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The Supreme
Being is real. He is a Person. He is eternal.
He has always existed. There was never a time
when He did not exist; and there will never be
a time when He will not exist. He is immortal
and cannot die.
The Living
God created human beings for a purpose - so that
we could be His friends. He wants to befriend
us, and enjoy us, and be with us; and He wants
us to enjoy Him and be with Him. Since He is eternal,
He wants His friends to be eternal. But
man’s sin and its consequence - death - interfered
with that purpose. From the moment that Adam and
Eve (who were very real people) rebelled against
our wonderful Creator, everything changed. Their
disobedience affected every aspect of their nature.
Their bodies, their souls, their wills, their
minds, their spirits, their love for God and their
relationship to and connection with God, all became
corrupted. Their ability to live forever was ruined.
Instead of drawing nearer to God, Adam and Eve
ran away from Him. They were alienated from the
One who is the Source of life and blessing.
As a result
of their alienation from the Lord, Adam and Eve
were exiled from the wonderful Garden of Eden
and forbidden to eat from the Tree of Life. They
were not headed to Heaven (which is a very real
place) and to eternal life. They - and all of
their descendants - were headed toward death:
the First Death, physical death, followed by the
Second Death, Gehenna, Hell, which is the Lake
of Fire (which is also a very real place).
But the
merciful and gracious Creator made it possible
to overcome sin and death, and be restored to
life and reconnected to Him, so that we could
live eternally with Him. Immediately after the
Fall, the Lord gave us hope. In the Garden of
Eden, He told us that a Redeemer was coming. He
would be the Seed of the woman - a very special
human being who would get us out of the terrible
situation we placed ourselves in. He would make
it possible to be reconciled to God, experience
atonement, be forgiven from all of our sins, and
be able to live forever with Him! The Creator
promised us that redemption would be possible.
Eternity In Their Hearts
He
also placed within human beings the knowledge
of eternity. This is expressed in Ecclesiastes
3:11: Et ha-olam natan b’lee-bahm. He has set
eternity in their hearts. Even though we live
within time, and are mortal and limited by death,
we have an intuitive knowledge about eternity
and an innate desire to live forever. Death somehow
doesn’t seem right. We want to overcome death
and live forever.
A Sure
Hope of Eternal Life
The
eternal God placed this knowledge and desire to
live forever at the core of our being. He also
wanted us to be certain that it was possible for
us to be raised from the dead and have everlasting
life. He didn’t want a situation to
develop like it is today, when so many don’t believe
in the resurrection, Heaven, Hell or eternal life.
Human beings can despair if they don’t believe
that they can live forever. They can much more
easily make the wrong moral choices if they don't
believe that resurrection, judgment and eternal
life are realities. And so, throughout the
completely accurate and reliable and true Word
of the Living God, we are repeatedly given the
hope that we can live forever. The idea of
eternal life is found in concepts such as:
Heaven,
which is mentioned repeatedly in the Torah as
a real place. It is the eternal dwelling place
of God and other heavenly inhabitants. The hope
is given that human beings who know and love the
Lord can be taken to be with the Lord, like Enoch,
who walked with God, and then he was no longer
here on Earth, because the Lord took him to be
with Him where He is in His dwelling place; and
Eliyahu the prophet, whom the Lord took in a chariot
of fire so that this great man could be with Him
where He is.
The Tree
of Lifeis described as a real thing
(Genesis 3:22). If a human being ate from the
Tree of Life, he would be able to live forever.
The concept
of going to one’s fathers and being gathered
to one’s people. The Lord promised
Abraham: As for you, you shall go to your fathers
in peace; you will be buried at a good old age.
... Abraham breathed his last and died in a ripe
old age, an old man and satisfied with life; and
he was gathered to his people (Genesis 15:15,
25:8). Abraham was not actually buried near his
father and grandfathers. He was buried in Canaan,
and they were buried hundreds of miles away, outside
of Canaan. Abraham went to his fathers not because
he was buried near them, but because he and they
were still alive, awaiting the resurrection. This
is an indication of life after death.
Yeshua
used a passage from Exodus 3 to prove the resurrection.
Messiah said: Regarding the resurrection of
the dead, have you not read what was spoken to
you by God: "I am the God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"?
He is not the God of the dead but of the living
(Matthew 22:31-32). If God is still the God of
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - even when addressing
Moses hundreds of years after they lived - and
He refers to them in the present and not in the
past tense (“I was the God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob”), then they must still be alive!
The God of Israel is an eternal God and He has
an eternal covenant with His people. God promised
Abraham, Isaac and Jacob things that were never
fulfilled in their earthly lives. God will raise
the dead because He cannot fail to keep His promises
to them, especially His promise that He will be
their God. If He is to be their God, and He is
eternal, then they must be resurrected and live
forever!
The New
Heavens and New Earth. The Lord promised:
I create new Heavens and a new Earth; and the
former things shall not be remembered (all
the sadness and pain) or come to mind. But
be glad and rejoice forever in what I create
(Isaiah 65:17). Those who know the Lord and are
in a right relationship with Him can expect to
be happy in a new and eternal universe that the
Lord will create.
Eternal
Life Is Explicitly Stated:
In
Job:
Job is one of the earliest books of the Bible.
Even in the time of Job, belief in the resurrection
and eternal life was common knowledge among those
who knew the Lord. This great and righteous man
declared: I know that my Redeemer lives, and
at the last He will take his stand on the Earth.
Even after my skin is destroyed, yet from my flesh
I shall see God (Job 19:25-26). Job understood
that after he died and his body decayed, he would
be raised from the dead and, with a new body,
see his Creator and Redeemer.
By King David: He declared to the Lord:
You will not abandon me to Sheol, nor will
you let your Holy One see decay. In Your presence
is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are
pleasures forever (Psalm 16). David knew that
after he died, the Lord would take his soul out
of Sheol - the holding place of the dead - and
that he would live forever with complete and unending
happiness in the presence of God. This is also
a prophecy of the resurrection of the Messiah,
David’s Son, and God’s Holy One, the first and
only one, so far, who has been raised from the
dead.
By
Isaiah: Your
dead will live; their corpses will rise. You who
lie in the dust, awake and shout for joy (Isaiah
26:19)! Human beings who knew and were faithful
to the God of Israel will be raised from the dead,
given new bodies and experience eternal happiness!
Isaiah also predicts the death and the resurrection
of one very special human being - the Messiah
- a specially empowered human being whom God will
send us who will help overcome our greatest problems
- sin and death: He was assigned a grave with
the wicked, and with the rich in his death
(Messiah died) ... He will see his offspring
and prolong his days (but He is alive!).
He was cut off from the land of the living
(Messiah died). After the suffering of his
soul, He will see the light of life and be satisfied
(but now He is alive!). He poured out his life
unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors
(Messiah died). Therefore I will give Him a
portion among the great, and He will divide the
spoils with the strong (but He is alive!).
God’s Suffering Servant will die, and come
back to life, and enable many other human beings
to experience forgiveness and gain eternal life.
In Daniel: An angel told Daniel: Many
of those who sleep in the dust of the ground shall
awake, these (the righteous who know and serve
God) to chah-yay-olam - everlasting life, but
the others to everlasting contempt (Daniel
12:2). In the last days there will be a resurrection
of the righteous and the wicked, with eternal
consequences for each. It is clear that those
human beings who are faithful to the Lord will
enjoy everlasting life.
Summarizing
the teachings of the Torah and the Tenach on this
matter of life and death and resurrection:
Human beings have rebelled against God, who is
the source of life. Death is the consequence.
But, the souls of the righteous will be redeemed
out of Sheol. They will be resurrected and given
new bodies. They will enjoy eternal life. It is
the Messiah, the Redeemer, God’s Holy Suffering
Servant, who would make final atonement possible,
and eternal life, by dying and coming back to
life. Our duty is to believe in Him and welcome
Him when He appears.
What the Lord promised in the Older Books, He fulfilled
in the Newer Books
The
Redeemer who was first promised to us in the Garden
of Eden came among us. The eternal Son of God
left Heaven and became a man - a perfect, sinless,
holy and righteous, and God-honoring human being.
The Son of God understood His reason for coming
from Heaven. He repeatedly told the Jewish people
His purpose for coming among us was to die a death
that would enable us to be reconciled to God,
so that we could be raised from the dead and live
forever.
During
Passover at the Temple, He told a group of Jewish
leaders: Destroy this Temple (referring
to His body as a dwelling place of the Spirit
of God) and in three days I will raise it up.
He predicted that the majority of Israel’s leaders
would not recognize Him. They would kill Him,
but He would come back to life!
Yeshua
predicted to one of Israel’s leading rabbis how
He would die - by being lifted up on a cross;
and He told Nicodemus the purpose of His death
- eternal life. As Moses lifted up the serpent
in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man
be lifted up; so that whoever believes will in
Him have eternal life. For God so loved the world,
that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal
life. All who know Him and believe Him and
loyally follow Him will be saved from death and
will live forever.
He told
a group of Jewish leaders in Jerusalem who opposed
Him: Just as the Father raises the dead and
gives them life, even so the Son gives life to
whom He is pleased to give it ... Whoever hears
My word and believes Him who sent Me has eternal
life and will not be condemned; he has crossed
over from death to life (Do you hear Yeshua’s
words and believe that He is the Messiah that
God sent?). I tell you the truth, a time is
coming and has now come when the dead will hear
the voice of the Son of God and those who hear
will live ... A time is coming when all who are
in their graves will hear His voice and come out
- those who have done good will rise to live,
and those who have done evil will rise to be condemned.
During
Passover, He declared to a huge crowd in the Galilee:
My Father's will is that everyone who looks to
the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal
life, and I will raise him up at the last day
... I tell you the truth, he who believes has
everlasting life. To gain eternal life we
need resurrection. For resurrection we need faith
in God the Father and Messiah the Son. Are
you looking at Yeshua, and do you know that He
is Messiah and Lord and Savior? Do you believe
in Him, and trust Him, and are you confident in
Him?
The One
who always tells the truth continued: I am
the living bread that came down from Heaven. If
anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever
... Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood
(not literally, but spiritually getting closer
to Him by knowing Him and believing in Him and
following Him) has eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day. During Chanukah
at the Temple in Jerusalem, the Faithful Witness
stated to a group of Jewish leaders: I give
them (those who know and follow Me) eternal
life, and they shall never perish. Yeshua,
who cannot lie, said to a wonderful Jewish woman
named Martha: I am the resurrection and the
life; he who believes in Me will live even if
he dies - those who place their trust in Me
and follow Me, even if they do die, will be resurrected
from death and will live again in the World-To-Come.
And everyone who lives and believes in Me will
never die. Every human being - Jew or Gentile,
man or woman - who comes to understand that Yeshua
is the Messiah, and the Son of God, and the only
Savior that God has sent to rescue mankind, will
not experience death - the Second Death - Gehenna,
Hell, the Lake of Fire. He asked Martha, do
you believe this? Then He raised her brother
Lazarus from the dead and demonstrated the truthfulness
of His claims. Martha believed the words of
the Lord. Do you?
Shortly
before His death, as Yeshua was going up to
Jerusalem, He took the twelve disciples aside
and said to them, "We are going up to Jerusalem,
and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief
priests and the teachers of the Torah. They will
condemn Him to death and will turn Him over to
the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.
On the third day He will be raised to life".
Jews and Gentiles were involved in His death.
Jews and Gentiles benefit by His resurrection!
Then,
after fulfilling all that His Father required
Him to do, He died on Passover, not because He
was subject to death, but so that He could be
our Korban, our Sacrifice, our Substitute, our
Sin-Bearer, our Kinsman Redeemer! And, because
He never sinned, death couldn’t hold Him. He rose
from the dead and came back to life!
The Resurrected One appeared to many, confirming
to many reliable witnesses that He had indeed
risen from the dead. He appeared to Mary Magdalene
(John 20:11-18), and to the other women (Matthew
28:8-10). He revealed Himself to Simon Peter (Luke
24:34), and to the two on the road to Emmaus (Luke
24:13-35). He showed Himself to the Ten (Luke
24:36-43), and then to the Eleven eight days later
(John 20:24-29). He appeared to seven of the apostles
by the Lake of the Galilee (John 21:1-23), and
also to 500 at one time (1 Corinthians 15:6).
He showed Himself to His brother James, who became
the leader of the great community in Jerusalem
(1 Corinthians 15:7), and finally He revealed
Himself to Saul of Tarsus, who became one of the
very greatest missionaries and evangelists of
all time (Acts 9:1-16).
The Implications of the Resurrection
Yeshua's
resurrection is God's seal of approval on everything
that Yeshua did and taught. Every teaching He
gave and every promise He made is true and accurate,
reliable and trustworthy, and divinely inspired.
Yeshua’s resurrection declares that He is Lord
and Messiah and Savior and Redeemer
.
If a human
being wants to live forever, it is essential to
believe that Yeshua is fully man, and fully God,
and that He rose from the dead. We are told by
Rabbi Paul that if you confess with your mouth
that Yeshua is Lord, and believe in your heart
that God raised Him from the dead, you will be
saved, you will be raised from the dead and live
forever. Do you believe? And do you confess
this belief to others?
When the
resurrected Yeshua appeared to doubting Thomas,
Yeshua said to Thomas, reach here your finger,
and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and
put it into My side; and be not unbelieving but
believing. Thomas answered and said to Yeshua,
My Lord and my God. Yeshua said to him, because
you have seen me you have believed? Blessed are
they who did not see and yet believed. Thomas
finally believed that the resurrected Messiah
was Lord and God. According to tradition, he went
on to confess Him all the way to India. Even though
you may not have seen Him, do you believe? Do
you confess? If so, you are greatly blessed!
Are you
sure that your name has been written in the Lamb’s
Book of Life - the book of the Messiah who was
sacrificed? Do you know that you will make it
to the New Jerusalem, and you will enjoy the Tree
of Life, which is on either side of the River
of the Water of Life, which flows from the throne
of God the Father and Messiah the Lamb?
Not only
does Yeshua’s resurrection give us a sure hope
of being resurrected and living forever, but it
also gives us resurrection power now to live a
better life, resurrection power to overcome our
old nature, resurrection power to serve God the
way we should, and resurrection power to witness
the way we should.
If
the possibility of living forever - eternal life
in a perfect world with your Creator and perfected
human beings and other glorious beings like the
majestic angels - doesn’t interest you, ignore
this message. Don’t think further about it. Busy
yourself with other things. Just don’t complain
on the Day of Judgment!
But
if you would like to live forever - seek, read,
study, pray, and you will find the truth. The
answers are there. Then, be willing to serve the
Lord wholeheartedly; and be willing to sacrifice
everything in this life to gain life in the World-To-Come;
and make it a priority to confess this Great News
about eternal life through Israel’s resurrected
Messiah to a dying world of human beings
!
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