Glorification / Resurrection of the Body
“And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt” (Dan. 12:2). As with many quotations from the later half of the book of Daniel, this verse sounds like it could have been taken straight from the book of Revelation instead. What great resurrection hope this must have provided Old Testament believers! [...]
“Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. / You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! / For your dew is a dew of light, / and the earth will give birth to the dead” (Isa. 26:19). This series seeks to demonstrate that Old Testament saints (like those in the New Testament) showed a conscious hope of resurrection—a hope that they received from the pages of Scripture. [...]
“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15:19). New Testament believers are blessed with the hope of resurrection, but what of Old Testament saints? Were such blessings theirs? Did they have a conscious hope for the next life as well? According to the New Testament, the answer is yes. [...]
Although all of God’s revelation sparkles with truth, goodness, and beauty, I often find that certain doctrines give off a peculiar flash. From the beginning, Christians have wondered at the doctrine of glorification from the vantage point of our participation in the Truth and Goodness of Christ. We hear a lot today about “my truth […]
In all my theological study, I’ve never come across a better summary of the paradox of fallen human nature than Francis Schaeffer’s phrase “glorious ruin”: We are glorious because we were created by God for the noble purpose of being His image bearers; yet we are ruins because sin has marred the divine image we […]
Beautiful. We hear the word so frequently that we give it little thought, applying it to everything from a Rembrandt masterpiece to a child’s first scribbles. Yet beauty is so profound that, alongside goodness and truth, it is widely regarded as one of the great transcendentals, and an entire branch of philosophy—aesthetics—is devoted to its […]
Growing up in evangelical circles, I often witnessed the odd Christian ritual of sharing your life verse. The life verse was some particular passage from Scripture that people grasped onto as a special word from the Lord for them. It would sometimes, then, help shape their lives as they sought to live according to its command […]
In 1998, 49 percent of eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-old Americans considered themselves moderate or very religious. By 2014, that number dropped 10 percent. “Yet 80 percent of Americans said they believe in an afterlife in 2014, up from 73 percent in 1972–74,” according to a new study led by Dr. Jean Twenge, which indicates an apparent […]
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Alleluia!” This cry will rise from many churches this Easter season as we rejoice in the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. On the third day, the grave in which they laid his body was empty. His body had not been stolen’the posting of Roman soldiers and […]
The resurrection of Jesus Christ is inarguably the cornerstone of the entire Christian faith. And I think for a lot of non-Christians in the West that’s pretty clear because we (rightfully) make a big deal out of the resurrection. We love to tell the story of the empty tomb every chance we get, even though […]
