Blog Details

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18

13But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 15For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. 18Therefore encourage one another with these words.

By faith we are “dead IN Christ” or we are “dead WITHOUT Christ”.  There are these two eternities. All humanity will experience eternal life or eternal anguish in the spiritual world. The flesh will burn and disappear, but our spirits never die. Some are already experiencing a version of death in THIS life. Our physical bodies die a little each day, but the spirit remains alive even beyond this physical threshhold. This life is simply a prelude or taste of that life which is to come. If we did not know this, there would be little to be gained by faith and trust in Jesus.

Being “dead in Christ” is always a temporary thing. Death is only temporary until He raises us from the dead on that day. Those who are IN Christ, whether alive or physically dead, are in waiting for His glorious reappearing. While there is confusion theologically about what happens to us at death, I don’t see evidence that we are immediately in heaven or WITH Christ at death. I do believe that for the believer to be absent from the body is to be with the Lord…BUT it seems clear to me we are with Him “asleep” and under His care until the “day of His appearing”.

Its a nice fantasy to believe we are in heaven in a “mansion” at the moment of death, but I just don’t think that is proper exegesis. Neither do I believe the “saints” or dead friends or family members are “looking down” upon us as we continue our struggles in this life. If so, why would there need to be a resurrection of the dead when Jesus returns to this earth? I believe 1 Thessalonians is clear that the “dead in Christ” will rise at the point of His second coming. It is at that point clearly that believers who are alive at that time will follow the dead to meet Him in the air and forever be with Jesus. It is not complicated and I am not seeing anywhere clearly where Christians are raptured before the second coming OR the tribulation. Nice idea, but I wouldn’t count on it. I think Christians will suffer for the faith during the final tribulation as many already are. This is clear to me and I don’t want any false hopes. Maybe we are already in the tribulation. Did you miss the rapture?  I don’t think so. No man knows the day or hour of His appearing. As they say, hope for the best but plan for the worst. I don’t want to place my hopes falsely, and I don’t need to be delivered from the tribulation. He is my deliverer even in suffering or death. When He comes with the rapture, I’m pretty sure “every eye will see Him”.  We will all be very ALIVE in Christ at that moment.

Romans 6:11: “In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

When we are spiritually regenerated by faith in Christ, we have repented of our sins and we ARE born again into the “newness of life” IN Him. We determine to change our sinful ways and with the power of His Holy Spirit who has called us we ARE able to change our ways in life. As Paul the Apostle describes it, we become “dead to sin”. Sin no longer rules our bodies or our spirits. We begin growing and walking in our new faith in Christ alone.

Being dead to sin is often temporary. As much as we strive, we are never perfected in THIS world. Some days I am dead to sin and walking in His spirit. Other days seem full of temptations or failures when we feel drug down by our fleshly natures and emotions. This is the body of death experience that all of us experience. The evil one always comes to convict us of our sins and steal the joy of our salvation. As God gives us faith we have the option of overcoming our nature with HIS nature which transforms us from death to life. For now temporarily but one day eternally. At this time it is almost a moment by moment decision on our part which nature to pursue. Some get lost and need to be restored in faith from time to time. While not preferable, it is understandable that we will fall at times. We are like newborn babies learning to walk. We keep trying until we CAN.

When we are spiritually reborn as Christians, we begin the process of “dying to self” and “living for Christ”. It begins the dichotomy of the old man and the new man. When we confess our faith in the redemption for our sins offered by the death and resurrection of Jesus, we begin the process of denying our sinful natures and living for the new nature that begins springing up within us. While our redemption is immediate and eternal, the process of living IN Christ is a lifelong pursuit of discipleship and holiness. We cannot be “holy” in and of ourselves. Our works will never save us…only the blood of Christ can which covers us for all our past, present, and future sins. Being dead to sin is a lifelong process and we should never give up fighting against the “sin that so easily besets us” (Hebrews 12:1).

At the same time, we are not talking about sin from a legalistic standpoint. It is not our job to go around measuring people’s behaviors against the law of death that came from the fall of man as we all have rebelled against the holiness of God. Some things are sins for all, other issues are personal sins of knowing we should be or act in certain ways that we aren’t. “Sin is knowing to do right but not doing it” (James 4:17).  It’s not about a text or list of rules. It is a truly personal thing and God does not measure us all under one code of conduct. He requires more from those He has given the most. That means He doesn’t require the same level of obedience or holiness from everyone equally. None of us are righteous or holy…”no not one”. The walk of faith is a personal one, exercised within the corporate body of “The Church”. This basically means we ALL are sinners, but some more than others, yet it is only by grace and inputed righteousness that we are saved. We have no chance in the flesh to measure up. Thus you could say being “dead to sin” is a constant process of confession and striving for a perfection we will never have of ourselves, but only IN Christ and HIS righteousness.

So being dead in Christ has more than one meaning or application in the Bible. Because of Christ, we are dead to sin and will not be judged based on them. We will be judged simply for NOT accepting the redemption offered by God that continues to pay the price for all sin…IF we choose to accept that free gift of forgiveness, mercy, and grace. We must come alive “under grace” and then begin to experience the voice of God through His Holy Spirit as we begin the battle of our two natures…the flesh and the spirit. We cannot bring ourselves back from the dead physically, and we cannot be reborn spiritually without God’s call and election. This is one of the great mysteries of redemption that human reasoning can rarely understand and is only discerned spiritually by faith…faith that comes from God, not within ourselves.

Basically, we are dead men walking in the spirit of new life…and we will not know or experience the fullness of that new life until He comes the second time and will forever deliver us from our “bodies of death”.  The flesh will no longer affect or rule us as it limits us now. When we are with Him at His coming, we will immediately “know as we are known”. That means we, like Him, will be resurrected into new bodies and minds that are not corrupted by sinful natures or the old man. Oh how we look forward to that day when we will see more clearly. But until then, our hearts will go on singing. Until then our struggles will remain until he “takes us home”.  This is our main hope in THIS life that carries us forward to the life we are destined for. The future tense is much more important than the present.

10But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:10-11)