Author: Rev. Lek Aik Wee

And it is the law of God that helps us to know the will of God so that we may see by the standard of the law that we are miserable sinners. It shows our weakness and failure to obtain righteousness with God by the keeping of the law. We fail miserably. And because of our sins that death falls upon us. And the law shows our inability to find righteousness with God but to seek it through Jesus Christ, as revealed in the gospel. Thank God the sting of sin is overcome by Jesus Christ. Indeed, the just shall live by faith in Jesus Christ’s finished work of redemption. Amen.

Death is a great nullifier. All that the man has, he leaves behind. Naked he came and naked he went. A sobering truth that jolts one to think of the meaning of life and its purpose. Such a question is posed by the preaching of the gospel to the miserable man, confronted with the prospect of death so that he may understand there is a solution that God has devised for his salvation. And the truth of the resurrection of Jesus Christ three days after he died, provides that solution and signals that victory. Death is no longer a sting to the believer in Jesus Christ. Jesus will bring about the resurrection, remake of a glorious, incorruptible body for the soul that dies in Christ. This is the hope that is put forth for our encouragement.

And Lord, haste the day when the faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.

What an elusive word “immortality”! An impossibility. How could mortal man put on immortality? Death is still an impossible impasse today. The best scientists together could not prolong life beyond the limit of 120 years old given in Genesis 6:3 And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

The time when the church of Jesus Christ shall be taken to heaven (born-again believers both dead (asleep) and the alive) will be preceded by a trumpet sound. The Apostle Paul called it “the last trump”.

The Bible predicts in the coming future, a coming instant where born-again believers in the Lord Jesus Christ shall put on a glorious and incorruptible body that is fit for heaven and shall be ushered to meet our Lord in the heavens. Theologians call this the rapture of the church where the believers are caught up to heaven. Just as Enoch in the book of Genesis was taken to heaven bodily.

There is a time of change that will take place for all who sleeps in the Lord. And the Apostle Paul is signalling to the saints to “behold”. He urges them to see the mystery of God’s resurrection power unveiled to reverse the sting of death upon all who have died in Christ.

This earthly body is not fitted for dwelling in heaven. This is the meaning of the statement “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” We shall be given a heavenly body fitted for our heavenly home when Jesus returns. This is the believer’s blessed hope.