Heaven to Earth: The Christian Hope in the Resurrection

In Acts 17:16-34, the apostle Paul, while in Athens, was brought to the Areopagus because he was preaching “the good news about Yahushua and the resurrection.” Athens was the center of Greek philosophy. The popular view of resurrection among the Greeks was… well, there wasn’t one. a person believes that the dead can rise, then no, according to the Greeks, there can be no such thing as “resurrection.”

Greek Philosophy

The Platonic view taught that heavenly bliss was an escape from our physical bodies for a purely spiritual existence where the “shadows” become reality, but only in a disembodied state. No wonder their response to Paul was, “You are bringing some strange ideas to our ears, and we want to know what they mean” (Acts 17:20).

The Greeks, the wisest of the wise, did not accept a literal and physical rising of the dead. Resurrection, or anastasis (lit., to stand again), can only mean a spiritual rebirth or gnosis of the eternal things, not an actual dead body coming to life again. For the Greeks, it goes beyond the belief that a dead person could live again. Rejection of the resurrection was founded in the philosophical idea that the physical world was evil and only a shadow of that pure spiritual realm.

Greek philosophy largely embraced the idea that the soul needed to be freed from the material world of imperfections into the eternal realm of ideas. Some believed this meant there was no moral code because material things were of no consequence.

The Corinthian church saw these ideas as threatening its community. Immorality was accepted among the saints, and they gathered around one or two individuals in the way of Greek philosophical practice. This is still popular today.

“Where is the philosopher of the age? Has not Yahuwah made foolish the wisdom of the world… But Yahuwah chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise… We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of Yahuwah’s secret wisdom…” Paul, 1 Cor. 1:20, 27; 2:6-7

There was no room for Paul’s message of resurrection, whether it was of the Stoic or Epicurean flavor. According to the Greeks, dead men can’t rise, nor should we want them to. Therefore, many leaders rejected the idea, but others would hear Paul again and become followers of Christ (Acts 17:32-34).

We, therefore, must decide what we do with Yahushua and his recorded resurrection from the dead. Everything hinges on the resurrection—everything. We will choose to align ourselves with orthodox Christian belief or be swept away with the rising tide of heretical doctrines of demons.

Life After Death

Contemporary visions of the “afterlife” stand in stark contrast to the uniquely Christian hope in the resurrection of the dead. Let’s take a moment to briefly examine what others believe about the divine destiny of man.

We have already seen the Platonic vision of the immortality of the soul. This view seeks to emphasize the individual. In this vision, our lives culminate at death when the soul is released from the body and we are freed from the imperfections of the material world.

According to this view, discarding the body is necessary to reach the world of eternal ideas and touch the divine.

Another prominent view teaches that we all are destined for a blended union with the divine. Proponents of this idea believe that Yahuwah is impersonal and lacks personal distinctions. To become “one” with the divine is actually to lose all of your own personality and be absorbed in with the “great spirit” in the sky.

This view undermines the personhood and character of Yahuwah as well as the personal nature of human beings.

Reincarnation goes a step further in this idea of union with the divine. According to this view, we do not blend with the divine immediately, but after a series of “rebirths” that continue until the soul has reached perfection. Since this cycle of rebirths is actually never-ending, life is ultimately meaningless. It believes the real person to be only the soul that moves from body to body.

Finally, we can’t leave out those who believe that a person simply ceases to exist upon death. This belief may just be the saddest of all things a person chooses to embrace. Believing that everything ceases at death rejects the created order left by Yahuwah to lead us to knowledge of himself (Rom. 1:20). And it denies that internal longing for life beyond the grave.

This person should stop to observe the seasons. Winter can be dreadful, but Spring is forthcoming.

Pop-Culture Christianity

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed—in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” Paul, 1 Cor. 15:51-52

Somehow believers need to recognize that Scripture teaches that the culmination of our earthly life is found in the future resurrection of the dead when the Lord will break through from heaven and establish his Kingdom upon the earth. They have missed John’s revelation of the Holy City “coming down out of heaven from Yahuwah” (Rev. 21:2).

Instead, many have embraced an eschatological view that propagates some of the tenets of the pagan ideas already discussed. We see this most clearly in Christian funerals and popular teachings from the pulpit and the pen of preachers everywhere.

Pop culture Christianity teaches a distorted view of death and the last days. And I believe it is partially born from a resistance to suffering in the New Testament fashion. We say we have the Kingdom in mind through “winning the culture” by legislating sin when, in reality, we don’t wish to rely on the foolishness of the cross and suffer as Christ in patient love. Like the world, we are fighting against death instead of embracing it with hope in the resurrection.

American Christianity has made it possible for us to look past Paul’s words, “Everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Yahushua will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12) and “For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him but also to suffer for him” (Phil. 1:29). We have built for us a faith that wants nothing but comfort in this world.

We have failed to know the true hope that comes by first confronting the horror and reality of death. To cope with the “sting” of death, we resort to absurd beliefs that are more reflective of pagan teachings than they are of our distinctly Christian hope in the resurrection.

Evangelical Christianity has broadly adopted pagan ideas of the “afterlife” that allow us to continue propagating the “no suffering for me” theology.

The Left Behind Series has done much to further the idea that what we all need is to escape or be “raptured” from this evil world and our lowly, decrepit bodies for a future “spiritual” existence on the other side of the cosmos.

Meanwhile, we are learning to care less and less about the soul of a terrorist, genocide, and the many ways we are destroying the world.

What does it matter when the Christian life can be summed up as “going to heaven when you die,”… which translates: this world isn’t so important after all!

You have heard it many times at funerals and probably have said it yourself at some point: “They are in a better place… they have gone home.” Our hymns even reflect this Platonic idea of the soul’s escape from the body.

Really? Are we flying away, or are we awaiting the resurrection of the dead for a new existence when heaven comes to earth?

Does this sound like a teaching that reflects our hope in the resurrection of the dead? Is it a development or a deviation from the Gospel that testifies that heaven will soon break through to this groaning earth and Yahuwah’s reign will be known among the nations? According to the New Testament, it differs from the Gospel of “peace on earth.”

Why do we insist on furthering a dim view of the Christian hope?

We should stop and reconsider our anticipation of the resurrection of the dead when the awfulness of death strikes a believer. In the climatic event of resurrection, we shall enter our rest.

“The doctrine of the resurrection affirms that we do not enter into the fullness of eternity apart from the body, but only in the body.” Stanley Grenz, Theology for the Community of God, pg. 588

If we believe there is life after death without the body, then we have greatly misunderstood our hope in the resurrection of the dead. All the past and present saints await the coming judgment and resurrection of the dead. It is as if all creation is on the edge of its seat, crying out for that passing from death to life (Rom. 8:22; Rev. 6:9-11).

Heaven and earth cry out, “Come, Lord Yahushua! Come!”

“Now, at the climax of Yahuwah’s salvation in the bodily resurrection of believers, the final enemy is defeated, the final victory won.” Michael S. Gorman, Apostle of the Crucified Lord, pg. 281

We live in that hope until heaven comes to earth and Yahuwah remakes the world for our new resurrected existence. We live to testify of the coming Kingdom of Yahuwah. Winter is here, and the times are dreadful, but Spring is coming!

It has grown increasingly apparent to me that pop-culture Christianity was birthed and is being maintained by a steady diet of sloppy hermeneutics and a distorted view of Yahushua. It has opened the church up to demonic deceptions and has made her susceptible to the pagan powers seeking to undermine our hope in the finished work of Christ.

Because of this onslaught upon Christian orthodoxy and years of propagating a view of Yahuwah that more closely resembles Greco-Roman mythology than the Abba of Yahushua, we must adopt the Berean spirit and be reconciled to an apostolic view of Yahuwah that looks like Christ and is consistent with the eternal purpose (Eph. 1-3; Col. 1:15-23).

Let’s stop and reconsider what the Scripture teaches concerning heaven, hell, and the resurrection of the dead. What we believe about the future profoundly affects how we live in this present evil age.

Heaven: Our Final Home?

“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.” Isaiah 65:17

Creating a “new heavens and a new earth” transforms the former things. It is a world transfigured like unto the physical body of the Lord Yahushua (Matt. 17:1-9). The resurrected body of Christ was of its kind. There is continuity with the old body and discontinuity as well (Lk. 24: 13-35, 36-49; Jn. 20:1-18, 24-31; 21:1-14).

In Rev. 21-22, we do not see believers flying off to a disembodied spiritual existence on the other side of the cosmos. No, we see heaven coming to earth. We see heaven, Yahuwah’s realm, breaking through and fully consummating with the physical realm we call Earth. We can see this in the resurrected body of Christ: heaven intersecting with earth.

We must rid ourselves of this mantra that speaks of going to heaven when we die as if we will have come to the end of our journey. Heaven is indeed where the Lord is presently, but it is not our final home (Ps. 14:2; 20:6; 33:13; Ecc. 5:2; Is. 66:1; Dan. 2:44; 7:27; Rev. 11:15). The finished work of Christ is not fully realized until Yahuwah makes his home on this earth.

Yahuwah’s desire has always been to complete his good work in the created world upon which every human being has ever lived. For the Jew, there was a firm belief that Yahuwah would restore creation and fulfill his covenant with his people. The Lord of heaven and earth would finally merge the two into one unified reality.

This resurrected world is called the “New Jerusalem” and the “Holy City” (Rev. 21:2). This newly remade world is our final destination. It is the Kingdom of Yahuwah fully realized. In Revelation 21:5, Christ says:

“Behold, I am making all things new!”

And Christ has the authority to say such things, for he was the first to be resurrected and clothed with the imperishable.

Our hope is in a future resurrected existence in the “new heavens and earth.” It is on this earth that Yahushua prayed, “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matt. 6:10). Heaven is indeed coming to earth. Yahushua has called for its renewal and resurrection!

“Heaven, in the Bible, is not a future destiny but the other, hidden dimension of our ordinary life—Yahuwah’s dimension, if you like. Yahuwah made heaven and earth; at the last he will remake both and join them together forever.” N.T. Wright, Surprised by Hope, 19

Resurrection Future

“I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of Yahuwah, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable… for the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality.” Paul, 1 Cor. 15:50, 53

Some folks would have you believe that the resurrection has already taken place in the spiritual sense and there is, therefore, no need for a physical resurrection of our bodies. This view highlights the work of the cross but overlooks the importance and power of a physical resurrection to maintain its toxic eschatology.

We can’t afford to ignore the earliest Jewish meaning of the word resurrection. Resurrection always refers to a new bodily existence. Paul’s emphasis on Christ’s bodily resurrection in 1 Cor. 15:12-58 is to assure the saints that we shall receive the same.

It should be equally accepted as his purpose for addressing those believers in Thessalonica (1 Thess. 4:13-18). The believers there were dealing with the deaths of loved ones around them. They had “fallen asleep” before the coming of Christ.

Concerning the Christian hope at death, Stanley Grenz writes:

“As Christians, however, our hope does not focus on any conception of life after death. On the contrary, our hope is directed toward the promise of resurrection. Therefore, anything we say about the status of the dead must arise out of our hope for resurrection.” Created for Community, p.271

It is by Christ’s death on the cross that we died. But it is through Christ’s resurrection that we may live. “We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

Paul continues, “If we have been united with him in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection” (Rom. 6:4-5).

Without the physical resurrection of our bodies, we may not enter the fullness of the new creation. It is in the physical resurrection of the dead and the judgment that the “last enemy” is destroyed (1 Cor. 15:26). Death shall be no more!

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” Yahushua, John 11:25-26

Resurrection Now

Does the resurrection of Christ on the third day have any effect on us in the present? Paul believed we could know the power of Christ’s resurrection even now.

“I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.” Paul, Philippians 3:10-11

Paul wrote, “outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). How is it that resurrection has already begun in an inward way? It has happened by the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. As N.T. Wright has written, it is in the resurrection of Christ that the world is already now “being born with Yahushua” (SH, 73).

Yahushua said, “I am the resurrection and the life…” and receiving his indwelling Spirit is receiving resurrection life (Jn. 12:24; 14:15-31; 16:5-16; Acts 1:8). The Kingdom of Yahuwah has broken through into the old order of things and has already begun the work of resurrection in the here and now. It is doing a work within the hearts of men.

“The Kingdom of Yahuwah belongs to the future, and yet the blessings of the Kingdom of Yahuwah have entered into the present Age to deliver men from bondage to Satan and sin. Eternal life belongs to the Kingdom of Yahuwah, to The Age to Come; but it, too, has entered into the present evil Age that men may experience eternal life in the midst of death and decay. We may enter into this experience of life by the new birth, by being born again.” George Eldon Ladd, The Gospel of the Kingdom, p. 71

How is the resurrection impacting our world today? What does the Kingdom look like in action? I believe Gregory Boyd very describes its nature and power.

He says the Kingdom of Yahuwah “always looks like [Yahushua]—loving, serving, and sacrificing himself for all people, including his enemies. To the extent that an individual, church, or movement looks like that, it manifests the Kingdom of [Yahuwah]. To the extent that it doesn’t look like that, it doesn’t.” The Myth of a Christian Religion, p. 14

If we are unwilling to bleed like Yahushua, we shall not know the power of his resurrection life. There is always a cross before a burst of light comes from the empty tomb. We must return to Christ and the foolishness of his cross if we wish to exhibit resurrection. His Kingdom is not a matter of talk but of power (1 Cor. 4:20).

Resurrection happens in the here and now when the church is reflecting life as it will be in the new heavens and earth.

And that life always looks like Yahushua Christ of Nazareth.

“For, as I have often told you before and now say again with tears, many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their destiny is destruction, their Yahuwah is their stomach, and their glory is in their shame. Their mind is on earthly things. But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Yahushua Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.” Philippians 3:18-21

This is a non-WLC article by David D. Flowers.

We have taken out from the original article all pagan names and titles of the Father and Son, and have replaced them with the original given names. Furthermore, we have restored in the Scriptures quoted the names of the Father and Son, as they were originally written by the inspired authors of the Bible. -WLC Team