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We'll all experience a resurrection

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Editor,

A short time ago, I participated, by sharing my condolences, in a memorial service for a Polson High School acquaintance from the 1940s; his grieving widow was a classmate of mine. This thought crossed my mind and perhaps has crossed the minds of others attending memorial services: will I see him again at the resurrection? 

That led to a mental review of what I have read over the years since high school about a final resurrection and the eternal destiny of humankind. I was reminded of an historical and Biblical event where Jesus told a dead man’s sister, “Your brother will rise again.” Her response was, “Yes, he will rise when everyone else rises at the last day.”  Jesus told her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying” (John’s Gospel, chapter 11). 

I’ve known the Easter (resurrection) story since I was a child; I’ve always believed that those first Christians found an empty tomb; the writer of the Corinthian letters states, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised either. And if Christ has not been raised, then all our preaching is useless, and your faith is useless. ... But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died. ... then all who belong to Christ will be raised when He comes back again” (First Corinthians, selected from chapter 15). 

Those early preachers all paid dearly with their lives for preaching that Jesus Christ is God; that He died and was resurrected to save us all from the consequences of our sin. One of those preachers was exiled to a prison island where he received the Revelation which appears as the last book in our Bible; there John writes in Chapter 20 of two resurrections, one taking place before the thousand-year reign of Christ, and one following the thousand years; the chapter indicates that those in the first resurrection were "blessed and holy," while those in the second resurrection "found no place to hide" (Revelation 6:15-17); the books were opened, including the Book of Life. And the dead "were judged according to what they had done, as recorded in the books.” (20:12b)

It’s pretty clear throughout scripture that our relationship to Jesus determines in which resurrection we will participate. We can all be sure of this: everyone will experience a resurrection after death.

(Bible quotations were taken from the New Living Translation.)

Harvey A. Town
Polson

 

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