Reflecting on Luke 20:27-40“They can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.” (Luke 20:36)
For the Sadducees, death was the ultimate reality.
Faith in God only mattered for this life, because death was final.
Jesus challenges their “this age” thinking about God and life.
God is the God of life and the living, and not limited by death.
And we were created by God for life, as God’s image-bearers.
Jesus is not saying that we will become angels.
But like the angels, and all creation, we, were made by the God of the living.
We were designed a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8).
But we were made to rule (Genesis 1), the angels to serve us (Hebrews 1:14).
The God of life made us to live, not to die.
Death is the consequence of rejecting God and the life He designed us for.
I believe some will die forever, because they will refuse life with God.
God graciously invites us, like Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to live with Him.
This life with God will be nothing like life as we know it here and now.
Though I can’t conceive of how it works, my heart yearns for God’s kind of life!
PRAYER
Lord Jesus, I believe in the resurrection not because I can prove it, but because deep within my soul I long for life... we all do! Help us to see beyond the death and dying we experience here, toward the ultimate goal of life with You forever!
Mankind was and still created to serve and honour our Father. Sin corrupted our doings but through Jesus Christ we are restored in relation with the Father. As Christ promised the thief on the cross that he would be with Jesus, we do not know how that life will be, except perfect, without sin. How that will be, our relationship to one another, praising God – we will truly know once we arrive. In the meantime, I continue to live for Him standing on the promises of God.