This chapter may be the most important thing I ever write. I want to make sure I cover enough to give you a good understanding, but there is so much in that great Bible that I can’t even begin to do it justice in my little book.
I have purposely been vague about a lot of things when it comes to who God is, and what His plan is. I did this because that is how everyone felt who lived before the Messiah came. This is also how most of Israel feels to this very day. God hadn’t revealed who the savior would be yet, so there was always a void or limit to what they could know. God’s plan was always moving forward; it just took longer than humans could have imagined. Every generation of God’s people starting with Adam was waiting for the promised Savior King. The later you were born in God’s timetable, the more of God’s plan you could have known. Still, it all couldn’t truly be revealed until the Savior came and everyone got to see Him and know who He is.
There were around 450 prophecies given to the people of Israel over 1,000 years of history, to help them identify their Savior when He arrived. The Jews, especially the priests, knew the Old-Testament like the back of their hand. They not only knew all the verses; they knew exactly what page each verse was on and what part of the page it sat. They studied night and day. There was no other people group given the Old-Testament, so Israel of all the nations should recognize their Messiah when He comes.
I’m pretty sure you all know the story. The Messiah came, and His name is Jesus. He came to save the nation of Israel from bondage to sin and the penalty for it. They rejected Jesus as the promised one from scriptures, and they eventually had him killed for saying He was the Son of God. But (and this is a big but!) in triumph over death, Jesus rose from the dead! It’s easy for us to know all this now, because we have history and the Bible on our side. (we were born after the whole Bible was written and all prophecy was given.) In this chapter, I am going to try and focus on some of the things I didn’t know until I started studying the Bible. Things that blew my mind about Jesus and what He did for us.
Do you remember in Genesis 3, when we heard about the seed of woman crushing the serpent’s head? We talked about it back then, but this was predicting the virgin birth. God placed the Messiah inside the womb of Mary, and she was told to name him Jesus. The Hebrew word for Jesus means “God saves”. Here is what is so important about that virgin birth. Because Jesus did not have an earthly father involved in the procreation process, he was not born with the same corrupt and dead spirit we inherited from our parents, and their parents, and so on, back to Adam. This is why the Bible calls Jesus the “second Adam”. God gave mankind a second chance. Jesus would be tested much more than the first Adam was. All Adam had to do was stay away from one tree, while Jesus’ temptations were much more intense. Jesus passed with flying colors, unlike Adam.
Jesus was the only man after Adam to be born with a spirit and body that is perfect and not corrupted by sin. Jesus would still need to go His whole life without sinning for any of it to count. He had to be perfect. We can see a picture of this in the Old-Testament and the temple sacrificial system God set up for Israel to use. The animals they sacrificed had to be free of blemish, imperfections, and deformities. They had to be perfect, or God would not accept them as a sin offering. These animal sacrifices were a picture of the true Lamb of God that would be sacrificed once and for all for our sin. (Jesus) The Passover lamb sacrifice was the ultimate picture of Jesus. This started right before Israel was freed from slavery in Egypt. Check out Exodus chapter 12 if you are interested.
We learn early on, that God requires blood to atone for sin. In the garden, we didn’t hear specifically about the sacrifice of an animal, but we did hear about God giving Adan and Eve animal skins for covering. This was a clue that God killed an animal as a sacrifice for Adam & Eve’s sin. (You can’t take an animal’s skin without killing it.) Once Jesus came and made his ultimate, once and for all sacrifice, there was no need to shed the blood of animals again. Take notice that Israel doesn’t have a temple anymore to sacrifice in. If they could build one on the site of the original temple and start sacrificing animals today, they would. They haven’t accepted that Jesus was the Messiah, so they don’t believe in His sacrifice, and they think they still need animals to cover their sin. Stay tuned, because Israel will build another temple right on the temple mount where the Muslim dome of the tock sits now. This all happens before Jesus comes back. I’ll fill you in a little later on how that all shakes out.
God also required that the sacrifice to save us had to be someone just like us. A human. Sacrificing animals doesn’t make up for man’s sin, it just covered it until they sin again. We would need a man to be our substitute, so sin is paid for once and for all. Each of us has our own sin. We have to pay our own penalty, so it’s not available to pay for anyone else. Who sets the rules for what counts as an acceptable sacrifice to save us from the death penalty of sin? God does of course. He required a “like” substitute, and this is why Jesus, who is and always was God, had to empty himself of His God powers. Jesus had to be born as a man, and He had to experience what we all go through in life here on earth. All of this so that Jesus could relate to us, having been in our shoes, and so His death would count as an acceptable sacrifice. Jesus coming down in all his Godly power and glory to save the earth was not the solution God wanted. No, Jesus became human just like us. Of course, this doesn’t mean Jesus wasn’t still God. You can’t just give up your title and power that you’ve had for eternity, and not still be God. The point is, the advantages that being God had, did not help him during His time here as Jesus the man.
Next time He comes back we will see Jesus with all his Godly power and glory, and He won’t look anything like the Jesus that walked the earth. In fact the Bible tells us we will call him by a new name that nobody even knows right now. When Jesus comes back, this is what He will look like:
Revelation 1:13-17
‘and in the middle of the lampstands I saw one like a son of man, clothed in a robe reaching to the feet, and girded across His chest with a golden sash. His head and His hair were white like white wool, like snow; and His eyes were like a flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze, when it has been made to glow in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of many waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and out of His mouth came a sharp two-edged sword; and His face was like the sun shining in its strength. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, ‘
John, who wrote the book of Revelation, was one of Jesus’ closest disciples here on earth. Yet, John fell down in fear at the sight of Jesus in his heavenly form. This is much different than the human response should have been to someone John spent so many years close to. John didn’t run in for a hug like some might think, instead John was on the ground like a dead man. Would you expect God in all His power and glory to look like a humble Jewish servant? Nope, that was only for a short period of time in history, and for a specific purpose. The way Jesus looks in the verses above is the Jesus we will be around forever. We won’t have the fear like John did, because we won’t be hiding sin. When we see Jesus next, we will be perfect.
So, I mentioned there must be blood (death) to atone for our own sin, and that the sacrifice God accepts on our behalf, must be perfect, and a man just like us. Here is another thing that had to happen for God to accept Jesus as a substitute for you and me. Jesus had to die willingly. God the Father couldn’t force His Son to come to earth, give up His God powers, be rejected by His people, spat on, tortured and hung from a cross. Jesus had to volunteer knowing exactly what He was in for. Here is a good one for you: The Bible tells us that Jesus, created the universe and everything in it. That means that Jesus created it all, knowing He would eventually have to die on that cross. What? Any chance you or I would have done that? I would have found another way, or just not created the place or the people. He created it anyway. The greatest event in human history was the day the Savior of the world entered the world He created to save it. Tell me there is any kind of love greater than that. I’m waiting…
Before we move on, I want to be clear on something that is very important. You need to understand what the Bible means when it speaks about “life” and “death”. The word “life” is used around 450 times throughout the Bible. It is on the first page of the Bible and it is on the last page of the Bible. The word “death is used 372 times. The first mention is in the first book of the Bible chapter 21, and the final mention is in the last book of the Bible, chapter 21. Hmmmm, coincidence? There are lots of little things like this in the Bible where you have to look at it and know God wrote it. Everything in there, and the order it’s all in, is something only a supreme being (God) could dictate.
The Bible uses the word life to symbolize enteral life with God in heaven. If you have life, then you are saved. As a believer in Jesus, and what He did on the cross for me, I am assured I will live forever in heaven with God. That is what “having life” means in the Bible. The word death, is used to symbolize an eternal life without God. If you are dead right now, that means you are an unbeliever. As an unbeliever, you are still assured you will live forever, It just won’t be with God in heaven. You will need to be brought to life before you can enter heaven. Death never means nonexistent, it means separation. Before you think that living forever away from God doesn’t sound that bad, you need to know the truth. I’ll have that covered in another chapter. For now keep on reading on…
Jesus proved He was the promised Messiah. He fulfilled every prophecy in the Old-Testament about His 1st coming, he led a life without sin, and he performed miracles and signs only the Savior could do. The odds of one man fulfilling 350+ prophecies written over 1,000 years of time is impossible, but Jesus did. More than that, Jesus proved He was God when He rose from the dead. Buddha is in the ground, Mohammed is buried somewhere, and every shaman or faith guru always dies. Jesus is the only one to still live. You will see Him someday…Everyone will.
So why didn’t Israel accept their Messiah? It wasn’t what God wanted at that time. God’s plan was to let His son die on the cross so we could be saved. He used the Jewish priests and leaders of Israel to help accomplish it. God took His plan from centered on Israel alone, to now being spread to all the nations of the world. If Israel had accepted Jesus as their king, the 1,000-year Messianic kingdom would have started. Although that would have been great for the people of Israel, it would not have been good for any of us. We would have missed out on heaven. We would have missed out on being born. We would have missed out on living forever. More to come on that…
Israel has always been God’s people. They were the only nation God recognized as His, and they are the only nation God gave the law to. There were some foreigners who ended up part of the Jewish community and believed in God, but they were more of an exception. God’s plan did, and always will, have the nation of Israel as central to it all. The Messiah was born a Jew in Israel, and when the Messiah comes back, He will rule from Jerusalem. Jesus left the earth when Israel rejected Him, and He comes back when Israel accepts Him. Israel will be the most important country in the world, and everyone from all the nations of the world will go there to see the King. Can you tell who the enemy (Satan) is working through in the world now to try and stop Jesus from coming back? Satan thinks if there is no Israel, then the Messiah has no one to come back for. Maybe now you have a little more insight into why most of Israel’s Muslim neighbors hate them. When the Kingdom comes, the enemies will be done with, and Israel will live at peace in cities without walls. Just a little hint for now.
Let’s examine what Jesus went through, because God tells us that we will experience the same things if we believe. First off, we know that Jesus’ time here on earth was anything but the life of a king. He was a humble servant, who came to save His people from the penalty of sin. He didn’t have a home to sleep in, was rejected throughout, tortured and killed. God tells us to expect similar treatment, because the world hates Jesus. (see John 15 below) It doesn’t mean we will be killed for Jesus, although that is certainly a possibility nowadays, but we will suffer persecution and ridicule just like Jesus did. That is if we practice our faith and don’t hide away at home. When I first started sharing the truth, I was met with opposition on many fronts. Some of the persecution was from people I least expected. Persecution isn’t always physical, and if you share the truth, or just act different than the world expects, you will get pushback.
John 15:18-20:
‘ “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you; if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. ‘
Next, Jesus died like we all do. Did He die? Will we all have to die? We talked about this before; since Jesus had no sin, He was perfect and wouldn’t die. What we find out is that Jesus had to “give up” His spirit in order for His physical body to die. He would have hung on that cross forever if it wasn’t in God’s plan for Him to die on it. No one forced Jesus to that cross, and no one took Jesus’ life. It was all part of the plan, orchestrated from before time began. We know our physical bodies will die because they are full of sin. We won’t have to give up our spirit, because our body will die first and our spirit gets released after that. There is one big exception: Some of us may never suffer a physical death at all. Wait what? More to come.
When Jesus gave up His spirit and the physical body died, Jesus went down to a place called Sheol. His spirit/soul descended to this place that held the spirits of every human who died since Adam. I told you earlier that your spirit lives forever, but it is where you live that matters. Your spirit is the real you, and the part of you that will live long after this container it is housed in dies. The souls/spirits in Sheol are being held there because they all have that corrupted spirit from Adam, and they could not be in heaven with God because of it. Adam and Eve were down there, Moses, Abraham, David, and every other believer from the Old-Testament. There are also the souls of every unbeliever that ever died, starting with Cain, the first murderer.
The Bible tells us that Sheol has two sides to it. One side is called “paradise” or “Abraham’s bosom”, because you were warmly wrapped in the arms of Abraham like a big hug. This side was a place of comfort and rest for the believers who were waiting for the Messiah to come. They put their faith in God’s promises, and since the Messiah had not come yet to make His sacrifice, they stayed down there. The other side of Sheol is not pleasant. In fact it is hell. There is no rest, it is hot, you are always thirsty, you are laying in the earth full of maggots and worms, and worst of all you are separated from God and the light. In Sheol, there is a huge divide or chasm that separates the two sides of hell and paradise. No soul can cross over from one side to another, and no soul can leave there to come up to earth. If you want to read the story, it is in Luke Chapter 16.
When Jesus’ spirit went down to Sheol, it was to announce that the Messiah was here, and that He was the promised One. The promises of a savior that those on the paradise side believed in was now fulfilled. They would no longer have to be separated from God, and all their spirits went up to heaven with God the Father. Those souls on the hell side of Sheol stayed down there. In fact, every unbeliever from all time, including those who die today go straight down to the hell side of Sheol. The paradise side is empty now, and no longer necessary. Because Jesus already paid the price for us, the spirits of all believers now go right into heaven with Jesus. Jesus spent 3 days down in Sheol before His spirit went back into that lifeless body in the tomb, and He rose from the dead. His spirit which never died, was now reunited with that perfect body and He walked right out of that tomb.
Jesus conquered death, and we can to. If we believe in the sacrifice Jesus made for us, we will also rise from the dead. Our process is a little different, but we get the same result. More to come on that later. The sacrifice was already made by Jesus, so we can accept it and get right with God. How is that possible when our spirit is corrupt from Adam? Our belief in the second Adam, Jesus, is how it happens. Ever heard of the term born again? When we believe in Jesus, our old sinful spirit nature is replaced with a perfect, sinless spirit. A spirit that will never sin and therefore can be in the presence of God forever. Are you starting to see how God worked around our dying corrupt spirit? He replaces it with a new perfect one.
A good Bible student would ask how is it possible that we have a perfect spirit, when I know uncle Bill still sins? Yep, we all sin, and having a perfect spirit doesn’t fix the whole issue. We still have these sinful bodies. Therein lies another problem God has to solve. We were created to live on earth. We need physical bodies for this to be a suitable home. If we were created as spirit only beings like angels, why would we need a physical earth? God intended for us to have physical bodies, and He made us to live on a place like this earth. So how does God solve this problem?
As I told you earlier, our bodies die, get buried in the ground and turn back into the dust that they came from. If you are a believer, when your body dies, your spirit will be released and escorted by angels right to Jesus in heaven. Because our physical body was full of sin, it had to die. It couldn’t be with us in heaven, because you have to be perfect to be there. Because this physical body is sinful and cursed to die, it will never be used again. There are all kinds of weird things people believe about how you have to be buried, or that you can’t be cremated, or if you drown and they can’t find you in the ocean, God can’t use your body later. All are nonsense. God will not be using our old dead sinful bodies again, so it doesn’t matter what happens to them after they die. This body is the only thing keeping us out of heaven right now. If I was spirit only, I’d be with God.
The spirit only life we have in heaven will be temporary. Everything will change at the resurrection. This is when your old dead body is replaced with a new perfect sinless one. Just like the perfect spirit all believers have now, soon we will be matched up with our perfect physical body. As I wrote about before, our new bodies won’t sin, so they won’t die EVER! Now, think about this: If we get new physical bodies, then we will need to live on a physical earth. Heaven for us isn’t in the clouds, it will be a real place that we walk and live on. Guess what? God has a plan for that.
So when does this resurrection happen? It is different depending on when you die and if you are a believer or not. I’ll try to keep this simple; we will have to dive deeper in a Bible study.
There are only 2 kinds of people from God’s perspective. The saved, and the lost. The believer and unbeliever. The living and the dead. In God’s view, it is pretty cut and dry. You are either written in the Book of Life or you aren’t. These 2 types of people have similar experiences after death, but different paths and eternal homes. Everyone will be resurrected, and the group you are in will tell us when you will get your new body.
Believers in Jesus and His sacrifice for us. (Those born after Jesus came are called the Church )
- All members of the Church will get their new bodies at the same time.
- Many members of the Church have already died, and are in spirit only form in heaven now. (I think of my grandparents and my in-laws up there to name a few)
- There will also be a lot of members of the church still alive on earth, with a perfect spirit and sinful body when the resurrection happens.
When does all of this happen? The Bible tells us that the event that triggers the resurrection of all the Church is when Jesus comes down to the clouds. All the current church members in heaven will be there, and any member of the church still alive on earth will get whisked away instantly up to that same spot in the clouds. You may have heard this event called the rapture. It is when believers alive on earth somehow get shed of their physical bodies and their spirit is called up to the clouds with Jesus and all the other Church members from all time. We all get our new bodies at the exact same time, and we go back to heaven with Jesus and wait for the Kingdom to start.
So when will the rapture or resurrection of the Church happen? God tells us in His word that it can happen at any time, and there is nothing that needs to happen before it comes. This is a way for God to keep us on our toes, and for us to always be aware that it could happen today. We should always be ready for Jesus to call us home. This is the only event where we have no idea when it will start. All we know is that in a blink of an eye, we will all be changed. (resurrected) Whether you are here on earth, or already up in heaven, we all meet together and God gives us our new and improved, guaranteed to never break down bodies.
Unbelievers. (don’t believe in Jesus or His sacrifice, from Cain through the end of the kingdom)
- All unbelievers from all of time will get their new physical bodies at the same time.
- Many unbelievers have already died, and are in spirit form only down in Sheol/hell. (I try not to think about anyone I knew being there)
- There will also be a lot of unbelievers on earth right before they get their new physical bodies.
So when do unbelievers get their new bodies? Not until after Jesus rules in the 1,000-year kingdom here on earth. After the Kingdom, and before the “new heavens and new earth” come, they will all stand before the judge (Jesus) and get their new eternal bodies. Yes, they get eternal bodies too, just like the Church. Again, its all about where you spend eternity, and unbelievers have a much different location. The Bible tells us after unbelievers all get their bodies and are judged for their unbelief; they are thrown into the lake of fire for eternity. A much different outcome for unbelievers who are separated from God for eternity.
There are other groups of people who get resurrected at different times. One is the Old-Testament saints. These are the believers before Jesus came. They trusted in God’s promise to bring a Messiah before they knew who He was or when He would come. They are all up in heaven right now in spirit form only. They all get their bodies right before the Kingdom starts. The other group is what many call the tribulation saints. These are new believers who will come to faith after the church was raptured and resurrected. They are alive during a very special period of time during the last 7 years of this age. More on all this later.
The problem is now solved! The issue created in the garden when Adam and Eve sinned and became separated from God, is now fixed for the believers. We will have a perfect spirit and body and will be able to be around our Creator forever. Unbelievers will always have their same corrupted dead spirit for all of eternity, and can’t be around God forever. Right now, you have a choice where you want to spend eternity. You also want to make that choice before Jesus comes to get the Church. I’ll have some more on that later in the book. There was a lot in this chapter. Re-read it a few times if you need to.
THERE IS HOPE MY SON 