When seeking the truth, look for links to reality.

There is a maxim of life that says actions speak louder than words. Many theories have been set forth in words to explain the biblical doctrine of resurrection. However, I believe Abraham's actions - living out his faith in the divine promises - speak louder than most.

Bad science killed resurrection.

I have recently begun to realize that resurrection is a very hazy idea among Christians. We use the word all the time, we sing about it, and we’re glad it’s coming but we don’t know what it is. In our Christian culture the word no longer has a specific meaning. That’s odd because in the minds of believers as far back as Abraham the concept of resurrection was crystal clear. Likewise, in the minds of Jesus’ disciples there was no question that it meant a bodily return from the grave to live on earth where they would assume their eternal inheritance forever. In the minds of the Old Testament Jews, resurrection always meant a bodily return from the dead. Oddly, they only had difficulty with it when it actually happened…to Jesus. But then the disciples had difficulty with the idea of Messiah’s death, too, so it shouldn’t be surprising that His resurrection also caught them off guard.

I mentioned “assuming their eternal inheritance on earth.” This is the idea that drove Ezra to carefully record genealogies as the people returned to the land. Land belonged to families, not just persons, and it was always understood that the family would return to it’s own land in the resurrection. That’s why Israel was originally divided up according to families, and why it was so important to get the records straight when they returned from the exile.

While there were some problems with the idea of resurrection in the early church, among conservative Christians it has only become problematic in recent history...when people began to question its scientific viability. We now want to know: “How can you do that?” …or… “What if the person was never buried. What if they were eaten by wild animals, or blown to bits, or lost at sea, etc, etc, etc.” We want a scientific description of this phenomenon. People have not always thought in terms of hard science the way we do today. When God promised our ancestors a resurrection, they didn’t worry about the means. Why should they? He had created the universe…He could certainly accomplish a minor re-creative act like resurrection. They simply trusted His word, especially when (but even before) Christ became the example (Rom. 6:5). The Bible teaches us clearly that without a resurrection we have no salvation (1 Cor. 15:12-19)…and we have no problem with that, at least not until we begin to define the word!

About 300 years ago a new trend in thinking began to enter the human mind. Historically, that was when the industrial revolution began. The success of industry, then as now, depended on understanding nature. The better we understand nature, the better we can manipulate it to serve our will – and the more efficient, and therefore competitive, we become in the marketplace. With economics providing the driving force, we developed a new habit of constantly honing our perceptive and rational skills so we could better understand the things around us. Of course, that has led to many good things, but it has also led to another trend, one in which we began to define our world, ourselves, and even our very being in terms of scientific viability - meaning that if we don’t understand the science behind it, we refuse to accept it as a possibility. Long story short, that cuts God and everything “spiritual” out of our lives because the spiritual realm simply defies definition by “science” as we know it. Think about it! There are no “scientific laws” that define either a spiritual existence or a creative act. Not one! So now we question creation, saying, in effect that “God couldn’t possibly have created because we can’t create.” Fairly good logic, just fatally short sighted.

This is January of 2010. Let me pause for a moment to offer a quote from another work, from “Some Fundamental problems of Modern Theology,” by Gerald Birney Smith and Douglas C. Macintosh, © 1910 The University of Chicago Press. He said, “The vital problems which the systematic theologian today must face are largely due to the recent thoroughgoing application of scientific methods in the investigation of religion.” That was a hundred years ago! (Just so you know I didn’t make this up.)

And, of course, the problem goes even deeper. If God can’t create, then even if He does exist He ranks somewhere between not terribly important and just plain impotent. To the degree that we might consider Him impotent, to us any imagined purpose He might have for the creation becomes irrelevant…and Christians buy into this a lot more than they realize! You don’t believe it? Look at how much of our lives are dedicated to the promotion of our eternal condition. Do we even think about it? No, of course not. And why not? Because the future is completely in God’s hands and we don’t have any influence over it anyway, right? …nor do we want any!

But this is the great lie. In fact, Jesus first, and then Paul, placed tremendous emphasis on the idea that we should learn to look beyond the veil…learn to live our lives today as though our current living habits have tremendous influence on our eternal life (Matt. 6:1-6). But how could that be? And how could we control it? What science describes this? We don’t honestly have a clue what eternal life looks like, do we? We don’t even know what we will be…a spirit? …a bright light? …a mist floating on a cloud? We’re natural people, science people, right? We’ve advanced in our understanding. We’ve evolved from the ignorance of spirituality to the knowledge of science, right? Wrong!

If there is no resurrection, then God is a failure.

I apologize, I 've forgotten who made this statement: “One of the greatest weaknesses in the modern church is that our whole view of the future is that we are all going to die and go to heaven, period.” ...but I totally agree with him. How sad! The notion would be laughable if it were not so true. A weak eschatology debilitates the mind because it deprives it of true hope…not just of hope, but of the need for hope. Think about it, if you knew that, having passed through 12 years of primary education, you would be assigned a lifetime position in a work camp without any regard whatsoever for your personal talents, interests, or skills, would you study? No, of course not. Study would be meaningless because it would be of no consequence. And yet that’s exactly what our modern view of "life after death" does for us. We are offered a picture of bliss, that's all, just empty minded bliss. How can that give us hope? It's nothing but nothingness. There’s no hope in nothingness…an escape, perhaps, but not hope. And that’s sad, because it implies God is a failure.

You see, God created man on earth, an earthy being, designed to be on earth. In the original creation, there was no death. True, we were warned of the possibility, but death itself was not designed in as an essential aspect. Do you find that hard to believe? You might recall that the Lord gave man the fruit and the green stuff for food, not meat…and it was only after the flood that He reluctantly agreed to the taking of life so we might consume His beloved animal stock. He did not sanction the taking of life in the Garden, and even when He finally consented to it, He still asked us not to eat the blood for in so doing we would be desecrating the gift of life.

So if we were not to die, then clearly the divine intent was that we live on earth forever. Now that was simple, wasn’t it! Oh, I know you’re already trying to solve the problem of over-population in your scientific minds, but why don’t you leave that to God. It’s really not your problem. He’s the Creator; He’ll handle His creation…unless, of course, you have a better idea!

So…God didn’t design death into His creation, but since it has become a part of our existence we rationalize that death is good because it balances nature. Is that true? No, it’s just that same modern scientific logic gnawing on the corner of your natural intelligence while there is no one there to question it. So I’m going to question it and try to explain that in the divine economy death is never good. In fact, it’s the very epitome of evil. It’s not there by divine design, by divine wisdom, or even by divine permission. It’s there – here – as an infiltration, because of sin. Sin is the problem that originated death (Rom. 6:23, et al), and it’s a problem that must be resolved. Of course, it was resolved on the cross…and that’s a relief! But it leaves us with a conundrum because even though sin is resolved, death is still here. Even those of us for whom sin has become a non-issue through our faith in Christ are still dying. Of course, when we do God takes us to heaven to be with Him, but is that a solution? If it is, it implies that God has lost His creation to death; that is, that death is a problem that can’t be solved so the best God can do is to capture the souls of His people one by one as they depart the world, and take them to Himself as a escape from death – but the world itself is lost. It’s lost because there is no resolution for death. But…

God designed men to live on the earth. The body was formed before the soul. (You remember…the flesh was just lying there, a pile of inanimate dust, before the Lord breathed the spirit into it.) The body came first so the body is part and parcel of the divine design for the human being. We were never intended to exist in spirit form only. However, as indicated above, a wrench has been thrown into the works. The cogs are jammed and the gears are broken, but that doesn’t mean God is defeated. God is just bigger than that. He’s not upset, and He certainly hasn’t abandoned anything. He can’t. This is His estate and He’s not walking away from it. Instead He has devised and decreed an historical plan for making it all right…and by “right” is meant returning His creation to the original design. Back there where it started…that was God’s design, that was what He wanted, and that was what He saw as “good”...or even “very good.” No, He’s not going to turn away from that just because someone threw a wrench in the works. He’s just not that easily deterred. The works are broken, but His plan is to fix it (beginning with the cross) not to abandon it.

Now to fix it, He has to restore all those disembodied believers to their proper condition. That’s what the Bible means by the word “resurrection.” We think we’re going to be in eternal bliss when we leave our bodies, and that we’ll be happy in a disembodied state forever...but really! We should listen to our Lord more carefully. He said that for a spirit to live without a body is like living in a dry desert (Luke 11:24). Hmm…"dry desert bliss." Sounds like a nice comfy, happy eternal existence, right? Not on your life! This is not God’s plan for us. He wouldn’t leave us in that condition whether your modern scientific mind can understand how God can accomplish His goals or not.

So let’s learn the truth about resurrection from the expert! Abram believed in resurrection. By this I mean he believed in

But how can we know that? Do we have a record of a statement in which Abram outlined his view of the resurrection? No. However, there is a maxim of life that says "actions speak louder than words;" and there can be no question, when we review the record of Abram’s life, that he “lived with a view to the resurrection.”

Abraham on resurrection.

In some ways Abram had a tough life because he had a relationship with a demanding God. God wanted a lot from Abram because in the short time since the Flood mankind had turned almost completely to idol worship and God needed a witness – not some wimp, but a true man of the faith, to show the world how it’s done. Abram was the man for the job because he loved God; but this assignment would still take some serious “training.”

Abram started out in life as the son of an idol worshiper (Josh. 24:2), but he loved the One True God, and hated idols. Jewish tradition relates a couple different stories about how, as a young man, Abram got himself in deep trouble with the local community, either by smashing idols publicly or by actually burning down their temple. According to these stories, he was trying to convince the community of the impotence of the idols but, instead of taking the lesson to heart, the people came after him with murder on their minds. This is the traditional explanation for why Terah uprooted his family and took them to Haran (Gen. 11:31) about 600 miles from their unhappy friends. Then it was at Haran that the Lord God instructed Abram to leave his family and go to “a land which I will show you” (Gen 12:1).

Abram was 75 years old when he received this offer from the Lord and obeyed by faith. Now why would we think he obeyed by faith? …and what was he thinking? Since we aren’t told the means by which this particular promise came to Abram, whether in a dream, a vision, or an appearance of the Angel of the Lord, it would seem that all the emphasis is to be placed on Abram’s obedience to the “words” regardless of how they were communicated. Whatever the experience, Abram trusted the “words.” Furthermore, Abram, who hated idols (that don’t have words) trusted the words of this God enough to act on them – and trust is faith. By his faith, Abram distinguished his God from all the other gods of the world. So the story begins, but this story isn’t without its problems. Look, for example, at the promise that went with the command…

“I will make you a great nation.”

Now at that time Abram was 75 and his wife, Sarai (to whom he was faithful, we might add, because he had no other wives or mistresses) was 66…and they were childless. Thinking back we might overlook this detail, but to Abram we’ll see that it was a serious shortcoming.

So they came to the land, and the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land” (Gen. 12:7) …and there’s that problem cropping up again...there are no descendents! But Abram continued to take it in stride and built an altar to the Lord, indicating his continued faith in the “words” of this God.

But on second thought, maybe this problem wasn’t all as bad as it seemed. You see, even at 66 Sarai was a beauty to behold, so beautiful, in fact, that when they traveled down to Egypt to escape a famine, the Pharaoh added her to his harem…at 66! (Gen.12:15). So if she was still that attractive, visually speaking there’s certainly still hope for a pregnancy. You see, in those days there was no scientific reasoning for the barren womb; to them it was God who closed the womb, and God could open it again. So it wasn’t that great of a challenge…yet…but more years passed.

Now it’s important that we pause here and take note of the time when Abram parted company with Lot, because at that time the Lord spoke to him yet again, saying, “Look as far as you can…north, south, east and west…all you see I will give to you and your descendants forever.” Did he mean that? How could that be? By then Abram was a little over 75 years old. He didn’t know it then, but he would die at 175. What he did know was that he had a limited time left on this earth – that he would die! So how could God meet the conditions of this promise, that is, to give him (1) that piece of land (2) forever? Abram was a rancher (cattle, donkeys, sheep and camels). Was God promising him a mega-ranch forever? Is God for real, or a jokester? And please note, God didn’t just say, “…to your descendants forever.” He said, “…to you and your descendants forever.”

Perhaps we could explain this away by saying there would always be sons of Abram in the land, but that isn’t what God said. He said Abram would be in the land forever! Please note two points:

  1. The land is on earth, so for this to happen the earth has to last forever; and
  2. Abram has to last forever (as well as his descendants).

Abram may have laid awake a lot of nights thinking about this, but he could only come to one conclusion. Knowing he must die, as we all do, there had to be a resurrection…a literal, bodily resurrection…a divinely sponsored robbing of the grave followed by eternal life on earth…for this promise to be fulfilled.

More time passed and there were still no descendants…and that weighed very heavily on Abram’s mind. So heavily that when the Lord again reminded Abram of the promise (Gen. 15), he finally just lost it and blurted out, “What can you give me, seeing I am childless and my only heir is Eliezer, my ranch foreman” (paraphrased). Now we have a moment of crisis.

Well, we would like to say the drama ended there, that Abram’s courage was restored and he lived the rest of his life in unflagging confidence in the Word of the Lord. Mmm…not so. As the years waned and their health declined, the problem of “no descendants” only loomed ever larger in the minds of this covenanted couple until at 85 Abram listened to a suggestion from Sarai and we have Ishmael on the scene. After that things got quiet for a long time, but it wasn’t over yet...

When Abram was 99 and quite withered with age the Lord came to him again, in person this time, and they had a very extended discussion about the terms and meaning of the covenant (Gen. 17 & 18). During this discussion the Lord specifically identified Sarah (this was the time when they were both given new names) as the mother of the “son of the promise.” From his reaction to this news, we get a pretty good indication of how stressful this had been to Abraham over the years. He literally fell on his face in uncontrollable laughter right there in front of the Lord! I guess we know what he thought of his body by then. Of course, Sarah, who had been listening through the tent wall laughed to herself as well. Why? Because they had long since “dried up,” to put it politely, and they knew it. So Abraham offered Sarah’s solution to the Lord, “please accept Ishmael as the son of the promise." But the Lord said, “No way. One year from today Sarah will bear you a son and you will call him Isaac.” (In Hebrew, the word “Isaac” means “laughter.”)

Well, we finally have an heir, so while he’s growing up let’s take another look at why this was so important to Abraham. Remember how the Lord addressed the oath to Abraham and his descendants? Abraham knew he was going to die and that he would probably stay dead for a long time. This was important to him because, as he said, his only heir at the time was Eliezer. Two points:

  1. Please note carefully that Abram/Abraham never showed any interest in attaining the inheritance before he died! Isn't that interesting?
  2. But on the other hand he was totally preoccupied by his lack of an heir.

At this point it’s vitally important that we ask ourselves, “Why?” Think about it. If someone offered to give us a million dollars, saying we could keep it forever, we’d say, “Great.” Then we’d take it and try to spend it all before we died. This would be a reflection on how we think…meaning "nothing in this life transfers to the next." Therefore we should also see Abraham’s actions as a reflection of how he thought. While on the one hand we couldn’t care less about how much money we have after we die, and he couldn’t care less about the land before he died…but he was desperately afraid of losing it after he died! What does that mean?

Abraham understood God. He realized he was receiving a promise from the Most High, the One True God, the God of Eternal Life – and that the promise had specifically said, “Forever.” But Abraham knew he wouldn’t live forever. So to receive that promise in any meaningful way at all there had to be a resurrection, a genuine, real, physical, literal returning from the dead. If Abraham received the benefits of the promise in this life, dying he would lose them forever, but if he received them in resurrection, living he would keep them forever. That’s how Abraham thought, and his life proves it.

Now let’s look at why he thought that way. A lot of people had lived and died before Abraham, so there was no question in his mind that he would die, too. Furthermore, as yet no one had been resurrected, so it was uncertain just when that event would occur. But it really didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that he had to have an heir to hold the inheritance for him until he did return. If he had no heir…if, on his death, the promise was inherited by another…then when Abram returned in the resurrection, the best he could hope for would be to live as a guest on the promised land; but the land would belong to another because that family had inherited it from him and now he had no right to ask for it back…not even in resurrection…not even if God had promised it to him. Abraham did not expect God to steal something that rightfully belonged to another just to keep His word to him.

So this was Abraham’s culture, it was how he thought. Furthermore, it was the context in which God communicated the promise to him. So here’s where we get our lesson on resurrection from Abraham. From this context, and from this point forward, we will see Abraham living in a way that reflects this view of resurrection; and we will see clearly how he expected to enjoy the benefits of God’s promises, not now, but eternally (Heb. 11:8-16). So we can see why Abraham really had no interest in rewards he could lose through death. If he was going to receive something from God, he wanted to be able to keep it. He had a pretty good opinion of God.

Finally, we should ask ourselves, “What, exactly, was it that Abraham expected to receive. Was it some kind of honorable mention in heaven, or did he really believe God was going to give him a patch of land on this earth as his eternal inheritance, meaning he would actually live here – on earth – forever. Well, this is not difficult to figure out, because at one point the Lord had actually given him the boundaries of that “patch of land.” And just to make it even more real, he enumerated the current occupants so Abraham would know exactly what area was to be included.

Boundaries! That means you could walk up and touch a rock, and that rock would belong to Abraham forever – that’s eternity! And you could cross the boundary and touch another rock and that rock would never belong to Abraham. We’re forced to a conclusion here, that to receive the benefits of God’s promises after the resurrection, Abraham has to live on the earth forever!!!

Oh come on… Do we really think that’s how Abraham thought of it? Let’s look again…and let his actions speak louder than our words.

There can be no question God was rough on Abraham. He deliberately tested his faith beyond the norm, not to see if he had faith, but to teach him faith…to teach him to trust the Word of the Lord, and to set an eternal example for us. It worked. When the Lord told Abraham to sacrifice his son, the one he loved, his heir, the one who validated all the promises, Abraham was willing to comply because he was so confident of the resurrection that he figured if God could give him a son once from the deadness of both he and Sarah’s bodies, then God could bring his son back from death as well (Heb. 13:17-19). This was probably the ultimate faith test of all time. It made Isaac a nervous wreck, but for Abraham and the rest of us it stands as the ultimate moment of human confidence in God. For Abraham, resurrection was the simplest of truths, part and parcel of relationship with God…and resurrection meant a return to this earth simply because that is exactly where the promised inheritance was.

When God specifies exact geographical boundaries to a person who is standing there looking at them, and then says, “Go ahead and explore it, it’s yours,” He isn't speaking figuratively. What would that mean? That there’s a corresponding patch of land in heaven, and He’s going to boot the Kennites and the Hittites and the Perizzites out of heaven to make room for Abraham and his sons? It’s not possible to take a statement like this figuratively. If you do, it becomes more than meaningless…it becomes absurd! And there’s no indication that Abraham and his sons, right up to and including the Jews at the time of Christ, ever took it any other way than literally. When Jesus was resurrected, He had a literal body – He insisted they touch it and give Him food to eat. He walked the earth for 40 days before going on to heaven – not as a spirit, but bodily! Jesus is “the heir” of Abraham (Gal. 3) and David, the greater son of both. He’ll be back, and we with Him. It is He who will sit on the throne of the kingdom promised to Abraham. That kingdom has boundaries specified in the Word of God right here on this earth. The Euphrates River, for one, is still there. You can swim in it. Step out on the west bank and you’re in the promised land, the Kingdom, the Eternal Kingdom of God. Take off your shoes, you’re standing on holy ground!