Saturday, October 29, 2016
Creating ways to share your loved one's Life Story
It is with great joy that I share these news with you. There is a new way to share a loved one's story with others: It is called Epassing. And it is completely free. Yep, you heard correctly: no cost.
When a loved one starts to decline and is referred to hospice. Yes that dreaded unknown word: hospice. Most of the time accompanied by a deep cold feeling in the stomach.
Along with visitors and the various healthcare providers, the time spent at hospice can be one of deep reflection and expectation. As your ponder about your loved one's journey on this earth, there is so much to consider and so much to share.
Here is the link to sign up: ePassing.org/gift/karina
I do want to let you know that I am not being compensated in any form for this blog or for any sites I refer you to. Just through I would let you know that in case you are a suspicious person like...me!
Wishing you peace at this time.
KB
When a loved one starts to decline and is referred to hospice. Yes that dreaded unknown word: hospice. Most of the time accompanied by a deep cold feeling in the stomach.
Along with visitors and the various healthcare providers, the time spent at hospice can be one of deep reflection and expectation. As your ponder about your loved one's journey on this earth, there is so much to consider and so much to share.
Here is the link to sign up: ePassing.org/gift/karina
I do want to let you know that I am not being compensated in any form for this blog or for any sites I refer you to. Just through I would let you know that in case you are a suspicious person like...me!
Wishing you peace at this time.
KB
Friday, June 10, 2016
Through a Lens Darkly: Grief, Loss and C.S. Lewis -- A Short Review
Pull out the tissue box and weep.
Weep because you also know what it is to love deeply and to lose big.
Weep for the beauty of human relationships.
Weep in thankfulness to God for the sheer resilience of human beings and our ability to rise again from the ashes of a loss.
And be inspired by the humanity C.S. Lewis displayed and shared by the art of vulnerability in writing.
This is the stuff of grief and freedom. Please watch it and share.
Note there is a wealth of resources in the additional material section (Study Guide).
As a great gift I would recommend you give and allow your loved one to watch it by themselves (ask them if they want company). I was glad to have watched it alone, because it allowed the flood gates to open again. I was not expecting but again should have known better.
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
The stuff of Grief
Grieving well is an art form, a life line, inherent to our well-being. Jesus promised us: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33 NIV
Troubles, losses are a given in life. However our response to suffering can be live giving or life draining.
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief-loss/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm
"
Troubles, losses are a given in life. However our response to suffering can be live giving or life draining.
Here is a very good resource if you want to learn more about grief.
http://www.helpguide.org/articles/grief-loss/coping-with-grief-and-loss.htm
"
What is grief?
Grief is a natural response to loss. It’s the emotional suffering you feel when something or someone you love is taken away. The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief will be. You may associate grief with the death of a loved one—which is often the cause of the most intense type of grief—but any loss can cause grief, including:
|
|
The more significant the loss, the more intense the grief. However, even subtle losses can lead to grief. For example, you might experience grief after moving away from home, graduating from college, changing jobs, selling your family home, or retiring from a career you loved. "
Want to learn more? Follow the link to read about states of grief, finding support and other helpful info.
Friday, December 12, 2014
Essential Opioid Package
So, your loved one is under palliative care due to a chronic condition or because he/she is dying. You look at the spot in the house (or spots) where the medications are kept and wonder: Does everyone else also takes these same medications? What if we lived in another country, would the prescriptions be the same? Would we be able to afford them?
Eduardo Bruera along with Ernesto Vignaroli, M.D. Michael I. Bennett, M.B., Ch.B., M.D., FRCP, FFPMRCA,Cheryl Nekolaichuk, Ph.D., RPsych, Liliana De Lima, M.S., M.H.A., Roberto Wenk, M.D., andCarla I. Ripamonti, M.D., have written a protocol to address just that.
In "Strategic Pain Management: The Identification and Development of the IAHPC Opioid
Essential Prescription Package" the authors surveyed doctors around the world to find out which pain prescription protocol they were using and favoring.
Here is the link to the study:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/pdfplus/10.1089/jpm.2011.0296
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Here is a shorter version of "Our Glorious Future" by Stanley Clark
Feel free to print this out!
Thank you Stan for writing this and sharing it.
Thank you Stan for writing this and sharing it.
What
Happens When We Depart This Life?
John
14:1 – 2 Jesus has gone ahead of us to prepare a place for us
“Do not let your hearts
be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.
2 My Father’s
house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that
I am going there to prepare a place for you?
3 And if I go
and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with
me that where I am you may be also.
Luke
16:19 - 22 There is reason to
believe angels will escort us to heaven
In the story of the rich
man and Lazarus “It came about that the poor man died and was
carried away by the angels to Abraham’s bosom”1
II
Corinthians 5:6 – 8 We will be with Jesus Himself
We know that as long as we
are in our earthly bodies we are absent from the Lord . . . But we
would prefer to be absent from the body and to be at home with the
Lord.2
Luke
23:42 - 43 We will be in His presence immediately
When the
thief hanging on the cross next to Jesus said, "Jesus, remember
me when You come in Your kingdom!" Jesus
replied, "Truly I say to you, today
you shall be with Me in Paradise."
Philippians
3:20 - 21 Jesus will give us new, glorious bodies
Our citizenship is (actually) in heaven. We eagerly await a Savior (to come) from there, the Lord Jesus Christ who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.3
Revelation 21:3 - 7 Heaven will fulfill our longing for a better world
I heard a loud voice from
the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is among the
people now and He will dwell with them. They will be His people. God
himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He
will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, or
mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed
away.”
5 He who
was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!”
Furthermore, He said, “Write this down, for these words are
trustworthy and true.”
6 “It is
finished. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To
the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the
water of life. 7 Those who are victorious will
inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my
children.
Revelation 22:3 – 5 All the effects of the fall will be gone
(In heaven there will) no
longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the
city, and His servants will serve him. 4 They will
see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. 5 There
won’t be anymore night. His people will not need the light of a
lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light.
And they will reign for ever and ever.
I
Thessalonians 4:13 – 18 Our Christian family and will friends join
us later
Brothers and sisters, we
do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so
that you won’t grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope.
14 For
because we believe that Jesus died and rose again we also believe
that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.
15 According
to the Lord’s word we tell you that we who are still alive, who are
left until the coming of the Lord will certainly not precede those
who have fallen asleep. 16 For
the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a loud command, with
the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the
dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After
that we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together
with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will
be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore
encourage one another with these words.
I
Corinthians 3: 11 – 14 Rewards await those who have lived for
Christ
No one can lay any
foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 If anyone builds on this foundation using gold,
silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, 13 his
work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to
light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the
quality of each person’s work. 14 If what has been
built survives, the builder will receive a reward.4
All verses are from the NIV. Some
have been paraphrased for the sake of clarity.
1
“Abraham’s bosom” was a Jewish term for the place of bliss and
blessing in eternity.
2
Further, we will never be separated from Him; I Thessalonians 4:17c.
3
See also I Corinthians 15:49.
4
Part of this reward for faithfulness is to get to share in Christ’s
reign! See Revelation 22:5c and 2:26-27.
Our Glorious Future by Stanley Clark: An essay about what happens after we die.
Our
Glorious Future
To
many people, the notion of “heaven” is wishful thinking. To the
secular mind, people who believe in heaven are denying that this life
is all there is, and that the grave is the end of our existence.
In
Mere Christianity
C. S. Lewis rebuts this outlook: “If
I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can
satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another
world.”1
God
created people to enjoy eternal
life.
To
get to heaven though, we have to die. Death
is a penalty for Adam’s sin, and our own. The good news is that
for those who have come to God through the work of the cross, dying
becomes the portal through which we enter into the eternal experience
of what God originally intended for us. Eternity will be an
uninterrupted life of joy in the presence of God, as well as a
reunion with our family and dearest friends unhindered by the pain,
conflict, and burden of sin of this life.
But
what happens
when we die?
The
Bible says that when those who have trusted in Christ’s death as
the substitute for their sins die, they are immediately transported
to the presence of God. Christ told the thief on the cross: “Today
you will be with Me in Paradise”2
(Luke 23:43). The Apostle Paul said that to be “absent from the
body is to be home with the Lord” (that is, with Jesus himself, II
Corinthians 5:8).
The
frequent use of the term “sleep” in the New Testament to describe
death3
and dying pictures this transition to Jesus’ presence as similar to
falling asleep.4
The story of Lazarus gives us reason to believe that angels escort us
to this spiritual realm5
(Luke 16:19-31). Eventually, at the rapture the body that is laid in
the grave will be resurrected and transformed into a new glorious
body. In II Corinthians 5:1-4 the apostle Paul describes our bodily
condition until then.
In
II Corinthians chapter 4 Paul is speaking of the hardships associated
with his ministry. Besides his daily physical trials6
there is the very real prospect of being killed (4:11-12). But
despite the bruising and battering his body incurs or the possibility
of death itself, he keeps going because he knows that this life is
not all there is. He is assured that when he dies a new, heavenly
habitation awaits him.
“1 Now we know that if the
earthly tent
which is our house
is torn down,
we have a building
from God, a house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. 2 For indeed in this
house we groan,
longing to be clothed
with our dwelling from heaven, 3 inasmuch as we, having put
it on (the
same Greek word as “clothed” in vss. 2 and 4), will not be found
naked. 4 For indeed while we are in this tent,
we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but
to be clothed,
so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life. 5 Now He who
prepared us for this very purpose is God, who gave to us the Spirit
as a pledge.” (II Corinthians 5:1-5).
Paul
is saying that this “house” in which we live is more like a tent.
Tents are temporary structures that are subject to wear and tear.
Dying is like collapsing the tent so that it can be moved somewhere
else. But in place of this body which is our “tent house,” we
will have a new body that Paul characterizes as a “building.”
Buildings are more substantial than tents. For example, Paul’s
word for “building” is used in Matthew 24:1 for the massive
temple in Jerusalem. Our new “building” though, will not be
man-made. It will be eternal, and will never be collapsed or
replaced.
The
word translated “clothed” in verses 2, 3, 4 is better rendered
“put on” or “overclothed.”7
Even though the redeemed do not receive their resurrection body
until the rapture, until then, in some sense that we don’t fully
understand, we will be “overclothed” with our glorious heavenly
habitation. The fact that we will be “overclothed” is an
indication that in heaven we will not be mere spirits. There will be
some kind of substance to our existence such that it needs to be
“overclothed.” Paul’s confidence that he will receive this
“overclothing” is the source of his joyful anticipation.8
The
New Testament then, likens dying to falling asleep. If we can take
Jesus’ words in Luke 16 as literal and not figurative, we are
transported by angels to the presence of Christ. Our earthly
tent-body will remain in the grave until it is resurrected at the
rapture.9
But we will not be disembodied spirits. Our immaterial part will be
overclothed with a kind of glorious, eternal “building” that will
later be joined to our resurrected body. This will not be a
temporary body. Paul says clearly in 5:1 that it is “eternal in
the heavens.”10
Those
who have trusted in Christ will enjoy His presence in this habitation
until the rapture. At that point the “tent” (the body that was
laid in the grave) is resurrected in the same way that Jesus’ body
was resurrected. It is then transformed so that all the effects of
sin which effaced mankind’s original glory are removed and we will
exhibit the same kind of glory as Christ himself.
“For our citizenship is in
heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus
Christ who will
transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body
of His
glory, by the
exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to
Himself.” Philippians 3:20-21
“Beloved, now we are children
of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that
when He appears, we
will be like Him,
because we will see Him just as He is.”
1 John 3:2
In
I Corinthians 15 Paul elaborates on the process of resurrection and
its results.
“The fact is that Christ has
been raised from the dead. He has become the first of a great
harvest of those will be raised to life again. Just as death came
into the world through a man, Adam, now the resurrection from the
dead has begun through another man, Christ. Everyone dies because
all of us are related to Adam, the first man. But all who are
related to Christ, the second “Adam,” will be given new life.
There is an order to this resurrection: Christ was raised first; then
when Christ comes back all of his people will be raised.” I
Corinthians 15:20-23 New Living Translation
“It is the same for the
resurrection of the dead. Our earthly bodies, which die and decay,
will be different when they are resurrected, for they will never die.
Our bodies disappoint us now, but when they are raised they will be
full of glory. They are weak now, but when they are raised, they
will be full of power. They are natural human bodies now, but when
they are raised, they will be spiritual bodies. For just as there
are natural bodies, so also there are spiritual bodies.” I
Corinthians 15:42-44 NLT
“Adam, the first man, was made
from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from
heaven. Every human being has an earthly body just like Adam’s but
our heavenly bodies will be just like Christ’s. Just
as we are now like Adam, the man of the earth, so we will someday be
like Christ, the man from heaven.
“What I am saying dear
brothers and sisters, is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the
Kingdom of God. These perishable bodies of ours are not able to live
forever. But let me tell you a wonderful secret that God has
revealed to us. 11
Not all of us will die, but we will all be transformed. It will
happen in a moment, in the blinking of an eye when the last trumpet
is blown. When the trumpet sounds the Christians who have died will
be raised with transformed bodies. And then we who are living will
be transformed so that we will never die.12
For our perishable earthly bodies must be transformed into heavenly
bodies that will never die. When this happens—when our perishable
earthly bodies have been transformed into heavenly bodies that will
never die—then at last the Scriptures will come true: ‘Death is
swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death,
where is your sting?’
“For sin is the sting that
results in death, and the law gives sin its power. Now we thank God
who gives us victory over sin and death through Jesus Christ our
Lord!” I Corinthians 15:47-57 NLT
So
when we die we figuratively “go to sleep” and are transported,
possibly by angels, from the realm of earthly things to the realm of
an unseen, but equally real, spiritual dimension. There we will “put
on” or be “overclothed” with a glorious eternal and
imperishable tunic of sorts, until the day that the physical body
that was laid in the grave is resurrected and rejoined to our
immaterial part. At the moment the spirit leaves the body we are
greeted by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. In this resurrected and
glorified body we shall always
be with the Lord. At this point there is no more sin, or death, or
things associated with sin and death.
Many
Christians are confident of their eternal destiny and look forward to
being with the Lord. But because death is still an enemy, the
process of dying creates apprehension. Even in dying though, God is
with us. Henry Lyte died of tuberculosis as a relatively young man.
As he approached his own death he wrote about the peace that God’s
presence brings:
1 Abide
with me, fast falls the eventide. 3 I
fear no foe, with thee at hand to bless;
The
darkness deepens, Lord with me abide. Ills have no weight, and tears
no bitterness.
When
other helpers fail and comforts flee, Where is death’s sting?
Where, grave thy victory?
Help
of the helpless, oh abide with me. I triumph still, if thou abide
with me.
2 Swift
to its close ebbs out life’s little day; 4 Hold
Thou thy cross before my closing eyes.
Earth’s
joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Shine through the gloom, and
point me to the skies;
Change
and decay in all around I see; Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s
vain shadows flee;
O
thou who changest not, abide with me. In life, in death, O Lord,
abide with me.
Henry
Lyte 1793-1847
Another
apprehension that some people have about death is the prospect of
eternity—time that never ends—or of being “swallowed up” in a
vastness of never ending space. A. W. Tozer however, points out that
it will take an eternity to become what God made us to be.
The
days of the years of our lives are few, and swifter than a weaver’s
shuttle. Life is a short and fevered rehearsal for a concert we
cannot stay to give. Just when we appear to have attained some
proficiency we are forced to lay our instruments down. There is
simply not time enough to think, to become, to perform what the
constitution of our nature indicates we are capable of. How
completely satisfying to turn from our limitations to a God who has
none.
Eternal
years lie in His heart. For Him time does not pass, it remains; and
those who are in Christ share with Him all the riches of limitless
time and endless years. God
never hurries. There are no deadlines against which He must work.
Only to know this is to quiet our spirits and relax our nerves. For
those out of Christ, time is a devouring beast; (but) before the sons
of the new creation time crouches and purrs and licks their hands.
Knowledge of the Holy (New York: Harper, 1961),
p. 86
Eternity
then, will not be frightening or boring. Men and women were given
work before the fall. Indeed, God created work for our fulfillment.
In eternity we will get to do all the things that we never had time
to do, and pursue the interests and develop the skills that the
responsibilities of this life never afforded us.
For
the Christian, heaven is home.
Background
to II Corinthians 4:16-5:8
In the book of 2nd Corinthians the
apostle Paul defends himself against criticisms of himself and his
ministry.
Beginning at verse 1:12 1 he answers
the charge that "Paul doesn't keep his word, he's not
trustworthy, he cannot be depended on to do what he said he would
do." This charge arose because Paul had written the Corinthians
that he would be coming to see them and did not (1:15-17). As he
explains in 1:23 however, he changed his plans and chose not to come
to Corinth so that he would not have to confront the Corinthians
until they had an opportunity to repent. Instead, (verse 12) he went
directly to Macedonia where he found a fruitful ministry.
From there Paul transitions to
responding to the second criticism in 2:7 that he was simply an
opportunist who preached the gospel for personal gain. He answers
this in chapter 3, especially 3:2, that the Corinthians themselves
are evidence of the sincerity of his ministry and that it was
empowered by the “Spirit of the living God.”
It is because he is confident that his
enablement, or adequacy (2:16; 3:5-6) is from God that he boldly
preaches the Gospel (3:12). It is true that because of spiritual
opposition (4:3-4) not everyone responds. But despite opposition and
frequent failure he does not get discouraged and quit (4:1).
That his ministry is a work of God is
evident in that even though he is a frail individual (4:7) who
constantly lives with "death" (afflictions, perplexity,
persecution and beatings 4:8 – 9) the life of Jesus shines through
him (4:10-11).
Paul is very aware that due to the
hardships of ministry (I Corinthians 11:23 – 28) his body is taking
a beating and his physical abilities are ebbing away. (4:16 – 18).
But while his external body is decaying, the inner man is being made
like the image of Christ (Colossians 3:10). He is not dismayed by
the toll ministry takes on his body nor the prospect of death because
(5:1 – 4) when he knows that when he dies he will get a new,
eternal body.
The body we will receive however, is
not an intermediate body. This is not soul sleep.
The "building from God" in
verse 1 is the same as the "dwelling from heaven" in verse
2. The fact that one is from God and the other is from heaven
implies they are the same body.
This is the issue Paul addresses: God
created us to have a body. But this earthly body is a temporary
habitation. When we die it is taken down and laid in the grave. We
will not receive a resurrection body until the rapture. Since not
to have a body is to be "naked," what happens until we are
resurrected at the rapture and given our new eternal resurrection
body?
Because this present body is temporary,
beset with afflictions and destined to die, we "groan" or
long to have a new, affliction free, permanent body. (Just ask any
elderly person, someone with a terminal illness, or a paralyzed or
wheelchair bound individual like Joni Eareckson Tada.)
One of the difficulties in
understanding this passage is that the translations do not reflect
the nuance of the term "clothed" in verse 2 and 4. A
better translation would be "overclothed.”
Additional Material
Then
long Eternity shall greet our bliss
With
an individual kiss;
And
Joy shall overtake us as a flood,
When
every thing that is sincerely good
And
perfectly divine,
With
Truth, and Peace, and Love shall ever shine
About
the supreme Throne
Of
him, t’ whose happy-making sight alone,
When
once our heav'nly-guided soul shall climb,
Then
all this Earthy grossness quit,
Attir'd
with Stars, we shall forever sit,
Triumphing
over Death, and Chance, and thee O Time.
John Milton
The rest of the quote may be found at:
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~milton/reading_room/on_time/index.shtml
I once scorned ev’ry fearful thought
of death,
When it was but the end of pulse and
breath,
But now my eyes have seen that past the
pain
There is a world that’s waiting to be
claimed.
Earthmaker, Holy, let me now depart,
For living’s such a temporary art
And dying is but getting dressed for
God,
Our graves are merely doorways cut in
sod.
Calvin
Miller page 139, The
Divine Symphony,
Bethany House, Minneapolis quoted page 447 Heaven,
Randy Alcorn
"Some day you will read in the
papers, 'D. L. Moody of East Northfield is dead.' Don't you believe a
word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I
shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement
into a house that is immortal—a body that death cannot touch, that
sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body. I
was born of the flesh in 1837. I was born of the Spirit in 1856.
That which is born of the flesh may die. That which is born of the
Spirit will live forever.”
When Christ calls me Home I shall go
with the gladness of a boy bounding away from school. Adoniram
Judson (1788-1850, first American missionary to Burma. He died in
India;) quoted page 278 Heaven, Randy Alcorn.
Precious in the sight of the Lord is
the death of His godly ones. Psalm 116:15
Further study:
Psalm 90, 103
Stephen’s martyrdom
“Well done faithful servant” is
what faithful people hear. Faithfulness is not fame. It is not
success or never failing. God evaluates the course of a life, not
earthly attainments. Faithfulness is made up of daily steadfastness.
1
C. S. Lewis, “The Weight of Glory,” preached June 8, 1942 at
Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, England accessed October 25,
2014, http://www.verber.com/mark/xian/weight-of-glory.pdf.
2
“Paradise” is a term borrowed from ancient Persian and means a
garden with a wall. It is used three times in the New Testament:
Luke 23:43; II Corinthians 12:4 and Revelation 2:7. In Jesus’ day
it was a popular term (which is likely why Jesus used it in Luke 23
with a man who was probably unsophisticated) for the place where
souls go immediately after death, and conveyed a vision of heaven
as a place of security, beauty and serenity.
3
The Bible also uses “sleep” to describe the state of the
deceased. To our eyes death is final; the end of existence. But
the characterization of dying as “falling sleep” is telling us
that dying is no more final than dozing off. In the same way that
in this life we awaken from slumber, when we die we “wake up” in
our eternal, spiritual condition. For “sleep” verses see
Matthew 27:52; Mark 5:39; Luke 8:52; John 11:11-12; Acts 7:60;
13:36; 1Corinthians 15:6; 15:18,20; 1Thessalonians 4:13-15; 5:10; II
Peter 3:4.
4
The body “sleeps,” not the soul or the spirit. While the body
“sleeps” in the earth until the rapture (I Thessalonians 4:16,
our soul and spirit are in the presence of Christ.
5
“Abraham’s bosom” was a Jewish term for the place of bliss and
blessing in eternity.
6
Paul lists the things he endured in II Corinthians 11:23b-28. At
Lystra, Jews hostile to his message “stoned Paul and dragged him
out of the city, supposing him to be dead” (Acts 14:19-20).
7
The verb Paul uses here appears as a noun in John 21:7 for the
“tunic” that Peter put on before he dove out of his fishing boat
in order to swim to shore and greet the resurrected Jesus. The
tunic was a garment that was worn over one’s undergarments.
8
Randy Alcorn, pages 57-63 Heaven, supports this view. He
points out that “ . . . human beings are by nature both spiritual
and physical. God did not create Adam as a spirit and place
it inside a body. Rather, he first created a body, then
breathed into it a spirit. There never was a moment when a human
being existed without a body. . . . We cannot be fully human
without both a spirit and a body.” He goes on to point out
“. . . the martyrs in Heaven are described as wearing clothes
(Revelation 6:9-11). Disembodied spirits don’t wear clothes.”
Further, “It appears that the apostle John had a body when he
visited Heaven because he is said to have grasped, held, eaten, and
tasted the scroll that contained revelation of things still to occur
(e.g. Revelation 10:9-10).” (Emphasis in the original.) Alcorn
cites other supporting passages as well.
9
At the rapture, Jesus returns from heaven to remove from the earth
those who have trusted in Him for salvation so that they won’t
experience the judgments God will bring on the world. I
Thessalonians 4:13-18; I Cor. 15:51-52.
10
Note that in verse 5 above, Paul states that the indwelling presence
of the Holy Spirit is God’s “pledge” of our new body. The
word for pledge was used in first century secular Greek of a down
payment “that pays a part of the purchase price in advance and so
secures a legal claim to the article in question.” It also
“obligates the contracting party to make further payments.”
(Page 109, BAG, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament.)
It is used in modern Greek of an engagement ring. (See also II
Corinthians 1:22 and Ephesians 1:14.)
11
The “wonderful secret” that Paul speaks of refers to the
“rapture” of the church. See I Thessalonians 4.
12
This is the same event that Paul describes in I Thessalonians
4:13-18.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)