Practical Issues Regarding Our Resurrected Bodies

Practical Issues Regarding Our Resurrected Bodies Preacher: Rev. Angus Stewart Series: Belgic Confession 37 Scripture: Luke 20:27-40

THE LAST JUDGMENT

… Then all men will personally appear before this great Judge, both men and women and children, that have been from the beginning of the world to the end thereof, being summoned by the voice of the archangel and by the sound of the trumpet of God. For all the dead shall be raised out of the earth, and their souls joined and united with their proper bodies in which they formerly lived. As for those who shall then be living, they shall not die as the others, but be changed in the twinkling of an eye, and from corruptible become incorruptible. Then the books (that is to say, the consciences) shall be opened, and the dead judged according to what they shall have done in this world, whether it be good or evil. Nay, all men shall give an account of every idle word they have spoken, which the world only counts amusement and jest; and then the secrets and hypocrisy of men shall be disclosed and laid open before all …

J. A. Schep: “In John 20:17 Jesus says to Mary: ‘Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended unto the Father’ … We take the present imperative with me in its usual meaning signifying ‘the breaking off of an action already in progress’ (C. K. Barrett). With R. C. H. Lenski we probably should translate: ‘Stop clinging to me’ … Jesus did not mean to say that his resurrection-body was too glorious to make touching permissible, which would conflict with Matthew 28:9, Luke 24:39, and John 20:27 … Most probably, Jesus’ words were based on the way in which Mary clung to him; he discerned that she would not let him go again, that she wished everything to continue as before. In this respect her laying hold of Jesus was different from that of the other women (cf. Matt. 28:9). Hence Jesus tells Mary that she is mistaken. She must cease clinging to him, trying to keep him always with her. Jesus is about to ascend to the Father and from then on the fellowship with him will be of a different sort” (The Nature of the Resurrection Body [Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964], p. 136).

This issue of the Covenant Reformed News deals with the topic of cremation.