Can you recognize me at the resurrection?

8 March 2014 by Yeo Teck Thiam-

Easter brings us the immense joy of the hope in the Resurrection. It is God’s promise to everyone who believes, that he will rise from the dead when Jesus calls on the last day.

Nevertheless, the resurrection of the ‘dead’ raises many intriguing questions. When we die, how will we know Jesus is calling us from beyond the grave? And since graves have bones only, in what bodily form will we be at the Resurrection?

These puzzles and questions are natural and not new also, for the Jews in the time of Jesus quarreled over it. The disciples, we can be sure, also would have asked the Lord when He was with them, for Paul, Peter and John gave us various discussions on the Resurrection in the New Testament.

Thus these thoughts were in the questions that the Sadducees posed to Jesus. We read this in the Gospel of Matthew 22:23-33.

The faction of the chief priests in the Sadducees party had disputed with the Pharisees, claiming there was no Resurrection. They were the political rulers of the day, in contrast to the Pharisees who prided themselves as teachers of the law. The Pharisees believed God will raise the dead.

This issue obviously also had something to do with what Jesus taught about the Resurrection. Jesus said that He is the Resurrection and the Life. Jesus taught the Jews that God will call them to life everlasting for those who believed in Him. (John 5:28)

The Sadducees posed a question on marriage to Jesus. They wanted to know how men and women would relate, if there was a Resurrection.

As is apparent in the Gospel passage, the Sadducees wanted to challenge Jesus, but they did not want to do this directly. Instead they pretended that they needed Jesus to give an answer, even though they did not agree with Jesus, or believed in the Resurrection of the dead.

“Teacher”, they said, “Moses told us that if a man dies without having children, his brother must marry the widow and have children for him. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first one married and died, and since he had no children, he left his wife to his brother. The same thing happened to the second and third brother, right on down to the seventh. Finally, the woman died. Now then, at the resurrection, whose wife will she be of the seven, since all of them were married to her?” (Matt 22:24-28)

Here we can see how cunning the Sadducees were. If Jesus confirm what Moses had passed on to the Jews in the Law, Jesus must then solve the problem of human relationships in the Resurrection. Of course, the Sadducees’ purpose was not inquiring about the hope of life. It was to test Jesus, whether Jesus’ teachings were according to the Law given through Moses.

THE QUESTION OF LIFE HEREAFTER

This difficult question gives us the joy to know that God has far greater things in store for us in our hope of life. This blessing is shown in an important way in the answer that Jesus gave the Sadducees.

Jesus told the Sadducees that they did not know their Scripture. This was a rebuke to the Sadducees. They were the priestly coalition who guided the Jews in worshipping God. How could they teach people if they did not know what God said? What was wrong with their knowledge about God?

Jesus also told them that they did not know the power of God. They had very little personal relationship with God, even though they were supposed to guide the Jews to know more about God. Their priestly religion was hollow!

But someone may ask. Why did Jesus go out of the way to dismiss the Sadducees in this way? What was Jesus’ purpose for this?

This is in Jesus’ answer indirectly, through giving the hope for life because of the Resurrection. The text in English prose may not show this clearly, but it is more clearly seen in Hebrew poetic form with chiastic and parallel composition. Jesus spoke in Aramaic and Hebrew when He lived among the Jews in New Testament time.

A The Sadducees did not believe in the Resurrection.

B They came to test Jesus about the Resurrection and what Scripture says.

B’ Jesus told them they did not know what Scripture says.

A’ Their hearts were not right with God. They could not know the power of God for life.

A There is a Resurrection.

B This is because God is a God of the living, as Scripture teaches us.

The answer on the Resurrection that Jesus gave is seen in Hebrew poetic parallel AB – AB.

However, Jesus also wanted the Sadducees to seek truth, and this is given in AB – B’A’ and also B’A’ – AB as chiastic reply form. Jesus needed to show the Sadducees that their spiritual nature was wrong. The Sadducees needed to be right with God first, instead of relying on their own intelligence.

THE HOPE JESUS GAVE FOR LIFE

What have these things revealed to us? Here are some things Jesus tells us.

There is no marriage in heaven.

There are no males or females, no Jews or Greeks.

We will be like the angels.

The patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and likewise, men of God also are not dead.

It is because God is the God of the living, not the dead.

God gives life, not death.

We shall live beyond this life because there is a resurrection of the dead.

The resurrection affirms the power of God at work.

He is able to give life.

We have the hope of life beyond this earth.

It is in heaven.

We will not have this earthly body because we will be like the angels.

The Resurrection guarantees this hope because God will raise us up from the dead.

When God raises us up from the dead, this also declares that we have conquered Death.

GOD’S PROMISE IN JESUS

This means that God has an important reason to raise our dead bodies from the grave.

The dead body is “recovered” from the grave proves that God has fully redeemed us from sins.

It is saying to Satan and to Death that they have no more claims against the believer!

So then, this is why Jesus conquered Death for us when He rose from the dead.

It proclaims God’s promise that Death is vanquished, as given in Old Testament.

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.” Isaiah 25:8

“Where, O Grave, is your victory?

Where, O Death, is your sting?” Hosea 13:14

We will not live in our earthly bodies after the Resurrection.

This is because we leave this perishable, mortal earthly body behind when we go to heaven.

Heaven is a spiritual place.

We will have a new spiritual body for heaven.

So we shall be changed as promised in 1 Corinthians 15:51.

Hence the Christian need not worry about becoming hungry ghosts when we think of 7^th month.

When God raises the dead is not time specific because this is not a question for worldly time.

When we leave this earth behind, we leave time behind also.

It is because we are going into eternal life with God in heaven.

There is no time in eternity.

MORE QUESTIONS THAT FOLLOW

Our thoughts for our hope of life in Jesus may have begun with this question from the Sadducees on the Resurrection, but God has more to tell us. We must wonder about other details. Firstly, how we will look like in our new spiritual bodies?

Will we look the age of a young man, or woman, or a baby, or the old shriveled form we are when we pass from this world? And what about those blown to bits in war, or died in a holocaust? So, what can we know?

We can be sure the disciples asked also. This is obvious in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians on this question. He was caught up to Paradise once, as he wrote in 2 Corinthians 12.

But someone may ask, “How are the dead raised?

With what kind of body will they come?”

1 Corinthians 15:35

We see that the question is not new, but had been asked from the time of early church fathers.

At the resurrection, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Our new body will be sinless in Jesus and therefore perfect. If it were sinful, the judgment in death for sin will make the new body die. So we must have a sinless body.

So, with a new perfect body also, we will be ‘looking’ at each other not as male or female, the lame or limbless, deaf or dumb, blind or crippled, young or old, shriveled or perishable, mortal or diseased. It is a spiritual body.

We will be changed is a joyful promise to all of us. But the thought brings some difficulties. The redeemed will be like the angels in heaven. And this poses the question — how do angels in heaven look like? Can we recognize one another when we have angelic spiritual bodies?

DO WE RECOGNIZE ANYONE AT RESURRECTION?

So recognizing each one is an important factor for the new ‘us’, and that is not to forget those we never met, our ‘brothers and sisters in the Lord’. We will have to include Paul, Peter, James and John and all in the Bible as well.

Then there are further questions: “How shall we ‘see’? With what kind of ‘eyes’ do we see? Do we recognize the ‘voice’ or personal ‘characteristics’? How shall we know? Then, how shall we hear? What voices do we hear? We also wonder about those without a voice, or those who cannot hear on earth. Then there are characteristics that we best will like to forget, even if these stick with us! I think we will be less than perfect, if these are how we recognize one another. What will the form be that is perfect and yet ‘me’?

Many questions and many puzzles to solve! For the present, we want to know if we can recognize our loved ones first.

THE TRANSFIGURATION OF JESUS

Here, God reserves for us an answer which is revealed in the Transfiguration of our Lord. The Transfiguration has an important purpose to show that another body form awaits us.

Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters — one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” Matthew 17:1ff

If we are to accept the Transfiguration as true, we cannot escape the question of how Peter, James and John recognized Moses and Elijah at the meeting. Moses and Elijah had long gone and there were no photographs for the disciples to decide how they look like before. How did the disciples recognize them?

Also, in the Transfiguration, we do not know how Moses and Elijah looked, old or young, and so forth. We also know Elijah was caught up to heaven instead of dying on earth, and God buried Moses but no one knows where he was buried!

Thus we understand that Moses and Elijah were at the Transfiguration, their bodies cannot be the same as their dead or buried bodies. All that we know from the account is that they were recognized.

This is the assurance we have in the encounter that Peter, James and John had — we will recognize one another when we are changed!

Then also, our Lord’s face shone and even the clothes became white as the light. This has a glory that did not burn like the heat of the sun. Otherwise, one can expect clothes to catch fire and the body as well.

Why is this glory possible to ‘see’ with eyes that are created to detect normal light? With what ‘sight’ did Peter, James and John ‘see’ the glory of the Lord in the Transfiguration?

Indeed, Paul writes also, “The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies…” Romans 8:18

We have traversed far from the thoughts initially on a marriage issue as put forth by the Sadducees. But in looking at the issue, we ‘see’ that in the world to come, we do not assess in the context of earthly tangibles. That is, how we recognize each other is in the recognition of the power of God Himself, when He calls us.

In the world to come, John writes: “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.” I John 3:2

Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (1 Corinthians 13:12)

NB: Scripture passages quoted with italics are from NIV.

NOTE: Mr Yeo Teck Thiam is a retireer who used to work as a chemical engineer, specializing in food and perfume chemistry for an international food company and perfumer. His other main interest is astronomy and other mathematical matters, relating to the Biblical passages.