Lakewood Bible Study | Erik Luchetta and Jeremy Marrone

((music playing)) Hey man, good to be with you again. Good to be here. Yeah. So, hey, uh tonight I know that we're going to talk about um resurrection and what resurrection means. And so, I'm just going to ask you straight out. What does resurrection mean in the scriptures? That's a good question.

A very important question to understand what the word resurrection means. Let's look at Jesus. Uh he was raised from the dead. He was resurrected. And when we say the word resurrection, we tend to think that it simply means coming back to life again. In other words, somebody died and now they're no longer dead.

Well, of course, that's true. Resurrection involves coming back to life again. But it involves much more than that. In fact, resurrection is more than coming back to life. It's coming back to life in a new state or condition. And that state or condition is that death can no longer have an effect on the physical body of the one who was raised.

So when Jesus was resurrected and he was brought back to life, he was brought back to life in a condition where death could no longer touch him. He was no longer capable of dying physically. This is what the book of Romans talks about, how death can no longer touch him.

So when we talk about resurrection, it's more than coming back to life again. It's coming back to life in a new state, a new condition where the power of death has no hold on that physical body anymore. They have now an immortal body which is very different than for example when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, right?

We say he was raised from the dead. He was resurrected. Well, in a sense he was resurrected. He came back to life again. But Lazarus isn't walking the walking on the ground right now here in the earth. We can't speak to him. What? He died again. Right? So although he came back to life, his resurrection was not like Jesus's resurrection.

His Jesus's resurrection was in a state where he has his body back. He'll have it forever. Death can no longer touch him. Well, and you see all through the scriptures, you have people who are brought back from death. You have people in the Old Testament. You have a 12-year-old girl in the Gospels.

Yes. Um, you have a man who is Paul is preaching and he's on the third floor of a of a house and he falls out the window and dies and he's, you know, he's comes back to life. Paul preached him to death. Paul preached [laughter] him to death. Um, but but those are different from the textbook definition of resurrection.

And you're saying that resurrection is more than just coming back to life. It is coming back in a way that you will never die again. Yes. Death is has been voided in Jesus's case. And that does that does that imply that for us when we are resurrected, right?

We will be part of the resurrection, the future resurrection. Yeah. That death will never touch us again after that. Yeah. That's the whole point of Jesus's resurrection because you know, of course, we know that Jesus died for our sins. We're absolutely certain of that. But why was he raised bodily?

And and if you think about it, that's the hope. That's the Easter message. That's the gospel that he's risen. Right? We don't just simply say in our in our message, Jesus died or died for our sins. We say and he rose again. Yes. And the point of that in the gospels and in the New Testament is that because he achieved the resurrection, the release from death, the victory over death, that means one day we will be raised bodily as well and placed into the new heavens and the new earth.

That's right. This is central but sometimes missed amongst us Bible readers and and believers is that in the final analysis the book of revelation ends with the great shout of victory that God lives with us here in the earth. Heaven and earth come together. They're like married and we are resurrected bodily in place back here in the earth.

And I think here's what's central with the resurrection is that it truly is physical. It's not just spiritual. If we're not careful, we'll think, well, okay, Jesus was raised and we'll sometimes forget. No, it's an actual physical bodily resurrection. Right? Here's the point that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John want to make.

The same body of Jesus that hung on the cross was the same body that was raised. Yes. The same body that was placed in the tomb was the same body that came out of the tomb. It was a physical body, every bit as physical as when he walked the earth before he died.

Not a spiritual body. It's a physical body. And Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John drive this point home so much. It's a physical body. He physically came out of the tomb. Just to share this verse, Luke 24:39, after Jesus is raised, the disciples see him. They are astonished. And what does he say in verse 39 of Luke 24?

Look at my hands and feet. It is I myself. Touch me and see. A ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see I have. He was physically raised from the dead. Therefore, it's the same body that was in the tomb. The same body that was on the cross.

In fact, we can be so certain. It's the same body that Jesus had before he died. He told Thomas, "Touch my side. Look at the wound here. Look, look at my hands. Look at the where the marks are. It's the same body, but now it's in a condition where death can no longer touch it."

Yeah. And here's the interesting thing. Not only is the body Jesus's body alive in his resurrection and death can no longer touch it, his body is able to do things that it he seemingly could not do or did not do before he died. Here's what I mean. We can read in um Luke 24:30.

Watch what happens here just to show what a resurrected body looks like. Not a not a body that just came back to life. Yes. But a resurrected body in a new condition. Luke 24:30, Jesus is now uh he met with two disciples. He's having dinner with them after speaking to them on on the road to Emmas.

Verse 30, when he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. Just disappeared. Physical body gone. So, it's a physical body, but it's it seems to be limitless now.

It can do things it could not do before. You think about uh you know, it's in in different places as well where the disciples are in the upper room. The door is locked. They're afraid because Jesus was executed. The next thing they know, Jesus is standing in their midst.

Yeah. It's like what he doesn't like walk through a door that was locked. his body is able to do certain things that it was not doing before. So resurrection involves a different condition where one death is defeated and the body can't die. But it's also seems to be unlimited in some way or it can do things it could not do before.

And that's what Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John want to drive the point home. This is true resurrection. This is more than coming back to life. This is about death being defeated. Yeah. And that's what we're seeing in the other people that came to life would have died again.

Lazarus wasn't appearing and disappearing and doing all these things because he basically got his same corruptible body back again susceptible to death. Right. Is is this the language um is this the language in 1 Corinthians 15 where Paul's talking to us about um and and in 1 Thessalonians 4 where he's talking to us about resurrection and he's saying look the the mortal will be changed into the immortal.

Yeah, that's exactly it will change. Yeah. And this this resurrection language is because um eternal life is is our future. Yeah, it is the future hope. Um, in fact, Paul in I think in Titus 2 calls it the blessed hope. The resurrection is the blessed hope because there's no way to have eternal life, everlasting life without a body that doesn't corrupt.

Yeah, I I think that's a really good point there. When we say eternal life or for example the rich young ruler he comes up to Jesus and says good teacher what must I do to have eternal life to a Jewish person in that day eternal life means physical life here in the earth that's what that word meant it meant to live forever forever physically because it was never God's will for people to die that was never God's will death and [clears throat] sin and corrupt corruption and all of these things that degrade humanity and God's good world was never his intention.

And so, yes, when we're talking about resurrection, we're talking about eternal life ultimately. And um but that's a that's a really good point. Yeah. And I and I think that phrase eternal life goes beyond just duration. Yes. Yeah. Good point. It goes beyond duration. Like when we think of uh well, I can't speak for anybody else.

When I think of eternal life, for much of my uh walk with the Lord, I've thought of time. Me, too. Everlasting time, like this is a duration word, but it's not. It's actually a quality wordity word as much as a quantity. Like everlasting life, eternal life being here's how here's how long you're going to live.

Well, it's not just the duration. It's actually the quality of life that changes. The the quality of our body will be different. Yeah. Imagine no sin, no death corruption, no pain ever in a body. But it's it's every bit physical. Yeah. This is the life that God intended for humanity in the Garden of Eden.

And I don't think we could ever lose sight of it. When God placed Adam and Eve in the garden, he called it very good. Yes. Human beings in physical bodies that are freed from sin and death, living in the earth where God is present with them in the earth. the same way he walked with Adam and Eve in the garden.

This is what God calls very good. And like I always say, whatever God calls very good, he's committed to until the very end. That's right. And that's ultimately what Jesus's resurrection points towards. It achieves victory over death, but it points towards our future physical resurrection and replanting into the earth.

Yeah, that's ultimately what we're looking at. It's so funny. I was I was in my garage the other day working out. I have a row machine and I'm and I'm just I you know I I do uh I I do one minute intervals and um and 15 or 20 minutes just just to go as hard as I can on the row machine and I stood up and I'm 43 and I stood up and I felt my hip I felt this pain in my hip and I'm like oh I'm not 22 anymore.

Yeah. And uh you know it was one of those things when I was 22 I I played basketball in college when I was 22. I mean, I could play four, five, six hours a day and not blink. Mhm. But as I'm getting older, all of this like decay, corruption, I'm starting to I'm starting to feel the pains of getting older and the body not doing what it was able to do when I was 22.

But looking back, you know, after I got off the row machine, I was like, "Thank you, Lord, that we're going to have bodies that have better quality." Hey, for real. And I and I I I thought to myself, maybe I'll be able to do the row machine as much as I want, not blink.

Limitless. Yeah. Without without any pain. And I think to to me to me that's a it's a foreign concept because we live in a world with corruption and sin and death and and things [snorts] over time um are not the same. They're not the same power. They're not the same quality.

They're not the same. You know, my body is is changes. all of ours does as we get older because that's what aging does in this present age. But the age to come is the age of the spirit will be different. We we will have a physical body but it will be powered by something other than what it is powered by now.

Yeah. And so um anyways it was just funny cuz I I got off the machine and I'm like oh thank you Lord that this is going to change that the quality of life is going to is going to go up. Yeah. the the quality of my body will be incorruptible.

It'll be what God intended from the Garden of Eden. Yeah. You know, but you do bring up a really good point and you mentioned it before in 1 Corinthians 15 and I think this is where some confusion happens though when we read the Bible on the idea of resurrection or physical body and you know because it the Apostle Paul basically writes you know as of right now we have a corruptible body a body of flesh.

He says, "But it's sown in weakness. It's raised in power." And it says, it talks about a getting a spiritual body. Yeah. And when we hear spiritual body, when he says that in 1 Corinthians 15, we think he's saying non-physical body. No flesh and blood. Yeah. Like not not flesh and blood at all.

Like a non like like spirit. Yeah. That's not what that word is. Nonmaterial. Nonmaterial. Well, that's a good way of putting it. We're we're thinking non-material, spiritual body. The problem is the word body there means physical. Yes. So, what's the difference between a flesh body in present and a spiritual body in the future, resurrection?

Here's how it works. Here's the difference. Um, you and I both aren't medical doctors, but if something happened and we stopped breathing right now, we only have a matter of minutes until we would die. Correct? We don't have very long. If our heart stopped beating, we only have a couple of minutes.

If something happened and we lost all the blood in our body, all the blood in our body was taken out, we would die immediately. My point is this. Our body right now has to function properly in order to live, right? We have to have the proper organs. They have to be functioning the way they function.

And if anything goes wrong, death is a potential consequence. In other words, right now, our body is animated in large part by the proper functioning of our organs. Yes. It's made alive that way. But if you think about Jesus, he hung on the cross and the Bible's clear.

He poured out all his blood. Mhm. So when he was raised from the dead, there's no indication from scripture that God took all the blood that was poured out of Jesus and put it all back into Jesus's body. So how is Jesus alive if he has no blood in his body?

It's because animating what is animating it? What's giving his body life? And at the end of the day, it's the spirit. It's the spirit that is giving life. It doesn't need those things to live anymore. It has been released from sin and death. And now the very being, the very spirit, the very life of God is animating Jesus's body.

That will be our future resurrection as well. This is what escape from death looks like. Yeah. It looks like being made alive, being animated purely by the spirit alone instead of having the organs and everything functioning properly and perfectly as they could as they should in order to live.

So I'll ask you a question my nine-year-old asked me. She said, "Dad, will I be able to fly like Peter Pan?" And I [laughter] said, "I don't think so. I don't think so." She's talking about in the resurrection in the new heavens and new earth. Well, Adam, there's no indication Adam was flying around.

Um, so I have imagination. Yeah. But I think I think these are good questions though. You know, I I think when we you and I teach on this stuff regularly, the resurrection regularly, and we get questions all the time. Um, and I've noticed that questions from eight-year-olds are no different than questions from 80 year olds.

That's the same basic question. Well, I think and I think the the point is it like what is the continuity from this age into the next? What will it seem like? What will it feel like? What will it be like? We don't know. The Bible doesn't explicitly say necessarily what the continuation of this experience cuz it will be a real conscious experience in the age to come.

Yeah. But we don't we don't know what the continuity will give us. And and here's the thing, the Bible doesn't really tell us. It doesn't need to. It Yeah, it doesn't need to. And I don't even think our minds could fathom it. But I will say one thing.

I think if we had to look anywhere, what will our physical resurrected body be like? What when our body is released perfectly from death, what will it be like? It'll be like Jesus's body. It'll be very similar. The Apostle Paul says the same thing in Philippians. He says that we await a savior from heaven.

Talking about him returning. We await a savior from heaven that at his coming will transform our lowly bodies into his glorious body. Yes. In other words, the resurrected, glorified, freed from death body that Jesus obtained will be the same sort of resurrected body that we have. Which goes back to the point that's why he achieved the resurrection so that we could share in the resurrection with him.

M that's how it all works. Now it goes beyond what this you know our our teaching tonight can really get into this this conversation is worth a 100 hours worth of discussion. Yeah. But the main thing tonight is this Jesus defeated death therefore achieve the resurrection immortality bodily immortality.

He will he shares the life now. We will receive our resurrection at his coming. and we learn how to live in the present in light of that future reality. That's that's that's part of a bigger discussion. But the the resurrection of Jesus and our future resurrection is so central to scripture that sometimes it's amazing how how easily we miss it.

Yeah. And you said it earlier, you talked about how uh that in the Old Testament that people were holding out hope. That's the hope that they were looking forward to. That that's eternal life that they were holding out hope for. So, so talk a little bit more about how it fits into the larger story of the scriptures.

Yeah, that's a great question. How does Jesus's resurrection and our future resurrection fit into the larger story of the Bible? And it's like I said before, the hope that's held out in the Old Testament is one thing. That God would one day return to the earth in such a powerful way where he will remove sin and death.

Everything that corrupts and degrades his world, sin, death, evil, and everything that goes along with it. And the earth in a sense will become like a garden of Eden again, a new heavens and new earth. But the central piece to that event is the resurrection of the church.

At Jesus's coming, he doesn't just remove sin and death. He brings with him the very power of his own resurrection to resurrect us bodily, to plant us back in the earth. This is what the prophets talked about. You can see this in Isaiah, in Jeremiah, in different ways where you're talking about new creation, new heavens, new earth.

And when Jesus was raised from the dead, those apostles who were Jewish people who knew the hope of Israel that one day God would bring a resurrection to his people and a new heavens and new earth. This is what they realized very quickly when Jesus was raised from the dead.

Yeah. They realized the resurrection has started. New creation has begun. That's good. That's the part that has to hit us with Jesus's resurrection. The hope held out in the Old Testament is now started in the one person, Jesus, who will then share that in the future when he comes.

Yeah. The resurrection of Jesus is the launch of our future resurrection, which is why he's called the first fruits of the resurrection or the firstborn from among the dead. Yes, he went first into death and came out of it so that we can be secure in our hope of eternal resurrected life and be raised as well.

But we cannot miss that in the Old Testament. The hope that is held out that that the Jewish people for centuries were believing for and praying for is God, when are you going to make this world right? When are you going to show up and show all of creation that you are the true God?

That you're the one who loves your creation and that you will bring it to its intended goal. A life, a world, a humanity fully flourishing in every way as if heaven and earth are one. It's the life of heaven on earth is resurrection. New new earth, new heavens.

Yeah. And and this is and you can see it all the way from Adam and Eve on is that human beings, the human beings that God chose in this story failed to complete this project. And and God desired one human being to complete that project. That's that's the word really shalom where we say peace but really it's order and completeness is that that's a really big Jewish word Hebrew word but it's a really important word because shalom Jerusalem the city of shalom yeru shalom is the city of order and completedness and that's the resurrection is the vindication and the stamp to say this project this human project has a stamp put on it by the Messiah, by the savior, who would go into death and come out of death.

So now he brings an entire family with him who will believe on him, who will put their give their allegiance to him, put their faith in him. We will follow in his He's the firstborn. He's not the only one. We will follow in his resurrection. That's right. Which is interesting because you have a couple of You have a couple of stories in the Old Testament where you see this the person of Enoch.

He walked with God and then was no more. This is foreshadowing of resurrection. He escaped death. Elijah, the same thing. He escaped. He walked with God and then he was taken. It's this is a there's a lot of there are a lot of theories about what all of that means.

What is this a picture of? And plain and simple, it is a picture of resurrection, escaping death. Jesus escaped death. He came out of it, defeated it so that we could come out of it as well. Yeah. I think that's one of one of the things that's really interesting is um when we read scripture and we read it really slowly and carefully, what we really see is that God is going to undo death.

Yes. And he's going to undo death by undoing sin which caused the death. Here's [snorts] the thing. If you deal if if God dealt with sin in Jesus, he dealt with death in Jesus. Why? Because death only exists because of sin. The wages of sin is death. That's right.

The wages of sin is death. Some some people, some, you know, Bible teachers, Bible scholars call sin and death the power twins. Yeah. And one of the things we see in scripture is that many times death is spoken of as a power and the supreme power of this age.

[snorts] Death bats a thousand. It never loses. Look at it this way. Right now, there are currently about 8 billion people on this planet. It's amazing to think that in only 150 years from now, all 8 billion of us will have died and there will be a fresh batch.

My point is this, 8 billion people will die in 150 years. Death bats a thousand, right? But what if one person went into death and came out the other side, received their body back, now stood above death, death could no longer touch him. If you go into death physically and you come out physically and get your body again, you just conquered what the Bible refers to as the supreme power of this age.

In other words, if death was number one and you defeated death, you become the new number one. That's what we see in Jesus's resurrection. His victory over death is the victory over all powers, all principalities, ever, everything. If death is defeated, everything else that can come against us, can come against God's good world is defeated right along with us, right?

Right along with him. And this is what the Bible is driving home, particularly the New Testament. In Jesus's resurrection, he is supreme because he defeated the supreme power. He's now number one. And because death was defeated in him, he will share his resurrection with us, his people. And we will inherit the the meek will inherit the earth.

This will be our eternal home, but it'll be a heaven and earth reality coming together. That's right. We will live. People say, "Eric, you mean we won't live forever in heaven?" Well, yeah, we will live forever in heaven. The only question is where will heaven be? Where will heaven be?

Heaven will be on the earth. So, we will live in a heaven and earth reality. And our resurrected bodies will be fit to live in both a physical earth and a spiritual heaven simultaneously. Yeah. Which means if this is the blessed hope that everything else short of death has been solved as well, wrongs to be made right.

If this is the ultimate wrong to humanity, death is the ultimate it is the ultimate um what's the word? assault on the image of God in the human being is death. Yep. If if that has been defeated, then all other issues yep go right along with it. So, let me say it like this.

If death has been defeated, my financial situation is not a problem to God. Problem if death has been defeated, my current sickness or or um medical diagnosis is not a problem to God. That's right. If if if death has been defeated, my marital issues are not a problem to God.

Like every single all the people that Jesus healed in the Gospels, all the people that he fed with five loaves and two fish, the fish that swam up and had a coin in its mouth and they were like, "We we don't have money to pay for our taxes."

And Jesus goes, "Go fish those fish out. There's a coin in its mouth." If death is the ultimate enemy and all other things are can't touch death as far as the assault on the image of God in us as humans, then all of the things right now that are enemies of my life are not a problem to God.

And that's why we pray in the present. It's like yes, we believe that God in the age to come, God will remove sin and death. He will um he will give us new bodies and we will live an eternal not just duration but quality of life. But here's the thing.

God wants the kingdom to break in now into the present. And so we pray for the sick. We pray for lack of finances. We pray for wisdom to to to decide what is best. What is the best job for me? What is happening with my children? What is happening with my marriage?

People go, "Do you believe the Bible um tells us that we can ask God for healing?" 100%. Because if the if the goal in the future is that all of the enemies, the adversaries, that's by the way what Satan means, is just adversary. All of the adversaries of God are removed.

Then let's believe now that God is showing signs of that. That is the vindication. The resurrection was the vindication that what Jesus preached was true. and what he said was true. And it's the ultimate inbreaking of God's will on earth as it is in heaven. Right? If Jesus is raised, what that means ultimately is that resurrection life, new heavens and new earth, new creation, heaven's will comes through Jesus into the church, through the church to the wider world.

Right? And so our job as believers in Jesus is to pray that God's will in heaven is done on earth. Let me ask you this. Is terminal illness going on right now in heaven? No. No. Is financial lack? No. Uh are people starving in heaven? No. No. Then it's God's will that we feed those who are hungry, that we help me meet people's need, we pray for people who are sick, that that we are showing signs of that future new heavens, the new earth that it's coming to bear right now in the earth.

Our job as Christians is to pray heaven's will in into the earth right now as a foretaste of the future new heavens and new earth. Yeah. Which means we have a job to do. Yeah. Glorious job. We are we are um co- lababorers. It's a collaboration. If we're in Jesus, he has called us not only into a wonderful family, not only into a promised resurrection of the future, but a collaborative vocation or job description right now in the earth.

And re revelation 5:es 9 and 10 actually says that that those of us who have been made the royal priesthood. Let's use that. The Bible uses that title. We are the royal priesthood. 1 Peter 2:9 and 10. But those who are part of that family of God will reign on the earth.

That is clear in scripture. And I think for us um does that mean that we sort of like join in to the eternal nature of God? We don't become infinite like God is. Right. Right. But we do share in his and co-labor in this job with God. He wants to his will being done on the earth has only ever been a plan through humanity for the flourishing of creation.

Yeah. It's his number one project and he's doesn't have a number two. It's plan A and there's no plan B. And God's desire that not only this is the I believe this is the John 10 abundant life, the Zoey life that that Jesus talks about is like it's not just the fact that we get blessings.

It's the fact that God blesses the entire world through us even in the here and now that he's showing signs of that and we get to join in. So what does it you know what does it mean for the rest of the Bible? What does how does this fit into the story?

It it's it's literally us fulfilling the purpose to which we were created and that is the flourishing of humanity through us. Yeah, that's good. And I think that, you know, as we wrap our time up here, maybe we should do a Q&A on this topic because I'm sure people have a lot of questions on what we're talking about.

But I just want to say a couple of clarifying things. Um, number one, what this all means right now in the present is this. If you die right now, and all of us will until Jesus comes back. If you die right now, you go to heaven. That's right.

You go to be with the Lord. You will be with him and with all your loved ones who went before you, you'll be in a state of glory. You'll you'll know exactly, you know, who God is and who you are and who others are. Right? My my point is this is that when you die, your body goes into the ground and you'll be in heaven with the Lord.

But I always say this, don't get too comfortable up there because you're coming back in the resurrection, right? Because God will raise you back bodily and plant you back here in the earth. Yeah. Which leads to my second point. And typically, here's where the question comes in. They say, "Eric, what about somebody who was cremated?

What if what if they were what if they're ash? How do how does God give that person back a resurrected body?" Well, the fact of the matter is this. um if you pass away, if too much time goes by, your body's going to return to dust anyway, right?

I mean, we can read that as early as the first few chapters of Genesis. You will die and your body will return to dust. Yes. My point is this. When the resurrection of Jesus happened and the apostles realized what was going on, they weren't struggling with this issue.

They really didn't care how God was going to raise people who have, you know, returned to dust over long periods of time or if they were cremated. God has a way of getting your body back. It's no big deal to him at all. But make make no mistake about it.

Even if your body is just dust now, it still will be the body you had before it became dust. And it will be raised in such a way in a new condition where death will never be able to touch it again. And so that I think that's a very important thing.

Uh one, when we pass, when we die, our body goes into the ground and we go to be in heaven, right? Don't get too comfortable up there. We're coming back. There's going to be a new heaven and new earth that we inherit as believers. And don't worry about how God's going to do it.

God's able to raise us and give us the body that we had regardless of how much time we time went by. I love it. That is that is the first couple verses of the Bible. Yes, it is. God brings life from nothing. Yep. That's I mean that's his um that's his way.

Yeah. He is the creator. Awesome. I love it. Um thank you, Pastor Eric. Awesome.