What Will the Resurrection Life Be Like?

I'm going to be reading two passages in Mark today.

Let's start with Mark, chapter 12.

Mark 12 · chapter mention

I deliberately skipped over this in our series because I wanted to come back to it today.

So we're going to be reading Mark, chapter 12, verse 18.

Mark 12:18

Mark 12, 18, and then we'll skip over to chapter 16 to the end.

So Mark 12.18,.

Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to him, to Jesus, and questioned him.

Teacher Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife behind but no child, that man should take the wife and raise up offspring for his brother.

There were seven brothers.

The first married a woman and, dying, left no offspring.

Now, in the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be, since the seven had married her?

Jesus spoke to them.

Isn't this the reason why you're mistaken?

You don't know the scriptures or the power of God, for when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

As for the dead being raised, haven't you read in the book of Moses, in the passage about the burning bush, how God said to him I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

He is not the God about the burning bush, how God said to him I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

You are badly mistaken.

And then Mark 16, verse 1.

Mark 16:1

When Sabbath was over, mary Magdalene, mary, the mother of James, and Salome brought spices so that they could go and anoint him.

Very early in the morning on the first day of the week, they went to the tomb at sunrise.

They were saying to one another who will roll away the stone from the entrance to the tomb for us?

Looking up, they noticed that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away.

When they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side.

They were alarmed.

Don't be alarmed.

He told them You're looking for Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.

He has risen.

He's not here.

See the place where they put him, but go tell his disciples and Peter.

He is going ahead of you to Galilee.

You will see him there, just as he told you.

They went out and ran from the tomb because trembling and astonishment overwhelmed them and they said nothing to anyone since they were afraid.

Well, this Easter holds a special poignancy for my family.

We said goodbye to a dear friend during the week and the hope of resurrection coloured everything that was said at Ansu's funeral, and I know for many of you this hope has sustained you in dark times as well.

It gives Christians a hope and even a fearlessness in the face of death.

And in fact the resurrection is so central to our Christian belief that the Apostle Paul wrote that, if it's not true, christians are to be pitied more than anyone else, because what is the point of our faith and what Christians have often had to live through?

And so we proclaim with joy Jesus is risen, or is he.

The ending of Mark's gospel leaves us with a bit of a mystery because it ends so abruptly Now, after verse 8, your Bible.

If you open up a Bible or a Bible app, you probably see something like the earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9 to 20.

And if you go and read that later you'll see.

It seems pretty clear, and in fact most scholars agree, that Mark actually ends at verse 8 and the rest, the extended ending that you read after, that, was added later on sometime, probably in the second century.

So the big question for us then is why does Mark's gospel end without an actual resurrection appearance of Jesus?

We have an empty grave and we have a mysterious young man proclaiming that Jesus is risen, and we have some fearful women, but we have no appearance of Jesus.

Now, like the Sadducees, some people have tried to argue that Mark left us with no resurrection appearance, because there was actually no resurrection.

But in the context of Mark's gospel that doesn't actually make a lot of sense, and we might say with Jesus to such people that you neither know the scriptures nor the power of God.

So there are three possibilities.

It's possible Mark was unable to complete his gospel, although that seems quite unlikely.

It's possible that somehow Mark did have a resurrection appearance in there and that it got lost.

Possibly it was on another page or something got destroyed or misplaced.

Or it's possible Mark actually intended to leave the ending ambiguous, which isn't as crazy as it sounds, because if you've been tracking with us through Mark, you remember we've been talking about something called the Messianic secret, which is this idea that no one in the story really knows who Jesus is until it's revealed actually at his trial, and it's kind of a nice symmetry that Mark would leave us as the reader, who have been clued in the whole time with this question well, what are you going to do with Jesus?

Now?

I'm a strong believer in the doctrines of the inspiration and preservation of Scripture, which is to say that the Bible we have is the Bible God intends us to have, and so, whatever the reason, mark ends at verse 8, I do think it's appropriate because of that, and isn't this the nature of the Christian life?

Mark leaves us hanging, and very often we feel like we're kind of hanging in the Christian life.

We don't have the absolute proof of Jesus' resurrection that we might like.

We live by faith, not by sight.

Now we still have an empty tomb and we have the witness of Scripture that Jesus is risen.

Like the women, we often feel weak and we feel afraid in the face of a turbulent and sometimes hostile world.

But the empty tomb, the witness of Scripture, these afraid women, these are not inconsequential evidences.

Now, there are other evidences as well that we could go into, but we're talking about Mark's gospel and so I just want to focus on this this morning.

See, now these aren't inconsequential because the early opponents of Jesus you know all they had to do to prove that Jesus wasn't risen?

Point to the right tomb.

People say, oh, it was the wrong tomb.

They went to Point to the right tomb.

All they had to do was go and show the body and the whole Christian endeavor would have just ended right there.

Jesus would not have been the first person claiming to be a Messiah who'd actually been killed and his movement died out.

But no one found the body.

The movement didn't die out.

The movement didn't die out.

The witness of Scripture has proven to be very robust in the face of intense scrutiny.

For 2,000 years, people have tried all sorts of ways to prove it wrong.

Or that it has no power, or this or that, and yet it still speaks powerfully.

Or this or that, and yet it still speaks powerfully.

And defying all explanation, those trembling, fearful disciples birthed a movement that, despite strong persecutions, has become the largest faith movement in the world.

So critics have tried to explain these facts away, but none have been successful.

In fact, many historians today recognize the truthfulness of these facts, non-christian historians who will deny the resurrection.

They just throw up their hands and say you know what?

We don't know what happened.

We can't argue that the tomb is empty.

We can't argue that.

The disciples in other Gospels say they saw Jesus, but we don't know what happened.

That's the only answer they can give.

But you know what we say.

We say Jesus is risen.

That's not actually what I want to talk to you about today.

Couldn't leave that without explanation.

But that's not our main theme.

Jesus promised that we would join him in resurrection, and if he is risen, then we can be confident in his promise.

And with that confidence, christians often wonder well, what sort of life will resurrection life be?

We long to leave this world of sin.

There's a lot in this world we love, but there's a lot we don't.

We long to leave the pain behind, and so surely the resurrection life is going to look at least a little bit different to the life we have now.

A common image of heaven is that of we all become winged angels sitting on clouds, playing harps.

Now, I love to worship, but does anyone else think that doesn't sound particularly appealing.

So what will the resurrection actually be like?

Well, the Bible gives us not very much information actually, but we have a few clues, and one is Jesus' teaching on marriage in the resurrection.

Now, most Jews in Jesus' day believed in the resurrection.

They didn't believe the Messiah was going to die, they didn't believe he was going to rise again, but they believed in a general resurrection of the dead one day, except for the Sadducees.

The Sadducees only believed in the first five books of the Bible, and they did not see any teaching in there on resurrection, and so they rejected it.

Well, at least that's what they saw.

But then Jesus argued that actually it's there.

God says I am the God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob.

He is not a God of death, he's a God of life, and so it follows that the patriarchs are alive in him.

And so then he turned what they thought was a very cleverly contrived trap into an opportunity for teaching.

So the clever question about this man or this woman who has all these husbands was based on a law in the Old Testament called the law of Leverite marriage.

If a man died childless, his brother was expected to take his brother's widow as his own wife, and any children born were to be counted as the dead man's children.

It was a way of keeping his brother's family line alive.

Now that really sounds very strange in our ears, but it was a different time and culture.

Now, of course, the Sadducees assumed that if this so-called resurrection that they didn't believe in was going to happen, that life then would be a lot like life now, and hence this conundrum.

But Jesus says no, not at all.

It's going to be very different.

The question is, what did Jesus mean then when he says we won't marry but we'll be like the angels?

Does that mean there won't be any genders in heaven?

Does that mean there won't be any sex?

Or, some people think, free sex?

Well, I don't think so, and there are three places in the Bible, I think, that are particularly helpful for us understanding the resurrection life.

One you might be surprised is the creation account.

One is the resurrection of Jesus and one is in the book of Revelation.

So the creation account, you see, at creation we see God and humanity as God intended it to be, it's sort of his original design.

In Jesus' resurrection we see humanity restored, but not simply restored to our original state, somehow improved, if you like.

And in Revelation we see probably a symbolic glimpse of a new creation.

So I just want to read Genesis first, just Genesis 1, verses 26 to 28, to set the scene, which says Then God said, let us make man in our image, according to our likeness, they will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth and the creatures that crawl upon the earth.

Genesis 1:26–28

So God created man in his own image.

He created him in the image of God.

He created them male and female.

So we see a few things in these verses.

We see God's design for humanity was as sex, that's male and female, physical beings to live on the earth.

And in fact when you read the order of creation some people read into that.

God made and prepared the earth for humanity and so we're not just as some people sometimes think.

The Greek philosophy certainly thought and this has crept into Christian theology sometimes that we are spiritual beings, sort of trapped in a body waiting to be freed from it.

That's not what the Bible teaches.

In fact, what we see earlier in Genesis 1 is God makes the heavens and the stars and the sun and the moon, and the heavens are the stars and the sun and the moon, and the heavens are made for heavenly beings, while the earth is the dominion of humanity.

Now we might add here if you go on into chapter 2 as well, I don't know you might consider this bad news.

But we were made for work.

God placed the man and the woman in the garden to care for it.

They were gardeners.

Well, the gardeners go yay.

Now, of course, this was fulfilling work, life-giving work, not the toil and drudgery that came along after sin.

And so I've got some good news and I've got some bad news.

And the bad news is you're not going to heaven, at least not permanently.

The good news is that heaven is coming to a street near you.

Don't know if that confuses you, but let me explain.

See, in chapter 2, god places the man and the woman in the Garden of Eden, and this was an idyllic location where humanity and God had perfect union, communion.

And many scholars have noticed that the Garden of Eden, imagery and this whole creation, imagery, imagery is the imagery of a temple.

And a temple wasn't just a place where people go to church to worship God.

A temple was actually a little slice of heaven on earth.

It's where the gods, if they were pagan or God for the Jews and humanity couldn't meet.

And in fact, if you read the story of the building of the temple in Exodus, brace yourself if you're going to do that later.

But they had woven into their tapestries, what looked like a garden.

There were animals and there were pictures particularly of trees and stuff like that.

So it was a little bit of a garden, this temple tabernacle, and so a temple was a place where heaven touched earth, a kind of temple.

So when humanity ate the forbidden fruit in that garden, then that fellowship, that communion between heaven and earth was broken.

It's like heaven left, the man and the woman were chucked out.

But of course that's not the end of the story and we move to Revelation and guess what we see.

Revelation 21, verses 1 to 4, says Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and the sea was no more.

Revelation 21:1–4

Now, this is all highly symbolic.

So you surfers and beach lovers, you don't take this literally.

There'll still be an ocean.

I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband.

And then I heard a loud voice from the throne look, god's dwelling is with humanity and he will live with them.

They will be his peoples and God himself will be with them and will be their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, death will be no more, will be with them and will be their God.

He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more.

Grief, crying and pain will be no more because the previous things have passed away.

I want to encourage you, if the book of Revelation freaks you out, sort of, just read chapter 20, 21, 22.

You can skip to the end if you have permission to do that.

That's all great stuff, and so what we see in these chapters is a picture of heaven coming back to earth.

One day, god will be fully present on earth and in our experience in a way that we don't now, and the earth will be renewed.

And in fact, jesus' coming was the beginning of that heavenly invasion which continues in his church until he returns.

Sorry, I didn't catch that, keith.

We'll move on Now.

There is an intermediate state after we die, where our souls go to be with God, but that's only a temporary state of affairs until the final resurrection, when God renews all things Again.

God did not make you a soul trapped in a body waiting to escape like a bird from a cage.

God made humans as embodied beings.

We were made to live on this earth and the promise is that we will continue to do so after the resurrection.

Only it won't be the world as it is now, or bodies as we experience them now, full of death and corruption.

It'll be a life and a world pervaded by an experience of the presence of the Spirit of God, with Jesus reigning as King.

I think there will still be work, but it'll be joyful, life-giving work.

So, genesis Revelation what about Jesus?

Well, we catch a glimpse of the resurrection body in a few stories after Jesus rose, because look, remember, jesus is the first fruit.

He is the model we follow, fruits, he is the model we follow.

So, after he rose, jesus seemed to have the same body that died, but changed.

Well, obviously, the body wasn't in the grave anymore.

The disciples didn't immediately recognize him.

So there was something different.

In John 20, mary Magdalene thought he was the gardener.

At first she was looking through tears, so that's kind of understandable.

Luke 24, there's two disciples walking along the road talking to Jesus.

They didn't recognize him straight away, admittedly, their last image of Jesus was beaten to a pulp on a Roman cross.

Image of Jesus was beaten to a pulp on a Roman cross.

They didn't recognize him until he just disappeared from before their eyes.

And Jesus seems to have this really uncanny ability just to appear and disappear out of space.

Because after he disappeared from those disciples, he then appears to the 11 apostles meeting in a room, and that's in Luke and similarly in John 20.

He appears to them in a locked room.

So what's going on?

Well, in 1 Corinthians 15, paul writes that while our present experience is one of a natural body, the resurrection body will be spiritual.

And he doesn't mean when he says it's going to be spiritual that it's going to be immaterial like a ghost.

It's more like he means it's going to be supernaturally animated.

Now we talk about the soul that animates us.

Then it will be the spirit, it will be something different.

There will be something that's similar, it'll still be physical, but something different, supernatural.

So in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 47 to 49, he writes the first man was from the earth, a man of dust.

1 Corinthians 15:47–49

The second man he's talking about Jesus.

The second man is from heaven.

And like the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust, like the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven.

And just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven, so we'll be like Jesus in some way in his resurrection.

One more bit of good news, I think, and something that demonstrates the physicality of Jesus and the resurrection body, is that we see Jesus eating food, to prove that he was not just a ghost.

It's like no, look.

I don't think there's much more we can say beyond that with any certainty.

Life in the new creation is a bit of a mystery.

There's not much revealed to us.

On the other hand, let your imagination run wild.

What's it going to be like?

I don't know.

Get excited.

I don't think it will be sitting on clouds, playing harps, but I do think there will be a lot of praise and singing.

Coming back to the passage, though, on marriage what of marriage and relationships, relationships, particularly if there's no marriage?

If we're like the angels, remembering that doesn't mean we're going to be spirits, ghosts that will have physicality, but these glorious beings.

Well, I think when the gospel talks about relationships, it's talking about something richer and deeper than marriage as we experience it now, and certainly the resurrection body won't be driven by our natural desires, but by our spiritual desires, like the angels.

Now have a think about this.

How many times do you do things you don't want to do because you are driven by hormones or your stomach?

Or I didn't sleep great last night, I can't get out of bed today.

How many times are we driven by those natural desires or or just limitations?

And in this new creation body we will just have a whole different level of self-control, and even self-control can sometimes sound like hard work, but this is going to be supernatural.

It will, in that realm then, be a new level of natural.

It won't be hard, it will be normal for us, because we will be transformed.

This is great news, and so I think probably we'll be gendered, you'll continue to be male or female, but I don't think our relationships will be driven by that or sex or the old social customs.

Rather, we'll relate in perfect, selfless love as brothers and sisters in Christ, and whatever earthly pleasures we enjoy now, whether sex or food or entertainment, that will pale in comparison to what is waiting for us in the new creation.

So Jesus is risen and we will rise with him too.

Friends, as much as we look forward to the resurrection, life here's the kicker For the Christian that life has begun.

God offers it to you now, and if you're not a Christian, here today, god is offering you a taste of that life in Jesus Christ, just a small taste.

This world will pass away, our lives will pass away and we'll step into something far more glorious.

There will be a continuation of the life, of the Spirit we have already received if we're Christians, and so I want to encourage you to lean into life and to lean into hope, because Jesus is risen and resurrection is your destiny.

Let's pray, father.

We thank you again, father, for your grace to us.

Words can't express, lord, our minds can't conceive of what awaits us, and so our words certainly fail us.

Lord, my prayer today is that you will help us live into that reality, that we will not be a people shaped by our past or by our present limitations and the sin and the sickness and pain we experience, but we will be a people shaped by the future, the reality of what has begun but is going to be completed when we see Jesus and we step into that resurrection life in him.

Father, help us to live in the power of the resurrection, the power of heaven that is leaking into this world through the presence of your spirit.

In Jesus' name, amen.