By D.L. Moody:
Someday you will read in the papers that D. L. Moody of East Northfield is dead. Dont you believe a word of it! At that moment I shall be more alive than I am now; I shall have gone up higher, that is all, out of this old clay tenement into a house that is immortal a body that death cannot touch, that sin cannot taint; a body fashioned like unto His glorious body.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
I think sometimes when folk are writing and speaking they are not careful to be biblically pedantic in their speech and it creates a lot of unnecessary confusion. We find this in modern Christian music a lot and in sermons. It's the whole Humpty Dumpty thing.Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God; because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ: whom he raised not up, if so be that the dead rise not. For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised: And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.[u] If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.[/u] But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. (I Cor. 15;12-26)To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord for believers. Death in scripture means [i]separation[i]. At physical death your soul and spirit separates from your body. This is death. Your body goes into ground like a seed planted. It is sown in corruption and it is raised in uncorruption. There will come a day when the Lord will call the dead from their graves some to the resurrection of life and others to the resurrection of damnation. The soul leaves the body at death to be either with the Lord or in hell. Several pictures of this in scripture. The reuniting of the soul with the body seems to be just prior to our standing before God in judgment. Our bodies for the believers will be raised as spiritual bodies; a body, but a body that is free from the corruption or curse of the fall. This is not a spirit body- it is a physical body as Christ had when He ascended into heaven. Jesus told Thomas that a spirit does not have flesh and blood like He was asked to handle. This does not preclude the fact that our souls are said to take on physical characteristics. The rich man in hell "lifted up his eyes" and also spoke of needing water for his tongue. These things may be metaphors- but I think it is worth considering that even while absent from the body we are said to have characteristics similar to our physical bodies.
_________________Robert Wurtz II