Can we help our broken and divided world find hope and peace? Or has the voice of God’s people been silenced? As I point out in my recent book, The Jesus Story: Seven Signs, Tom Holland in Dominion traces the influences of the Jesus story on the West, including the values of right and wrong, justice and compassion.

In his Letter to God’s People in Colossae, Paul the Apostle writes of the hope that has awakened their faith in Christ Jesus and their love for one another. He reminds them that this hope is found in God’s good news which is itself grounded in the truth.

What is more, he observes that not only were God’s people in Colossae growing in their faith, love and hope, but God’s good news was bearing fruit and growing in the whole world.

These words are very encouraging for us today.

Let’s consider the flow of Paul’s thought: He begins by thanking God, the Father of the Lord Jesus Christ for their faith in Christ Jesus and the love they have for all the saints,… because of the hope laid up for them in heaven (1:3-5). There is a causal link between hope and faith and love. Hope is not the consequence of faith and love. Rather, hope has awakened them.

This is so important. The hope that we have is the motivation for our faith and love.

Let’s consider this. In First Corinthians chapter 15, as we have recently seen, Paul writes of the reality and significance of Jesus’ physical resurrection from the dead. He points out that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, our own future resurrection from the dead is negated. Our professed faith would be meaningless and the associated Christian morality a joke. As he says in verse 32, if the dead do not rise, we may as well ‘eat and drink, for tomorrow we die’.

The hope of which Paul speaks in Colossians chapter 1, verse 6 is not a baseless optimism. It is a certain hope.

In verses 5b – 6 he writes: Of this you have heard before in the word of the truth, the gospel, which has come to you, as indeed in the whole world it is bearing fruit and growing – as it also does among you, since the day you heard it and understood the grace of God in truth, …

It’s important to notice the emphasis Paul puts on the word truth. The gospel, is literally, the word of the truth. He could have left out any reference to the words, the truth, but he doesn’t. He wants to stress that the essence of the Christian message is true.

Reflecting on this, we can see that God’s good news is beyond human invention and imagination. No one of us would have invented a God who was prepared to forgive a self-preoccupied and faithless world by such a costly and humiliating death as occurred at Calvary.

The gospel is also true, historically. Paul implies that that the accounts of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ are no invention. The records are true and trustworthy, supported by eyewitnesses.

Furthermore, the gospel is true experientially. By this I mean that when people put their trust in Jesus Christ who is at the center of the gospel, they discover that their faith is not a hoax.

It’s so important we are assured that our faith and our love for one another as God’s people are based on the hope that is laid up for us in heaven. We need to ask ourselves, “Is my faith, love and hope a response to God’s good news?” Paul assures us it is the truth, and nothing but the truth.

Indeed, we need to pray that God’s Spirit will awaken within us, as he did in the lives of the Colossian Christians, an ever-deepening love for the Lord Jesus, and for his people across social, cultural, and racial divides.

In the 2nd century, God’s people in the Roman world were under great suspicion. Tertullian, one of the church leaders at the time, responded by contrasting Christians with the Roman society: ‘Look, they (the Romans) say, ‘How they (the Christians) love one another’ (for they themselves, the Romans, hate one another); ‘and how they are ready to die for each other, for they themselves (the Romans) are readier to kill each other’.

Furthermore, it’s worth praying for opportunities to talk with others about the inconsistencies and unworkable nature of the diversity that careless and false narratives are imposing on the western world.

Robert Letham, for example, observes that ‘the world of postmodernism is entirely arbitrary. If the emotions trump reason, we have no rational grounds for anything… Postmodernism cannot stand the test of everyday life’, he says. ‘It does not work, and will not work. It fails the test of Ludwig Wittgenstein, who insisted that language and philosophy must have “cash value” in terms of the real world in which we go about our business from day to day. To do that, we assume that there is an objective world and act accordingly. If there is not, life could not go on’ (Letham, The Holy Trinity, pp.452f).

Because God’s good news is based in the initiative and promises of the living God, we can be assured that his word and work will continue in today’s world. God’s passion is to rescue the lost. But we too, have a part to play: the testimony of our faith, the example of our love – which includes forgiving those whom we believe have wronged us – and the reality of the hope we have, will all bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Above all, we need to pray that God in his mercy will send his Spirit into the world, opening blind eyes to the truth of the hope, the joy, and the peace that God holds out to us.

If you have not already done so, let me encourage you to obtain copies of The Jesus Story: Seven Signs to read for yourself and to pass on to others. You can use the button in the banner below or, if you are outside the US, you can get copies through Amazon.

Prayers. Lord Christ, eternal Word and Light of the Father’s glory: send your light and your truth so that we may both know and proclaim your word of life, to the glory of God the Father; for you now live and reign, God for all eternity. Amen.

Grant us, Lord, we pray, the spirit to think and do always such things as are right, so that we who cannot do anything that is good without you, may in your strength be able to live according to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

© John G. Mason

In his book The Holy Trinity (2004), Robert Letham commented on the impact of postmodernism on society: “In terms of instability and diversity,” he wrote, “the postmodern world of constant flux is seeing insecurity, breakdown, and the rise of various forms of terrorism… As diversity rules, subgroups are divided against each other… A cult of the victim develops, and responsibility declines. This is a recipe for social breakdown, instability, and the unravelling of any cohesion that once existed” (p.453).

Come with me to Paul the Apostle’s prayer of thanksgiving for the church in Colossae that we read in Colossians chapter 1: In our prayers for you we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,… (1:3). Significantly Paul begins his prayer defining the God we worship: He is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Let’s think about this: The essential nature of a perfect father is to love and give life. Paul’s understanding is that God the Father delights to love and give life. From eternity God the Father has given life to a Son.

Paul’s words are consistent with what we read in the opening line of John’s Gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And in Jeremiah 2:13, the Lord says of himself that he is the ‘spring of living water’. From eternity, before the creation of the universe, God the Father was loving and begetting his Son. God did not become a father at some point.

A water fountain, whose very nature is to pour out water, helps us with this idea. In the same way that a fountain is not a fountain if it doesn’t pour out water, so God the Father would not be who he is, unless he was giving life to his Son. God the Father and God the Son are distinct persons, but they are inseparable from one another. They always love one another, and they always work together in perfect harmony.

This is important, for it tells us that Paul is giving thanks to the God whose existence is not simply as a powerful intelligence behind the observable universe, but to a personal God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Colossians’ faith in Christ Jesus was real and personal, expressing itself in their love and care for one another. The Colossian church was a place where there was genuine community. People accepted one another, treated one another as equals across the social and racial divide. Their love for one another led to compassion and practical care for those in need.

Significantly, Paul goes on to tell us that the faith and love the Colossians enjoyed, was inspired by a third Person of the Godhead – the Holy Spirit. In verse 8 he writes that Epaphras had told him of the Colossians’ love in the Spirit.

In John chapter 14 we learn that on the eve of his arrest, Jesus promised his disciples he would send the Holy Spirit to comfort and equip them. And in John 16:8 we learn that the Holy Spirit would also convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment:… An important part of the Spirit’s work is to convict our consciences of our failure to honor and love Jesus as Lord. One day God will ask us all: ‘What did you do with my Son?’

In his treatise, The Bondage of the Will Martin Luther addressed what he saw as the fundamental question regarding salvation. He pointed out that so distorted and flawed is the human heart, that no one has a free will when it comes to our relationship with God. The desires of our hearts lock us into self-worship and vainglory, rather than the rightful worship and glory of the one true God who is Lord of heaven and earth.

Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury in the reign of Henry VIII, held a similar view of humanity. Dr. Ashley Null sums up Cranmer’s anthropology this way: ‘What the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies… For Cranmer the mind is actually captive to what the will wants, and the will itself, in turn, is captive to what the heart wants’.

So how are hearts changed? From his rich understanding of Scripture, Cranmer’s prayer books stress the need for God to intervene in our minds and hearts. And so the 1552 Service of the Lord’s Supper begins with a Prayer for Purity: Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden: cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, so that we may perfectly love you, and worthily magnify your holy name, through Christ our Lord. Amen.

It is a prayer for the outpouring, the coming down, of the Spirit of God, significantly not on the bread and wine on the Holy Table, but on the minds and hearts of everyone present. As Ashley Null points out, the prayer is saying that we cannot truly love God unless God supernaturally changes our hearts.

A careful reading of Cranmer’s liturgies reveals that his prayer is that the Holy Spirit will work through the Scriptures to change the hearts of the worshippers. For Cranmer, with all the English Reformers, believed in a living God whose delight is to answer prayer.

To return to Paul the Apostle’s prayer of thanksgiving in his Letter to the Colossians, we see the One God who exists in Three Persons, delighting to give life to his people.

Our broken world needs to hear afresh the good news of this Triune God. If we grieve for our world, we need to pray that God will act with compassion and send his Spirit to soften hearts, turning them, as they hear the gospel, to Jesus Christ as Lord.

Let me encourage you to obtain copies of The Jesus Story: Seven Signs to read for yourself and to pass on to others. You can use the button in the banner below or, if you are outside the US, you can get copies through Amazon.

A Prayer for Trinity Sunday: Almighty and everlasting God, you have given us your servants grace by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and by your divine power to worship you as One: we pray that you would keep us steadfast in this faith and evermore defend us from all adversities; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Is there anything that can really make us different, that can shake us out of our apathy and anxieties? That can inject enthusiasm and joy, confidence and courage into our lives?

Come with me to the events of Pentecost that we read about in Acts chapter 2. It was six-weeks after Jesus’ resurrection.

Three questions emerge.

What happened?  When the day of Pentecost came, the disciples were together in an upper room in Jerusalem. ‘Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came…  Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them… All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.’

Pentecost is the Jewish festival celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments. In Exodus 19:18 we read that violent wind and tongues of fire had enveloped Mt Sinai at the time God gave Moses the law. However, as Israel’s prophets had said, the law failed to change the world because the law failed to change people.

Now at Pentecost some twelve hundred years later, God was coming with fire and wind, not to impart more law, but to impart his Spirit. The mighty wind symbolised the power of Jesus; the fire symbolised his purifying and cleansing work; and speech pointed to the good news of Jesus reaching every nation.

Luke, the author of Acts focuses on speech. He tells us: Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. … And everyone was bewildered because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each (2:5).

The crowd came from the Caspian Sea in the east to Rome in the west; from modern Turkey in the north to Africa in the south. ‘How is it?’ they asked, ‘That we can understand them in our own native language?’

The cynics in the crowd mocked, saying the disciples were drunk. But Peter wasn’t silenced: ‘The bars aren’t open yet,’ he said. ‘It’s only nine o’clock in the morning’. This was the ultimate Author of speech reversing Babel.

The disciples, previously demoralised and defeated, had a new enthusiasm, confidence and joy. Peter, who had denied Jesus, was no longer a coward but a courageous preacher. What made that difference? It was the Spirit, ‘Another Helper’ whom Jesus had promised.

For many, Christianity is little more than a moral code they must struggle to observe, or a creed recited mindlessly every week. But in John 14 Jesus had spoken of ‘a Companion’ who would enable his people to experience a life-changing personal relationship with him.

What did it mean? The Holy Spirit was turning cowardly disciples into intrepid apostles. From verse 22 Luke records Peter’s speech: “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.  …And you, …put him to death …but God raised him from the dead, …”

People today mock the idea of Jesus’ miracles. Yet first-century historians such as Josephus, agreed that Jesus was a miracle-worker. Peter called the miracles signs. Just as a sign-post points to the road we might follow, so Jesus’ works pointed to the power and authority he wielded. “If I by the finger of God cast out demons,” Jesus had said, “then the kingdom of God is come upon you.”

The climax of Peter’s speech is in verse 36: “Therefore let all Israel be assured of this, God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.”

Peter had a logically developed progression of ideas – not a frenzied set of phrases. He explains that Jesus’ cross and resurrection reveal God’s extraordinary love. The Son of God had put aside the glory of heaven and come amongst us, giving his life as the one perfect sacrifice for the sins of the world.

Human authorities had judged Jesus a threat and guilty, and nailed him to a cross. From his supreme court, God overturned that judgement and raised Jesus to life.

Does all this matter? It happened so long ago. Peter’s hearers were cut to the heart…, “Brothers, what should we do?” they asked (2:37f). They were utterly ashamed. Previously they had mocked the dying Jesus. Now they knew the truth. God’s Spirit was at work.

Peter’s response is one we all need to hear: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven (Acts 2:38). He didn’t tell his hearers they needed to turn over a new leaf and start living moral lives. Rather, he focused on their relationship with Jesus. Repent. ‘Come to your senses about Jesus,’ Peter is saying. ‘Turn to him and ask him for his forgiveness.’

Three thousand responded to Peter’s call that day. God’s Spirit was taking up the work of Jesus the Messiah in the world, opening blind eyes and changing hearts.

Significantly Peter continued: And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you, for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him (Acts 2:38f). From now on God’s Spirit would come into the lives of all God’s people (see also Romans 8:9).

What God did that day, and what he has been doing ever since, matters. God’s delight is to draw men and women from all over the world, from every culture and walk of life – people like you and me – into a personal, living relationship with himself.

And we have a part to play. Let’s not be fearful. Rather, let’s pray for the Spirit’s strength and wisdom to take up opportunities to introduce people we know to Jesus. Let me encourage you to obtain copies of The Jesus Story: Seven Signs to read for yourself and to pass on to others. You can use the button in the banner below or, if you are outside the US, you can get copies wherever you are through Amazon.

A Prayer. Almighty God, who taught the hearts of your faithful people by sending them the light of your Holy Spirit: so enable us by the same Spirit to have a right judgment in all things and always to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

In the midst of the uncertainties and fears of the world around us, it’s worth pausing and reflecting on those all too rare moments when we experience a deep longing that we know nothing on earth can satisfy.

We might experience such moments when our hearts are lifted to a sense of the transcendent, perhaps when hearing some sublime music or gazing on a glorious scene that draws us beyond the material to the ethereal. For a few all too fleeting seconds we are enchanted by the prospect of a world whose beauty and peace surpass our usual experience. And we long for it.

Does our longing suggest it could be real?

The myths and legends of the past, and the various religions of the world, may speak of life beyond our experience now. But the Christian Scriptures are of a very different order. They have a unique authority, for the events of which they speak and the utterances they record are firmly grounded in history. Furthermore, they point to a future that is foreshadowed by and is consistent with our experiences now.

Come with me to Acts chapter 1 verses 9 through 11: While Jesus (he) was going and the disciples were gazing up toward heaven, suddenly two men in white robes stood by them. They said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward heaven? This Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”

It reads like sci-fi. In his book Miracles CS Lewis asks, “… what precisely should we expect the onlookers to see? Perhaps mere instantaneous vanishing would make us feel most comfortable. A sudden break between the perceptible and the imperceptible would worry us less than any kind of joint. But if the spectators say they saw first a short vertical movement and then a vague luminosity (… ‘cloud’) and then nothing – have we any reason to object?” (pp.177f).

Clearly Christ moved from the space and time dimensions that we know into another beyond our comprehension. Further references in the New Testament help us understand this. Philippians chapter 2, verses 9 through 11 tell us that God the Father has highly exalted Jesus and given him the name which is above every name. And Colossians chapter 3, verse 1 speaks of Christ as seated at the right hand of God. And, back in the opening lines of Acts chapter 1, Luke tells us that during the forty days between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, Jesus spoke of the kingdom of God (1:3). The age of God’s Messiah had dawned.

The disciples’ question in Acts chapter 1, verse 6, “Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?” reveals their excitement and thoughts that at last Jesus was going to reveal his true power and position as Israel’s true king. They were thinking in political and nationalistic categories.

And through the ages many have thought in similar terms. But it’s important that we focus on Jesus’s response: “It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority (1:7). ‘You’re not to worry about times and end-times,’ Jesus is saying. ‘I’ve got something much more important for you to do with your time and energy: “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1:8). Jesus had a very specific agenda for his disciples.

Witnesses. In commissioning them as his witnesses, Jesus wants us to know that what they passed on is nothing but the truth. This is very important because the Bible makes it plain that Christianity is not a religion, involving rules, rituals, and regulations. At its heart is a relationship with Jesus Christ. And because meaningful and lasting relationships can only be built on truth, we need to know the truth. Relationships within families are only meaningful where there is truth and honesty. Without truth there can be no trust.

Now it’s important to make a distinction here. Jesus is not saying that his followers down through the ages are witnesses as were the original disciples. We can’t be. We weren’t there. But we are called upon to testify to the good news he brings.

Two Kingdoms. For the present, God’s kingdom, the rule of the Messiah, remains hidden. Indeed, in his Letter to the Colossians Paul the Apostle indicates that the new age of God’s rule co-exists with the old – which the New Testament speaks of as the world. Currently a door is open, allowing people to pass from the old age to the new. So, while we see around us the movement of human kingdoms and powers, God in his mercy is rescuing people throughout the world from the dominion of darkness, transferring us into the kingdom of the Son he loves… (Colossians 1:13).

We live in an uncertain and troubled world. We need to pray for the leaders of the nations and play our part in contributing to the welfare of people in need around us. Above all, let’s pray that God in his mercy will use the good examples of our lives and our testimony to draw many to the Lord Jesus Christ. His physical resurrection and the angels’ words at his ascension assure us that his return is certain.

But there’s something else we need – which we’ll talk about next week!

In the meantime, let me ask if you are praying for three people with whom you would like to share the good news of the lordship and love of Jesus? Consider purchasing copies of The Jesus Story: Seven Signs, John G. Mason. You can use the link on the banner below or, if you are outside the US, you can make your purchase through Amazon. Simply pass on a copy to others at an appropriate moment.

Prayer. God our Father, make us joyful in the ascension of your Son Jesus Christ. May we follow him into the new creation, for his ascension is our glory and our hope. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

© John G. Mason

During this Easter Season we have been touching on the reality of life and death. Three years ago I observed that Eugene Ionesco’s, Exit the King is a clever play about life and death. Reportedly the Romanian-French Ionesco who died in 1994, said about the play: I told myself that one could learn to die, that I could learn to die, that one can also help other people to die. This seems to me the most important thing we can do, since we’re all of us dying men who refuse to die. The play is an attempt at an apprenticeship in dying.

Now I don’t want to be morbid, but I raise the subject for two reasons. First, Ionesco understood that because life is fleeting – as everyone in war-torn countries knows too well – we need to consider our values and priorities. Second, in Jesus’s parable of the Prodigal Son a key theme is our lostness: we look for life in the wrong places.

Throughout his ministry Jesus of Nazareth challenged us all to consider our hearts’ desires.

The opening lines of Luke chapter 15 reveal that two very different groups of people were in Jesus’s audience at that time – what we might call the sinners and the saints. The sinners were society’s outcasts, the fraudsters and the immoral; the saints were the religious establishment. The first group needed to learn that at the heart of God’s nature is mercy and forgiveness; the second needed to be shocked out of their self-righteousness. The two groups had two very different views about life and death.

Knowing that mindsets are very hard to shift, Jesus didn’t preach a sermon nor engage in debate. He told three stories – about a shepherd who had lost a sheep, about a woman who had lost a coin, and about a father who had lost two sons. I’ll focus here on the father and his younger son (Luke 15:11-24).

The story opens with the younger son asking his father for his inheritance. The son, by asking this implied that he wished his father were dead. Nevertheless, the father gave him what he wanted. But it was not long before the money was gone. Having no friends or credit line, the son was soon without food and homeless. Worse followed. With a drought and a crash in primary industry, the best he could do was become a day-laborer, feeding pigs. Even so, he starved. His thoughts turned to home – to his father, the farm, and the food.

The son weighed the odds. ‘Here I am, feeding pigs,’ he reflected. ‘The casual-workers on Dad’s farm are better off than me. I’m a fool. I’ll have to bury my pride and go home. I’ll have to tell Dad I’m really sorry I messed up and don’t deserve a thing. I’ll ask him to take me on as one of the hired-workers.’

Jesus’s story would have captured everyone’s attention. Some hearers would have been saying to themselves, ‘That’s me.’ Another group would have said, ‘That son doesn’t deserve to be forgiven’.

The critical question was how would the father react.

Like most fathers, he knew what his son was like and what he would do. But he still loved him. In fact, he’d been on the lookout for his return. And when word came that his son was on his way home, he immediately raced out to greet him.

We need to feel the impact of Jesus’s story. No self-respecting citizen in that culture would ever run down the street. He would walk with dignity and deliberation. Furthermore, this father wasn’t racing out to greet a son who had graduated with a doctorate and made his first million before he was twenty-five. The father’s action came at a personal public humiliation.

Yet the father not only ran but he threw his arms around his son and kissed him. The son, no doubt overwhelmed, was honest and expressed his sorrow and deep repentance: ‘Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’  Period. Full stop.

He had planned to add, ‘Treat me as one of your hired servants.’ But he now realized this was not appropriate. For the first time he understood that he’d never really known his father, nor how much his father loved him. He had never appreciated the privilege of being a son.

What was the younger son’s problem? He wanted his father’s wealth so he could enjoy all the pleasures that took his fancy without accountability.

Here is heart of the human dilemma. We think that our possessions and the pleasures we pursue are the be-all and end-all of life. Reckoning they are secure we find they aren’t secure at all. We look for life in the wrong places because we’ve left God out of the equation of the meaning of life. We also forget that there is life beyond the grave for which we need to prepare.

Jesus’s great longing is for us to be honest and humble enough to say, ‘Lord, I know you are true and I know everything I have comes from you. Please forgive me for turning my back on you. Help me to honor you above all else in life.’

Can God find it in his heart to forgive us? Jesus also answers this. In verse 22 we read that before the younger son could catch his breath, his father was busy ordering new clothes, shoes, and a ring – the best of everything. The most elaborate and expensive feast was prepared, and the father tells us why: ‘For this my son was dead, now he is alive, he was lost but now he has been found.’

The Prayer of Humble Access in the Anglican Prayer Book takes up the principle of God’s willingness to forgive the repentant heart. Our prayer, addressed to the Lord whose nature is always to have mercy asks that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his (Christ’s) body and our souls washed through his precious blood…

We easily miss the force of the father’s words in Jesus’s parable, ‘For this my son was dead, now he is alive…’ We may have everything the world offers but until we turn to Jesus Christ in repentance, we are the walking dead. How truly wonderful it is that Jesus said he came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10).

Is the hope of life that we find in Christ alone something you have found? Is it something you want to pass on to family and friends? Let me encourage to obtain copies of The Jesus Story: Seven Signs to read for yourself and to pass on to others. You can use the button in the banner below or, if you are outside the US, you can get copies wherever you are through Amazon.

A prayer. Almighty God, grant that we, who justly deserve to be punished for our sinful deeds, may in your mercy and kindness be pardoned and restored; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

© John G. Mason

Note: My comments on Luke 15 are drawn from my book, Luke: An Unexpected God, Second Edition, Aquila: 2019.

Writing in The Australian last year (April 23, 2024), Dr Greg Sheridan observed, ‘Politics, as they say is downstream of culture, and culture is downstream of faith. Having lost faith in any transcendental truth, the West now is in a permanent crisis of meaning, which leads to political entropy, a kind of political vertigo, forever on the edge of a nervous breakdown’.

Over this Easter Season we’ve touched on the Gospel record of Jesus’s physical resurrection as well as what Paul the Apostle writes in First Corinthians chapter 15. We’ve noted that the events of the crucifixion and resurrection are inextricably tied together – through his death Jesus perfectly satisfied the just requirements of a holy God in his interface with a sinful humanity; through his resurrection Jesus assures all who turn to him of God’s full and free forgiveness and new life in all its glory.

In First Corinthians chapter 15, Paul lifts a corner of the curtain on what this new life means – a physical resurrection with Jesus where there will be a continuity with our present experience (15:21-38). But we will also experience a significant discontinuity between our present and future bodies.

In verses 40b and 41 we read: There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly bodies is one kind and the glory of the earthly bodies is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

All around us there’s evidence of God’s awesome ability to create a vast variety of different physical bodies. When we think about this, we shouldn’t dismiss the possibility of there being more than one type of human body, having a different kind of glory or splendor from its old form. A new, resurrection body is not only possible, but there’s every reason to believe that it will have an appearance more glorious than the first.

The following verses develop the point: So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body (15:42-44).

Someone once sent me a birthday card. On the front was a caricature of Benjamin Franklin with the caption: “We all age from the top downwards – first the hair, then the eyes, mouth, neck, the chins.” On the inside were the words, “What exquisite ankles you have”.

Paul is saying that our new resurrection body will be marked by imperish-ability and immortality. It will no longer suffer from disease, disability or death. It will be raised up in glory – in vitality and power. It will no longer be weak and powerless. It will be all the things we cry out for: a healthy, vital, body that will live for ever. Ideas of reincarnation pale into a shadow compared with this robust, glorious picture of Paul’s.

Currently we have a physical body suitable for our existence on earth. However, God will provide a spiritual body appropriate for our existence in heaven.

Notice how all this will occur: If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being” the last Adam, a life-giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was of the dust of the earth, the second man from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those who are on the earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so we shall bear the likeness of the man from heaven (15:45-49).

Paul identifies two proto-types – Adam and Christ. One is formed from the dust of the earth. The other is the life-giving spirit from heaven. We need to experience bodily transformation and acquire a spiritual body if we are to live in the new heaven and the new earth.

As frail mortals we can’t exist with Christ in heaven. We need a body appropriate for God’s promised new order – a body that has the form and shape of our present body, but one in which our perfected spirit will exist. It will be perfectly adapted to the new heaven and the new earth. Just as the disciples recognised the risen Jesus, so we will recognise each other.

A computer with its hardware and software may assist with these complex ideas. We could liken the inner self, the conscious self, to computer software, and the body to the hardware. In God’s purposes, when we turn to Christ and take hold of God’s promises, our ‘software’ – our inner self – is subject to a major re-programming: all our imperfections are removed. Our resurrected body – our new ‘hardware’ – will reflect the glory of this perfection.

Paul continues by lifting the curtain on the future scene a little more: I declare to you, brothers and sisters that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen I tell you a mystery: we cannot all die, but we will be changed— as in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and the mortal will put on immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory’ (15:50-54).

This amazing chapter moves to a magnificent climax: we will be changed, as will also those who are alive when that day comes. We will no longer have bodies liable to death and decay.

Paul wants each one of us to rejoice with him in the triumph that has been won over death itself. And what a triumph: “Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death is your sting?” The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (15:55-57).

The success of life over death is not in our hands. The victory is God’s. He’s done it all. And we mustn’t dismiss Paul’s note about those who benefit: the victory is for those who know Christ Jesus.

Let me quote Malcolm Muggeridge, one-time editor of the English Punch magazine: “Confronted with the reality of death,” he wrote, “we may rage or despair, induce forgetfulness, solace ourselves with fantasies that science will in due course discover how we came to be here and to what end, and how we may project our existence, individually or collectively, into some Brave New World spanning the universe in which Man reigns supreme. God’s alternative proposition is the Resurrection – a man dying who rises from the dead… I close with, ‘Done’…: Christ is risen!’”

Paul wants us to know the reality of Jesus’s resurrection and to understand the continuity / discontinuity between our present and future existence. But he also wants us to understand something else. He wants us to appreciate how the resurrection impacts our life now. He writes: Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, be steadfast, immovable, abounding in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

Live now in the light of the reality of the resurrection glory that is to come, he says.

In a world that has lost its awareness of transcendental truth, continue steadfast and immovable in your walk through life with Christ Jesus. Continue steadfast in prayer. Pray for wisdom to discern and take up opportunities to introduce family and friends, colleagues and people in the wider world to the Lord Jesus. Continue steadfast and true in your faith in Christ and the hope of the resurrection, knowing that no matter the cost, your work in his service will not be in vain. Others may not know what we do or they may forget, but Jesus won’t. The day will come when he will shout it from the roof-tops.

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Let me ask, are you praying for three people with whom you would like to share the good news of Jesus’s resurrection? Consider purchasing copies of The Jesus Story: Seven Signs using the link on the banner below. Simply pass on a copy at an appropriate moment.

A prayer. Heavenly Father, the giver of all good things, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and grant that by your holy inspiration we may think those things that are good, and by your grace and guidance do them; through our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

© John G. Mason