Power who raised Jesus from the dead can do the same for us as well, regardless of the state of our body. After all, if that same Power created and upholds the entire cosmos, He certainly could translate the living and resurrect the dead.

“‘Even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him’ [1 Thessalonians 4:14], Paul wrote. Many interpret this passage to mean that the sleeping ones will be brought with Christ from heaven; but Paul meant that as Christ was raised from the dead, so God will call the sleeping saints from their graves and take them with Him to heaven. Precious consolation! glorious hope! not only to the church of Thessalonica, but to all Christians wherever they may be.” — Ellen G. White, The Acts of the Apostles, p. 259.

Discussion Questions:

Someone said: “Death wipes you out. … To be wiped out completely, traces and all, goes a long way toward destroying the meaning of one’s life.” What hope, then, do we have against such meaninglessness in our lives?
How can we harmonize the need of growing toward perfection (Philippians 3:12-16) with the fact that only at Christ’s second coming will we receive an incorruptible and sinless nature (1 Corinthians 15:50-55)?
How might we be able to help someone caught up in the idea of the “secret rapture” to see why this teaching is wrong?
Read again 1 Corinthians 15:12-19. What in these verses presents such powerful evidence for the teaching that the dead are asleep as opposed to being up in heaven with Jesus? What sense do these verses have if the righteous dead are, indeed, in heaven with Jesus now?