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CHAPTER 5

THE RESURRECTION OF THE KING

This chapter completes the present study of the King by discussing the last of the four topics introduced in Chapter One of this section—His resurrection. As in the case of the previous events, the event of the King’s resurrection elicits either biblically-based acceptance and understanding or pagan denial and reinterpretation of it. The resurrection forms the end point of the Christian vision of history just as the creation forms the starting point for that history. It is not surprising, therefore, that just as biblical creation is opposed by pagan evolution, in like manner resurrection is sharply resisted by unbelief. This study will present the claims surrounding the resurrection, the pagan responses to those claims, and the doctrinal consequences of Christ’s resurrection and ascension. Some of the powerful applications of those doctrinal consequences to the Christian life will then be briefly explained. (Read here Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20-21; Acts 1:1-11; I Corinthians 15; Revelation 21-22.)

THE HISTORICAL INCIDENT OF THE RESURRECTION

No other religious leader or founder ever claimed to rise from the dead in an utterly new body. Moses’ body was buried and did not rise (Deut. 34:5-6; cf. Jude 1:16). Buddha died as any other man, and so did Mohammed. Indeed, as Dr. Wilbur Smith says, “All the millions and millions of Jews, Buddhists, and Mohammedans agree that their founders have never come up out of the dust of the earth in resurrection.”[1] The King’s resurrection and his subsequent ascent into heaven in his resurrection body, then, is an absolutely unique phenomenon in human history.

Christ’s resurrection claim is a central portion of the Christian position. It must be distinguished from possible resuscitation claims or claims that a “spiritual” resurrection took place. After carefully observing the claim, biblical faith interprets it within the framework revealed from the OT and from Christ’s teachings given prior to His death.

AFFIRMATION OF THE FACT OF THE RESURRECTION

Rather than vainly trying to explain the empty tomb with theft, hallucination, or swoon-plot theories, orthodox Christianity has always insisted upon the King’s real,

historic resurrection and ascension. Not only has this claim been present from the earliest days of Christianity, but it has always been considered as a central

Christian truth. [2] So central to Christianity has it been that liberal theologians have tried desperately to undermine this claim to avoid conflict with modern unbelief. One can quickly see the dilemma of modern unbelieving liberals in this remark of Richard R. Niebuhr:

“The intense analysis of the New Testament produced by the great age of historical investigation has emphasized, among other things, this fact that belief in Jesus as the risen Lord informs every part of the early church’s thought. But the rise of historical criticism has also made it increasingly difficult for theologians and biblical scholars to accept the New Testament order of thought. They have felt obligated to remove the resurrection of Jesus from its central position and to place it on the periphery of Christian teaching and proclamation, because the primitive resurrection faith conflicts disastrously with modern canons of historicity.”[3]

Unfortunately, however, all such attempts “to remove the resurrection of Jesus from its central position” reverse the true cause-effect of the Church’s origin. These unbelieving attempts try to make the Church the originator of the “primitive resurrection faith” instead of making the resurrection the originating cause of the Church. As Ladd correctly remarks:

“That which brought the church into being and gave it a message was not hope of the persistence of life beyond the grave, a confidence in God’s supremacy over death, a conviction of the immortality of the human spirit. It was belief in an event in time and space: Jesus of Nazareth was risen from the dead. . . .

But we must go further to the final and crucial fact. Something happened to create in the disciples belief in Jesus’ resurrection. Here is the crucial issue. It was not the disciples’ faith that created stories of the resurrection; it was an event lying behind these stories that created their faith. . . .

Here is the heart of the problem for twentieth-century man: What is the fact of the resurrection? What happened to produce the disciples’ faith?”[4]

Besides the centrality of the resurrection claim, there is the matter of the nature of Jesus’ resurrection body. On the one hand, it was a body, not merely a spirit or hallucination. It was observable to all three senses of sight, sound, and touch (Luke 24:33-43; John 20:24-30; I Cor. 15:1-8; I John 1:1-4). Luke even goes so far as to describe Jesus’ post-resurrection appearances in this language: “[Jesus] also showed himself alive after his passion by many proofs, appearing unto them. . .’ (Acts 1:3; emphasis supplied). On the other hand, this body was not a body like that given to all men since creation. It was not a mere restoration of his previous natural body; it was not a resuscitation as in previous biblical cases (e.g., I Kings 17:17-23; II Kings 4:18-27; John 11:1-44). Jesus’ resurrection body could appear and disappear (Luke 24:31; John 20:19, 26). Again, Ladd notes: “The resurrection of Jesus was a bodily resurrection; but his resurrection body possessed strange powers that transcended physical limitations. It could interact with the natural order, but it at the same time transcended this order.”[5]. The resurrection body, then, was similar in outward features to Jesus’ prior natural body, but it was differently constructed.

AFFIRMATION OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESURRECTION.

Once the resurrection claim is received and studied, it must be interpreted within a larger frame of reference. Unbelief, as will be demonstrated later, can absorb a literal resurrection within its larger framework of change. The resurrection then becomes an item for something like Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Biblical faith, however, accepts and understands the resurrection within the framework given in the OT and in Jesus’ own teachings.

According to Jesus the resurrection is presupposed from the earliest parts of the OT. In Luke 20:27-40 Jesus answered the Sadducees who denied the possibility of resurrection. Instead of citing a clear-cut reference to resurrection out later OT books, Jesus cited Moses in Exodus 3:6: “But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the place concerning the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for all live unto him.” Jesus’ argument here is that God elected Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the Abrahamic Covenant for all eternity (cf. Gen. 17:7). This election was to eternal living fellowship with Himself. Man—the whole man—could not have fellowship with God through his spirit and soul. Living fellowship meant life with God consisting of a real body indwelt by a spirit producing a soul (Gen. 2:7). Thus if Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were truly eternal parties to the Abrahamic Covenant, there had to be a resurrection sometime in the future to fulfill the Covenant’s promises.

Many other biblical authors echo Jesus’ insistence that God’s promises require a resurrection for their fulfillment. OT theologian J. Barton Payne summarizes the biblical evidence:

“The Old Testament had already presented the fact of the dichotomy of the human nature: a body that returns to dust, and of the soul or spirit, that at death returns to God. But at the same time, the Old Testament also teaches the unity of man’s whole person, and it was by means of this latter truth that God seems to have lead the thinking of His people toward an appreciation of an eventual restoration of the entire man, body and spirit reunited.”[6]

In this manner Genesis 3:22-24 implies that man could live with his body forever if the effects of the fall were neutralized. In Genesis 5:24 Enoch is raptured, body and all (cf. Heb. 11:5) as was Elijah in II Kings 2:11. OT saints knew of existence after death (e.g., Gene. 25:8-9; 37:35; II Sam. 12:23), but full enjoyment of God’s promises demanded eventual resurrection of physical life for eternity (John 19:26-27; Ps. 16:9-11; 49; 73:24-26). The enigmatic passage in Psalm 110:1-4 quoted so frequently in the NT forms part of the argument of the author of Hebrews who insists upon an eternal physical reality (Heb. 2:5ff; 5:5-10ff; etc.).

The resurrection idea, therefore, is implicit in the OT. As OT revelation progressed, however, it also became explicit. Israel’s ultimate salvation demanded clear promises of resurrection for believers (Isa. 26:19) and unbelievers (Dan. 12:2). There had to be a new universe wholly free of the curse; death had to be removed forever (Isa. 25:8; 66:22-24; Hos. 13:14). Thus OT saints not only clearly anticipated resurrection but also knew some specific details about it.

In this sort of milieu came Jesus, preaching His own resurrection. At His conception Mary insisted that He would sit upon the literal, physical throne of David forever (Luke 1:32-33). After He was rejected by Israel, He began to prophesy clearly of His death and resurrection (e.g., Matt. 16:21; 10:19; John 10:16-18). The new element in Jesus’ teaching concerned His solitary resurrection in advance of the general, end-time resurrection of all other men. Jesus’ resurrection was the beginning of the end-time. Ladd puts it well:

“Jesus’ resurrection is not an isolated event that gives to men the warm confidence and hope of a future resurrection; it is the beginning of the eschatological resurrection itself. If we may use crude terms to try to describe sublime realities, we might say that a piece of the eschatological resurrection has been split off and planted in the midst of history. The first act of the grama of the Last day has taken place before the Day of the Lord.”[7]

What is the significance, then, of Jesus’ resurrection within biblical thought? It is the presence of the ultimate goal of history within history today (cf. I Cor. 15:20-23; II Cor. 4:14; Col. 1:18). No other religion or philosophy of history can point man to what the final goal of history looks like. Communism, for example, makes stupendous claims of the future “redeemed” classless society, but it cannot offer today an actual concrete example of the kind of person who will live in that society. Biblical Christianity, on the contrary, can point to the resurrected God-man King as the kind of person who will inhabit the Kingdom of God forever (I John 3:2).

Moreover, not only is the ultimate goal clear; its moral content is clear. Christ arose in order to ascend to His Father in heaven and thus complete the original creation goal of mankind to subdue all things (John 20:17; I Cor. 15:21- 28). In His natural body before dying on the cross, Christ individually had subdued His environment insofar as it was possible to do in a fallen world (John 8:46; Heb. 5:8-9). In His resurrection body after death, He ascended in order to subdue the very powers of evil which ruled over man in the fallen world. Jesus now wages a holy war against evil spirits. He has become the second Adam, the head of a new transformed creation (Eph. 1:10; Col. 1:15-18). Man now faces the certain elimination of all evil, including his own (John 16:8-11; Acts 17:30-31; Rev. 19-20). This truth adds pressure to the announcement of the Cross in gospel preaching (cf. Acts 17:31; I Cor.15:4-8).

UNBELIEVING RESPONSES TO THE KING’S RESURRECTION

Theoretically, unbelief could respond to the resurrection in either of two possible ways. It could deny the fact of the resurrection, or it could deny its signficance. The mainstream of pagan unbelief has by far preferred to deny the fact rather than to allow the fact and reinterpret its significance. Both possibilities, however, will be covered here for insight into the apologetic process.

DENIAL OF THE FACT OF THE RESURRECTION.

From the time of the actual event itself unbelief has sought another explanation for the empty tomb on Easter morning. Matthew 28:11-15 records the first attempted theory, one which claimed that Jesus’ body was stolen (the Theft Theory). The weaknesses of the Theft Theory were rapidly exposed. The Church Father John Chrysostom (347-407 AD) summarized its weaknesses:

“For indeed even this establishes the resurrection. . . .For this is the language of men confessing, that the body was not there. When therefore they confess the body was not there, but the stealing of it is shown to be false and incredible, by their watching it, and by the seals, and by the timidity of the disciples, the proof of the resurrection even hence appears incontrovertible.”[8]

Chrysostom showed that the Theft Theory simply could not handle the contradictory evidence surrounding the empty tomb and moreover admitted to the empty tomb. This evidence made the theft proposal unbelievable. Another early unbelieving response to the emply tomb was the Hallucination Theory. This theory argued that Christ’s post-resurrection appearances were all merely subjective experiences in the minds of the early believers. This Hallucination Theory arose early enough that the NT writers actively opposed it with notices concerning the burial garments of Jesus (John 20:5-9), mention of the clear physical nature of Christ’s resurrection body (Luke 24:33-43; John 20:24-29), statements concerning the masses of people simultaneously viewing him after the resurrection (I Cor. 15:6), and the repeated insistence that they were reporting historical objective fact rather than subjective myth (II Pet. 1:16; I John 1:1-4). The Hallucination Theory, however, has persisted over the centuries until today in modified form it dominates most modern theology. Carl Henry records an encounter with Karl Barth, the father of the neo-orthodox school of liberal theology, in 1963:

“When the question period began, I asked about the factualness, the historicity of the resurrection. ‘Over at the table are newpaper reporters,’ I noted, ‘the religion editor of United Press International, the Religious News Service correspondent, and the religion editors of the Washington papers. If they had these present reponsibilities in the first century, was the event of the resurrection of Jesus Christ of such a nature that covering it would have fallen into the area of their reportorial responsibility? That is, was it news and history in the sense in which the man in the street understands new and history?’ Barth became angry. Since I had identified myself as editor of Christianity Today, he retorted, ‘Did you say Christianity Today or Christianity Yesterday? Rather taken aback, I replied only by quoting the Scripture text ‘yesterday, today, and forever,’ certainly a hurried misappropriation. Barth then responded to the question obliquely: ‘The resurrection had significance for the disciples of Jesus Christ! It was to the disciples that he appeared!’ But this wasn’t in question at all. On the way out, the United Press correspondent remarked to me, ‘We got his answer. His answer was no.’”[9]

Karl Barth thus rejects the fact of the resurrection. It was not a reportable objective historical event, he claims. It was only a subjective experience in the minds of the first Christian disciples.

Clark Pinnock comments further on the subjective view of the resurrection which dominates modern theology:

“The offenseive character of the resurrection as a literal event reversing the normal course of nature in the decomposition of a body in death remains equally strong for the new theology. The insistence of both Tillich and Bultmann on its symbolic non-literal meaning is well known. Tillich admits the existentialist encounters which led the

disciples to apply the resurrection as a symbol to Jesus crucified. He even lists the physical theory as a possible explanation for faith in the New Being. But candidly he regards it as a crude rationalization developed rather late in the first century. He much prefers a new theory of his own, which he wishes to distinguish from the simply psychological explanation. The real miracle was the creation of faith in the New Being. The orthodox alternative he treats with disdain as ‘absurdity compounded with blasphemy.’ Perhaps it is more apt to turn this pejorative expression onto the implications of his own thesis which depicts the disciples confusing their inner experience with an event in the past, deceiving both themselves and Christians since.”[10]

Thus the second unbelieving attempt to deny the resurrection fact tries to use the idea of confusion or hallucination among the early Christian disciples. Many unbelieving and pagan critics, however, grew to doubt the likelihood of both the Theft and the Hallucination Theories and sought another.106 explanation. In the eighteenth century a man named Venturini suggested that Jesus never really died on the cross. Venturini believed that Christ swooned from his massive physical injuries and later revived in the cool air of the tomb.[11] Somehow he got out of the tomb in spite of the guards, and his absence spawned the resurrection reports, this view supposes. In 1967 Hugh J. Schonfield, a Hebrew ex-Christian, has tried to popularize this Swoon Theory in his book The Passover Plot by adding the explanation that Jesus got out of the tomb through a conspiracy involving himself and a few close acquaintences. Writes Schonfield:

“It is by no means a novel theory that Jesus was not dead when taken from the Cross, and some will have it that he subsequently recovered. The dea was used in fiction by George Moore in the The Brook Kerith and by D. H. Lawrence in The Man Who Died. . . .We have only to allow that in this as in other instances Jesus made private arrangements with someone he could trust, who would be in a position to accomplish his design. . . .

There is no cause to doubt the crucifixion of Jesus, or that he had assistants to aid him in his bid for survival. We may accept that one of them was a member of the Sanhedrin, and we may agree to speak of him as Joseph of Arimathea, even if we cannot be positive that this was his name. . . .

The first stage of the present action was the cross. We are told that there were bystanders there, and that one of them saturated a sponge with vinegar. . . .There was nothing unusual for a vessel containing a refreshing liquid to be at the place of exhaustion, and it presented no problem to doctor the drink that was offered to Jesus. . . .

Directly it was seen that the drug had worked. The man hastened to Joseph who was anxiously awaiting for the news. At once he sought an audience with Pilate. . . .and requested the body of Jesus. . . . . Jesus lay in the tomb over the Sabbath. He would not regain consciousness for many hours, and in the meantime the spices and

kinen bandages provided the best dressing for his injuries. . . . A plan was being followed which was worked out in advance by Jesus himself and which he had not divulged to his close disciples. What seems probable is that in the darkness of Saturday night when Jesus was brought out of the tomb by those concerned in the plan he regained consciousness temporarily, but finally succumbed.”[12]

Schonfield believes that Jesus’ plot to project himself as the OT Messiah misfired when the soldier accidently pierced his side with a spear. His secret comrades, however, had a further option to play. At critical times one of them would “appear” to the disciples to simulate a resurrection appearance. Schonfield says:

“A likely explanation of the circumstances is that all along, beginning with the young man first seen at the tomb by the women, one and the same man was being seen, and he was not Jesus. This man was bent on fulfilling what was perhaps a promise to Jesus when he lay dying after his removal from the tomb. . . .

There was no diliberate untruth in the witness of the followers of Jesus to his resurrection. On the evidence they had the conclusion they eached seemed inescapable. . . .

Neither had there been any fraud on the part of Jesus himself. He had schemed in faith for his physical recovery, and what he expected had been frustrated by circumstances quite beyond his control. . . .”[13]

To deny the fact of the resurrection, therefore, unbelief has tried three alternative re-interpretations of the empty tomb: the body was stolen (Theft Theory); the body decayed, but the early Christians thought they saw a risen Jesus (Hallucination Theory); and the body was removed from the tomb according to prearrangement together with a conspiracy to simulate resurrection appearances (Swoon-Plot Theory).

DENIAL OF THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE RESURRECTION.

To those unbelieving critics who reject all of the above explanations for the empty tomb there remains yet another possible approach. Instead of agreeing that the

resurrection is a fulfillment of God’s sovereign plan revealed in the OT and in the ministry of the King, such critics would try to conceive of the resurrection as a “freak accident” in nature. Although to date no major unbelieving critic has exercised this option, mention of it will alert the student to the structure of unbelief. Of this option Van Til writes, using an imaginary conversation with an unbeliever “Mr. Black”:

“’Now as for accepting the resurrection of Jesus,’ continued Mr. Black, ‘as thus properly separated from the traditional system of theology, I do not in the least mind doing that. To tell the truth, I have accepted the resurrection as a fact for some time. The evidence for it is overwhelming. This is a strange universe. All kinds of ‘miracles’ happen in it. The universe is ‘open’. So why should not there be some resurrections here and there? The resurrection of Jesus would be a fine item for Ripley’s Believe It or Not. Why not send it in?”[14]

This discussion should warn us if we think that the battle is won the moment we have proved the “fact” of some biblical event. Even with the factualness accepted by the unbeliever, there remains the crucial matter of interpretation of such facts. Mere facts—even biblical events—are not the whole story until they are set in the context and framework of God’s plan in history. After all, did not the Exodus generation try to “reinterpret” the significance of their miraculous escape from the world power of their day as the work of pagan gods (Exod. 32:1-6)? Both the fact and the biblical framework are necessary or the significance of any miracle is wholly neutralized. And so we arrive at the same place with respect to the King’s resurrection as we did with respect to the King’s birth, life, and death. Each fact can be interpreted in a radically different way depending upon the framework with which one comes to the event.

UNBELIEF’S NEED TO REJECT THE “THREAT” OF THE RESURRECTION.

Rejection of either the fact and significance of the resurrection or of the significance alone is based ultimately upon a perverted view of history. The apostle Paul confronted the academic center of first century paganism with the threat of the resurrection (Acts 17:31). It was precisely the resurrection that caused tremendous offense (Acts 17:32). Rather than preach the crucifixion of Christ to a Gentile audience, Paul chose to preach the resurrection to them. Why?

We learned in the previous chapter that denial of the significance of the crucifixion was tied up with perverted views of justice and its root in the holiness of God. Apparently Paul judged his Athenian hearers to be so profoundly deceived that rather than try to show God’s holy requirement for restitution through blood atonement it would be more direct to show the threat of the end of history.

As a “preview” of the ultimate goal of history, the resurrection confronts each one of us with our future permanent state. As I will develop under the doctrinal consequences of the resurrection below, it reminds each of us that we will have an everlasting, immortal existence. At bottom we already “know” that it is coming to each of us. Pilkey puts it well:

“[The resurrection] sheds eternal light on the heroic dimension of human existence. The connection between the grandeur of the Egyptian pyramids and Egyptian beliefs about resurrection is quite apparent. Men have always known, through the subjective power of the human spirit, that they are destined for one kind of immortality or another. Those who doubt the resurrection are to be pitied because they have allowed the elegiac spirit of mortality to take possession of their souls. Doubt of the

resurrection is the intellectual correlative of simple depression; and modern materialist skeptics have sunk below the level of the Noahic pagans. . . .”[15]

Because our imagehood anticipates the resurrection with the issue of our personal eternal destiny, its mention within hearing distance of a fallen heart threatens to unleash the suppressed knowledge of ultimate accountability to our Creator. Pilkey has developed its threatening character very well. Speaking of the need to confront unbelief and how C.S. Lewis so ably did it in his day, Pilkey notes:

“Lewis’ apologetic approach, grounded in reason, is not well adapted to those parts of the world where apostacy has advanced so far that anarchy reigns and Freud’s “dark power of the Id” vies for immediate social supremacy. Confrontation with such satanic power was the specialty of Charles Williams. The final form of apologetics is supernaturalistic, apocalyptic, and judgmental. It threatens the enemies of Christianity with the consequences of unrepentent death, requiring them to choose heaven or hell today and experience one or the other tomorrow. . . .Although most apostates are infuriated by threats of judgment, the human conscience remains open to this very elemental sort of conviction. . . .

In Christian apologetics, the greatest of all doctrines is the resurrection of the dead, an idea so powerful that it, rather than sex, holds the key to the mystery of human existence. Wherever it is clearly conceived as a metaphysical reality, resurrection annihilates every premise and every conclusion of the Marxist, Freudian, and Darwinian schools of thought. It erases the premise of Marxism by positing a version of humanity independent of the natural food chain; it cancels the premise of

Freudianism by furnishing a degree of vitality so absolute that temporary sexual euphoria loses all meaning; and it destroys the whole point of evolution by bringing mankind to absolute physical perfection in an instant of transformation.”[16]

Chuck Colson narrates the ironic situation where the resurrection met Caesar in Red Square on May Day, 1990:

“As the throng passed directly in front of [Mikhail Gorbachev] standing in his place of honor, the priests hoisted their heavy burden toward the sky. The cross emerged from the crowd. As it did, the figure of Jesus Christ obscured the giant poster faces of Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin that provided the backdrop for Gorbachev’s reviewing stand.

‘Mikhail Sergeyevich!’ one of the priests shouted, his deep voice cleaving the clamor of the protesters and piercing straight toward the angry Soviet leader. ‘Mikhail Sergeyevich! Christ is risen!’

In a matter of months after that final May Day celebration, the Soviet Union was officially dissolved.”[17]

Against the impact of the resurrection, paganism has nothing but a hodge-podge of self-willed deceptions about historical existence that attempt to deny ultimate accountability to the Creator. Somehow, the terror of facing the coming eternal separation of good and evil must be assuaged. Each person faces the resurrection with a belief-system in line with everlasting accountability or in denial of it. Again, each person’s reaction to the King exposes their own worldviews.

Pagan worldview of ultimate accountability for eternal destiny

Biblical worldview of ultimate accountability for eternal destiny.

\ /

The King’s Resurrection

/ \

Rejected! Accepted!

Figure 7. The fact of the King’s resurrection is interpreted in accordance with one’s worldview of ultimate responsibility.

THE DOCTRINAL CONSEQUENCE OF THE RESURRECTION: GLORIFICATION

Jesus’ resurrection confronts man with the ultimate goal of all things just as the creation account in Genesis confronts man with the ultimate origin of all things. When we studied the creation event in Part II of this series, the doctrinal consequences associated with creation were the doctrines of God, man, and nature. Now that we’ve studied the resurrection event, these same doctrines will be surveyed again, this time under one general heading called glorification. Each of first three sections below presents one area of glorification. An application section concludes the presentation. (More details of the meaning of the resurrection for the believer today will be found in the sixth pamphlet of this series.)

THE GLORIFICATION OF GOD

The infinite personal Creator must finally be glorified in full view of all His creation. His attributes will eventually be understood as thoroughly as it is possible for the creature to do so. Thus, in anticipation of the ending phase of history, the Day of the Lord, the occupants of heaven sing:

“Worthy are thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power: for thou didst create all things, and because of thy will they are and were created. . . .Worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain to receive the power, and riches, and wisdom, and might, and honor, and glory, and blessing.”(Rev. 4:11; 5:12)

As the Day of the Lord approaches, God’s revelation nears completion in mortal history. In particular, God’s character becomes every more clearly visible to the creatures as worthy of their praise. The creatures recognize His worthiness from historical experience. God has shown His character both through natural creation (Cf. Ps 19:1-6; Acts 14:15-17; 17:24-29; Rom. 1:18-32) and through His special program of revelation culminating in the King of Kings, the “Lamb that hath been slain.” Thus time-space history will eventually become saturated with revelation of God’s character.

God’s Glorification Through Time. The creatures ought to have trusted God at the beginning of history. That is why God held Satan and Adam responsible for their sin. The creatures, however, at the beginning of history could not truly adore or worship Good in depth because of their lack of historical experience with Him. Thus the angels’ first apparent source of praise was the latter portion of creation (Job 38:7). Moreover, at least an entire generation passed after Adam before men truly worshipped God (Gen. 4:26)/ Throughout history more and more revelation occurred so that adoration as well as trust developed.

God’s name Yahweh, for example, was not really appreciated until the Exodus event (Exod. 6:3). In the NT Jesus mentioned that until he came, God’s full character, especially His gracious love, was not revealed to man (John 17). Paul says that until the Church was formed, God’s wisdom was not fully appreciated by the angels (Eph. 3:10). The passage of time, therefore, accumulates revelation of God’s nature to personal creatures. Mankind thus corporately comes to know God better and better until history is complete. This process of glorification of God results in fuller worship until the creatures cry at the Day of the Lord that He is worthy of complete adoration.

God’s Glorification Throughout Space. The glorification of God must not be looked at just from the standpoint of time but also from the standpoint of space. God is omnipresent and is revealed throughout all His creation to both the rebellious and the submissive beings. David argued that God’s revelation of Himself extended into the grave and into every imaginable evil situation (Ps. 139:7-12). Isaiah taught that every spiritually responsible creature would bow its knee eventually to Yahweh, God of Israel (Isa. 45:23), and Paul applied that truth to Christ:

“Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth: and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:9-11)

Every creature, therefore, whether in hell or in heaven, will eventually bow before God’s glorification.

God’s Glorification in the Final State. Revelation 21-22 pictures the final state during which God is fully glorified. God then will be so fully visible to the new resurrected creation that the long-promised eternal fellowship of God with man will have become a reality. The Kingdom of God which promised eternal dwelling in His Presence will have become a permanent creation feature. God will center His rule visibly on the planet earth (Rev. 21:1-4). Physical light directly from God as Creator will lighten the abode of men instead of the created partial light from nature (Rev. 21:22-23). Men will gaze directly at God and live (Rev. 22:4). Then God will be “all in all” (I Cor. 15:28). Alva McClain summarizes:

“This does not mean the end of our Lord’s regal activity, but rather that from here onward in the unity of the Godhead he reigns with the Father as the eternal Son. There are no longer two thrones, one His Messianic throne and the other the Father’s throne, as our Lord indicated in Revelation 3:21. In the final Kingdom there is but one throne, and it is the “throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev. 22:3).”[18]

|ß------------------Mortal History----------------à| ß--------------Immortal History------------------à

O---------------------------------------------------------à Resurrection unto life

/

Pathway I /

creation /

O ________ \

| \

| Grace \ Revealed

|____________O--------------------------------------------------------à Resurrection unto damnation

fall Pathway II

Figure 8. Creature history in both mortal and immortal phases. See text for discussion.

THE GLORIFICATION OF MAN.

Not only is God directly glorified, but He is indirectly glorified through the perfection of His handiwork. When His created beings shine forth in fulfillment of their creature roles, their glorification reflects God’s glorification. Man, as one of God’s spiritually responsible creatures, was made of the beginning subject to the possibility of death by sin. Since the fall, of course, the subjection to death has been an actual condition. Throughout the period of history from the initial creation through the fall until the final resurrection, man existes in an unglorified state. In Figure Eight this period is called, therefore, mortal history, signifying that death is either potential or actual. Man becomes glorified, however, beginning with the resurrection unto eternal life when he is no longer subject to death (I Cor. 15:20ff). This second period in Figure Eight is called immortal history, signifiying that death is no longer either potential or actual for the elect resurrected man.

Sadly, there is another aspect to resurrection, one which Jesus taught in John 5:27 concerning the resurrection unto damnation. This resurrection, which we will have more to say about in Part VI of this series, moves creatures into a state called the “second death” (Rev. 20:6). I hesitate to label this state “immortal history” since these words denote impossibility of death. Yet the resurrection unto damnation shares with the other resurrection type a common quality—everlasting immutability, an unchangeable fixed state of existence.

Man in Mortal Unglorifed History. At creation God gave man the mandate to subdue the earth (Gen. 1:28-30). This mandate ws finite in that it had a definite beginning and a definite goal or end-point. In Figure Eight that goal is seen as reachable by two pathways. Pathway I is the theoretically possible pathway available to man in Adam had sin and fall not occurred. Pathway II pictures the pathway of real history history made actual by the fall into sin and God’s gracious redemption. Both pathways begin and end at the same points. Pathway II, however, includes revelation of God’s grace in Christ which would not have occurred had history followed Pathway I.

The process of mankind’s subduing the earth is a process of man’s intelligently controlling his environment in a God-pleasing way. Man was not created as a passive component of nature as certain modern ecologists seem to suggest; he was created to be lord over nature. When sin occurred and God cursed the earth (Gen. 3:19), man faced the hopeless situation of Pathway II of trying to impose God’s rule upon a rebellious environment, an environment that included himself. Man had to learn loyalty to God in a very devere manner by relying upon God’s graciuos initiative. Upon regeneration the saved man gegins a lifetime struggle against the resistance of the earth manifest in his own body (Rom 7:5-8:23; I Cor. 9:24-27; 15:28-57).

Pathway II of Figure Eight, however, would be impossible unless mankind had outside help. Yet this outside help must somehow qualify as being under the mandate given to mankind to subdue the earth. Here again one views the necessity of the hypostatic union of the King—He must be a genuine member of the human race in Adam (without sharing the imputed and inherent sin of Adam). Christ did what Adam had failed to do. He perfectly obeyed the Father (Impeccability) and secured victory over the evil powers through His infinite death on the Cross. Because He is God, the victory was sufficient; because He is a man, the victory is in the name of mankind. Pathway II, therefore, is the pathway of mankind, for Christ now stands as the new Adam and head of mankind.

The period of mortal history thus ends with Christ the King having led mankind to full obedience to the original mandate to subdue the earth through the Church Age, Tribulation, and Millennial Kingdom. Man is then glorified in that he shows forth his true creature function as lord of the earth. That is why the creatures cry out in Revelation 5:9 that the God-man is “worthy” because He has led redeemed men to become kings and priests to reign upon the earth.

Man in Immortal Glorified History. The Bible gives very little revelation about man’s existence beyond the end of mortal history. The damned face eternity in the Lake of Fire (Matt. 25:41,46; Rev. 20:14-15). There they must acknowledge God’s glory (Phil. 2:9-11). The redeemed, however, center their existence in god’s eternal city, the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21-22).

Far from the rural setting in the Garden of Eden, far from the apostate pagan attempts at urbanization since Cain and Nimrod, far from the underlying motive of the Kingdom of Man, God’s new eternal city houses man forever and ever. Although he is not a conservative theologian, Jacques Eullul puts the matter well:

“From the beginning man worked desperately to have his own little world, independent of all that God desired. And God will give him the perfect work which he himself could not bring about. God will realize man’s setting. But in his new world one of man’s desires will not be satisfied: the desire for the absence of God. Man wanted to build a city from which God would be absent, but he never managed. God will make for him the perfect city, where he will be all in all.”[19]

In immortal history all redeemed men well closely together in an urban society in the immediate presence of God. And they will be from every people group, with every “racial” characteristic, and from every “language” (Rev. 5:9). In this eternal state men are not viewed only as a group; their individuality is respected because each has his own name known only to himself and the Lord alone (Rev. 2:17).

The eternal redeemed society will exist to serve and worship God. Wilbur M. Smith summarizes:

“Here the promise of God to tabernacle with namkind finds its ultimate and permanent fulfillment. Both positively and negatively some of the greatest themes of Scripture are brought to their final conclusion. Life, divinely bestowed, then lost through sin, replaced by death, restored to us in Jesus Christ, is here set forth in the concept of the water of life and the tree of life, with the total disappearance forever of any aspect of death. . . .Here flory replaces everything that can be called shameful, fragmentary, disappointing or polluting. This time the new will remain for eternity. At last God and man will be dwelling together, a communion never to be interrupted. Here at last we shall behold the face of Christ and shall be like Him when we see Him as He is.”[20]

Not only will man face the implicitly trustworthy Word of God, but he will face God as fully revealed as possible so that adoration can occur in a way quite impossible during mortal history. So much will man’s spiritual character blossom that in spite of possessing a material body he will be known primarily as spiritual (I Cor. 15:46-58).

THE GLORIFICATION OF NATURE.

God is indirectly glorified through the final perfection of nature as well as through the final perfection of mankind. It is very necessary to mention the glorification of nature specifically because of the nearly universal tendency to visualize the new heavens and new earth in immaterial terms. The term spiritual is too often equated with the term immaterial. That is why Christ so sharply displayed the material nature of His spiritual resurrected body. With that body He ate (Luke 24:30,41-43; John 21:13) and made physical contact with the disciples (Luke 24:39-40; John 20:17,27; 21:13)/ Nature includes the material, and the material elements are glorified in the eternal state. Revelation 21-22 speaks of a material city with physical trees and water. The city’s gates are inscribed with letters. The trees have bark and leaves. The water moves in a stream.

Nature is part of God’s handiwork and exists as a means of revealing His nature to man. This function will be no less necessary through eternity. There is a kind of continuity, therefore, between the present heavens and earth and the new heavens and earth. This continuity is like that of Jesus’s natural and resurrection bodies. Both were of the same stature, had the same basic features, and had the same scars. Though there is an utterly different composition, there is continuity. Men in the eternal state will rsemble men today. Trees and water in the eternal state will resemble trees and water today. That which is not continuous from the old to the new is the composition. According to II Peter 3:12 the present universe has a basic set of structures called in the Bible stoicheal (translated in most English versions as ‘elements’). These structures will be radically altered in the transition from the present universe to the new universe. Nature, then, will exist forever and ever in physical form similar to, but not identical with, the present universe.

THE APPLICATION OF THE DOCTRINE OF GLORIFICATION.

Many applications of the doctrine of glorification are given in the NT (see Part VI of this series). One basic application is the long-range, future-orientation of biblical faith. Paul, for example, grounds the Christian’s long-range hope on the future glorification of his body (Rom. 8:18-39). Because of the certain future glorification of the body, one ought to be able to survive the present pressures which are chiefly experienced upon the body. God’s elective plan will certainly terminate, say Paul, in glorification. The Christian, therefore, cannot conclude, as unbelieving often have, that the body is a hopeless entity because it is so obviously corrupt and full of pain. The ultimate “healing in the Atonement” is resurrection, not recovery from mortal illnesses. Another application of the doctrine of glorification in everyday crises in

the Christian life comes from using the principle seen in Figure Eight. Mankind in Figure Eight started at a certain level before the crisis of the fall. After the fall, through the abounding grace of God, a portion of mankind reached a higher level of blessing than before the crisis. Grace, in other words, did not merely restore mankind to the prior condition; it elevated mankind above the prior condition. Jay Adams writes concerning this concept in counselling:

“The counsellee must be given a vision of overcoming evil with good, of turning tragedy into triumph. He must see that it is God’s purpose to use crosses to lead to resurrections. When sin abounds—and we must be entirely realistic about the abounding nature of sin—nevertheless, the counsellor must point out, grace even more abounds. There is a solution to every problem! But that is not all. It is a solution that is designed to lead one beyond the place where he was before the problem emerged. Though man was created lower than the angels, and by sin descended into a still lower position, Christ’s redemption did not merely put man back again into his original condition; He has raised him far above the angels. . . .Job learned it at length: ‘the Lord bless the latter days of Job more than his beginning,’ we read (Job 42:12). Joseph experienced it, and Jesus accomplished it!”[21]

Figure Eight, in other words, is repeated on a microscale in every Christian’s sanctification.

A third application occurs in evangelism. As I noted at the beginning of this chapter, over and over again in the NT the gospel announcement is not a mere invitation to be considered neutrally; it is an announcement that the Cross has occurred backed up with the beginning event of the eternal state, the resurrection of Christ. (Note here Acts 17:31; I Cor. 15:3-7) The end process has begun. The resurrection as the first fruits of the end of history “pressures” the non-Christian to consider urgently the call of the gospel.

C.S. Lewis has captured the sobering effect of knowing that the resurrection has already begun:

“It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree helping each other to one or the other destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We must play. But our merriment must be of that kind (and it is in fact, the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the outset, taken each other seriously—no flippancy, no superiority, no presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinner—no mere tolerance or indulgence which parodies love as flippant merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, you neighbor is the holiest object present to your senses. If he is your Christian neighbor he is holy in almost the same way, for in him also Christ vere latitat—the glorifier and the glorified, Glory Himself, is truly hidden.”[22]

Finally, a fourth application of the doctrine of glorification concerns the matter of learning and education. What is the purpose of learning things?

Often the pagan answer is given: to discover what is true. The first part of this series, however, has shown that paganism cannot justify the existence of truth “out there” to be discovered; it can only invent surrogate truth. Biblical faith, instead of trying the self-frustrating effort to determine truth out of finite resources, knows that the “fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Prov. 1:7). Moreover, deep down in their heart all men already have come into contact with truth which they seek to suppress according to Paul in Romans 1:18-20. Defining education as seeking truth, therefore, is devoid of real meaning unless you clarify what the “truth” is that we are seeking.

The proper goal of such activity ought to be appreciation of God’s character. What is the difference, biblically, between Adam a few minutes after creation and the last man on earth a few minutes before the end of mortal history? It cannot be that Adam did not know truth and the the last man will know truth because both are held accountable to God. The difference is that whereas Adam did not know enough of God’s nature through historical revelation to adore and worship Him properly, the last man will have seen enough of God’s revelation to be held accountable to worship God with deep appreciation. All learning and education, then, exists for the purpose of worship, not for the purpose of determining truth. This is a far cry from the present-day goal of secularist education which aims for increased development of the Kingdom of Man, a revived Nimrod-style of social order.

SUMMARY

The resurrection of the King in history before the end-time revealed to man the final state of history ahead of time. Christians, unlike any other group, have historical revelation of the end of history. The risen King shows mankind that history will certainly end in the glorification of God directly through His own self-revelation and indirectly through the perfection of man and nature..

The has gone on ahead and reached the finish line. You can trust Him to help you, too, reach the finish line. Do you want to meet the requirements of the finish line? Do you desire to know God better so you can worship and enjoy Him better? The famous Westminster Larger Catachism of 1648 asked men the following question and gave the indicated answer:

Question 1: What is the chief and highest end of man?

Answer: Man’s chief and highest end is to glorify God and to fully enjoy him forever.

Notice the phrase “fully enjoy Him.” That ought to be your end.

CONCLUSION OF PART V

Part V of the framework series has dealt with the confrontation all mankind faces with God’s candidate for His long-promised Kingdom, the Lord Jesus Christ. Previous pamphlets gave the OT background revelation, and this pamphlet has presented the culmination of that revelation in the person of the God-man King (cf. Heb. 1:1-3). No further public revelation will be given to the world at large until the King returns in judgment. As the sixth pamphlet will show, the further revelation given through the NT apostles and prophets after Christ left the earth concerns the Church and her private knowledge. With the advent of the King, however, the Kingdom program of God has gone as far as it can go in a rebellious world without destroying that world in judgment.