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Back to the Bible Podcast
Episode 112: Questions about the End
00:29:28
In this episode, we consider questions about the end (particularly cremation and whether or not we will know one another in heaven).
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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's Word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.
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Welcome to this period of Bible study. We are delighted to have the opportunity to share with you for a little while in a consideration of God's Word. As always, we are grateful. We are thankful for the means by which we can come together. Whether you're listening via the radio program or by podcast, we are thankful that there is the technology that allows us to gather together, at least in this sense, and to be able to study for a little while considering things from God's Word. Of course, we hope that what we are doing is profitable. And we know that the only way that it can be really profitable is if we are actually committed to going back to the Bible for the way of life. It is only profitable if we want to be shaped by the Scripture in our teaching. And it is only profitable if we are demonstrating in what we are committed to that we want to be loyal to Jesus Christ. That's what we want. And if there is something in our teaching that does not reflect that we want to make correction, and if there is something in our life that doesn't reflect that we want to be right with God, and we want that for you, too. If there's something that is awry in your belief system, in your commitments, in your devotion to the Lord, if there's some shortcoming, if there's some error in your thinking, we hope that this lesson, these lessons, the work that we're trying to do, will point that out. Not because we get joy out of making people upset or making them uncomfortable or whatever else, but because we find joy in the place that heaven finds joy. And that is when someone who is lost or who is astray is brought back to the Lord. I think about the parable in Luke 15, the several parables at the celebration of the lost sheep that is found, the lost coin, the lost son that returns. And there is joy in heaven when one repents. And so there should be joy on earth with us. I think about what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 7. And he said that when he wrote that first letter, that he was hesitant because he knew it was going to cause them pain. And yet he went ahead and wrote it because he knew it was for their good. And when he wrote it for them, he said that what happened was that they repented, that they had godly sorrow, the godly sorrow that leads to repentance. And so that is the case sometimes when we say things, maybe it is a challenge for us because of our weaknesses. But it is wonderful when we are able to preach God's word. And we hope that the efforts that we are making, certainly they're not wasted if we're faithful to God's Word. And we hope that people are responding positively to what we have to say. If you have questions or concerns about the things that we are teaching, about what we're saying, then feel free. Be welcome to reach out to us at Back to the Bible podcast backtothebiblepodcast.com there you can find earlier programs, you can find information about the program, you can find means of contacting us, and there are even old archives of lessons that my grandfather preached as he was part of the Back to the Bible program. When I say part of when he was the Back to the Bible program and when he was teaching and preaching and the things that he emphasized along the way. There is just a short list of lessons there. Perhaps some will be made available over time. But there's a good number for you to listen to now and we would love for you to listen to those and share what you think about them. I want to come back to our thinking about the end, what is coming in the end. And Lord willing, on our next occasion we'll go back to the Book of Acts and we're making our way through that book and appreciate the feedback that I have gotten on some of that. I want to talk about the end, and what I want to do is talk about some questions that we have about the end. Now let me just kind of summarize what we've said so far and what we've tried to do and tried to be clear about. And I think if you will look up a chart about where we go when we die. I know that the company Apologetics Press, maybe I should call it the organization Apologetics Press, has a helpful little chart for me. So you might just look it up as where do we go when we die? Chart from Apologetics Press. Now let me say this. There would be things about Apologetics Press that I would not be in line with, including the way that they are financially supported. However, all that being said, they do produce some things that I think are quite helpful and especially for young folks who are struggling with faith. I think they have things that would be worth looking at. But when we look at this chart that they have, it has the saved and the lost, and the saved headed to a narrow gate and the lost headed to a wide gate, and what happens for both the saved and the lost is that we are going to physically die. And so that is true, save the fact that Jesus is coming back. And if he was to return, then we would not face death in that same way. But so far the Lord has not returned. And so we need to be prepared for that fact, ready for it, but also aware that death is on the horizon. Now, not only is death on the horizon, but eternity is across that river. Sometimes we talk about death as that cold, chilly river, and we're talking about crossing over. Now, in the scriptures, it seems to be that there is a place where we go when we die that we would not describe as heaven or hell. I am not particularly upset by that kind of language, but I think that it is helpful to see that there is a temporary holding place for the righteous and for the wicked, for the saved and for the lost. And we would call that whole realm Hades, the Hadean realm. That is important because sometimes the scriptures talk about Hades, and we conclude sometimes that that's talking about hell. And it's not. Hades is not a place of judgment. It is simply the realm of the dead. It is what the Old Testament perhaps, and maybe with some more depth, is what the Old Testament referred to as Sheol. Now, sometimes people use the word Hades as a euphemism for hell. And there are translations, the King James Version, as wonderful as a translation, in that it is often rendered the word Hades as hell, which has helped perpetrate, I think, some false doctrines regarding, for example, in Acts, chapter two, it talks about Jesus going to Hades. What it's saying is that Jesus went to the realm of the dead, not that he went to hell. So there are false teachings, I believe, about that, that we need to be aware of. So in that Hadean realm, though, there is a division between paradise and torment. We see that, for example, in Luke 16, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, or the account of rich man and Lazarus, I should say not only that, but we have Jesus telling the thief on the cross, today, you shall be with me in paradise. But that is not the ultimate place. That's not the ultimate end. I do think that that is an indication of where we will be eternally. There does not seem to be any way that one can cross over from one side to the other. That's what Abraham says in the account of the rich man and Lazarus that Jesus tells there was a great gulf fixed between, and one could not cross over. But in the end, there will be a second coming in which there will be A resurrection. And we'll talk more about that in just a few moments. But there will be a resurrection. And those who are the saved will be on that day judged along with those who are wicked. And they will be judged, and the righteous will be rewarded and. And the dead will be ultimately condemned. They will be told to depart, the righteous will be told to come. And so they will be divided into heaven and to hell for all eternity. Now, that raises a lot of questions, doesn't it? And maybe you are satisfied with the answers that you have right now, but I trust that questions will arise along the way. And so when we think about all of that, one passage helps me in a lot of these questions, and not only these questions, but in questions about other things. In Deuteronomy 29:29, Moses says, the secret things belong to the Lord our God. The secret things belong to the Lord our God. Do you hear that? There are things that we do not know that are secret because they belong to Yahweh. They belong to God. And I think that it is helpful to see that there are things about God's plans and about God's purposes and about God's workings and that are not revealed to humans. Perhaps it is because they are beyond our understanding. It may be that we would be incapable of grasping all of that. But for whatever reason, the Lord has not totally revealed everything. All the answers that perhaps we would like to like to know. But when we say that, we need to echo the second half of that verse as well. Yes, the secret things belong to the Lord our God. Notice what Moses says, though. But the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever. That we may do all the words of this law. Absolutely. There are things that we do not know that perhaps we would like more information on. The secret things, though, do belong to God. But there are enough things revealed that we know what God wants of us. And the things that are revealed are ours. God has given them to us, to us and to our children, that we may do all the words of this law. And so I think that it's helpful, especially when we think about the fact that they were living under the old covenant and they had even fewer answers than we do. And we have full answers. We have total clarity on. On what God wants us to be and to do. And while there may be questions about how all of that operation works, we know enough that God has called us to be like Jesus. And so the things that are revealed are for us and for our children, that we may do everything that God has told us. So we have questions, and we may not know all the answers, but we want to be able to talk about some of those things as best we can. So when I first preached this series of lessons, people had questions that I thought was. That I thought were helpful, and I think that needed to be answered, at least to the degree that we can. And the first question is about cremation. What about cremation? Is that all right? And one of the reasons I think that question comes up is because for hundreds of years, maybe we would even say thousands of years, burial has been, at least among us, the primary way of taking, of dealing with a dead body. And so cremation has been something that I would say within the last few decades has been on the rise for various and sundry reasons. Now, let's say this, that the Bible does not forbid, nor does it specify one way or the other with regards to cremation. I think that we would say that we see burial as the predominant practice, though there would be things about the burial that would be very different than the way that we go through that process. For example, in the days of Jesus, and probably before, they would put them in a tomb that would be carved into the side of a stone, and what would happen is that they would bury the person, and then over time, as their body decays, they would go back in and get the bones and put them in a box and they would put them in that tomb, and then they would bury others or entomb others in that same tomb. So their burial practices may have been different, but in fact, that was maybe the primary way, at least is what we see revealed. Also note that burning a body was at least on some occasions, associated with judgment. In Joshua chapter seven, there was the account of Achan, who had gone in and stolen what did not belong to him from the city of Jericho, what was supposed to be left to the Lord. And In Joshua chapter 7 and verse 25, they stoned him and then they burned them, including him and his family. And so we see that kind of as a judgment thing. Now, there were lots of concerns about the treatment of the body in the Scriptures. You think about what is said in Genesis chapter 49 regarding the body of Jacob. In Genesis 49, beginning at verse 29, he says, this is Jacob speaking. I am about to be gathered to my people and bury me with my fathers in the field of Ephron the Hittite. And the reason he wanted to be buried there was because that was where Abraham was buried. Sarah, Isaac, Rebecca. And that's where he had buried his wife Leah. So his ancestors were buried there, his wife was buried there, and he wanted to be buried there as well. I think we see that practice continuing. We see cemeteries. And I can tell you the places where I have great, great grandparents and great grandparents and grandparents buried. And all through that, there are so many family connections. I live right across the road from a Wingo cemetery. Well, that is a lot of family connections buried there together, and there is something to that. Now I will say this. My inclination for grandparents has not generally been to go and visit grave sites. And I think in part that is because of the appreciation that I have for the fact that their body is just a body right now. That's all that it is. And it is a decaying body. And it is not a body in the resurrection sense. And that is not totally my grandparent or my mom or whoever in the urn or in the tomb or wherever. Now, we also want to look at 1st Samuel 31:12, because this to me is significant. Why, while we do have burning as a judgment, we have another occasion. This is with King Saul. And this is in verse 11 of 1 Samuel 31. When the people of Jabesh Gilead heard what the Philistines had done to Saul, all their valiant men marched through the night to Beth Shan. They took down the bodies of Saul and his sons from the wall of Beth Shan and went to Jabesh where they burned them. Then they took their bones and buried them under a tamarisk tree at Jabesh. And they fasted seven days. Here Saul's body is burned. But it was not out of judgment. It was out of honor because of the ways that the Philistines had treated them. The people of Jabesh Gilead went to get the body of Saul. And in treating it in a respectful way, they burned it and then buried what was remaining. Now, what happens to our body? You know, Genesis 3:19 says that from the dust we were taken, and from the dust we will return. And I think that that ultimately is what happens to everyone's body, that is given the opportunity to decay. In fact, Acts 13, verse 36. Paul, quoting the Old Testament, said that David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid with his fathers and saw corruption. And so what we have there is, we have that everyone's body is going to decay in a process and that ultimately everyone will see the corruption that cremation may or may not hasten or increase the speed of. Now, obviously, people Die in all sorts of ways where their bodily remains are not what they were while they were alive. That is basically the case within just a couple of days of someone passing. Already things are breaking down where their physical body is not at all what it was when they were alive. And so what we want to think about is the bodily resurrection. And in the bodily resurrection, we have the confidence that God will be able to take what was put into the grave, or even if it doesn't make it to a grave. You think about sailors who die at sea or people who have died in fires or whatever. If their body doesn't make it to a tomb, that does not mean that they don't have a resurrection body. And so what we see is that hope of a bodily resurrection, I think in general should make us not quite so concerned about the. The disintegration of the body. Now, I think the scriptures would point us to be respectful. I think it would point us to be careful. I think it would point us to the fact that there is something about the remains there. But God, who had the ability to make us from dirt in the first place, who is able to produce us out of nothing from our mother and father. It seems to me that it would be ludicrous to think that God could not or would not recompose all the parts in order to give us a resurrection body. You think about when faithful people were burned at the stake. Will God reorganize those materials in order to give them a resurrection body? Reorganize and more, I would say reorganize and glorify. And we'll talk more about that perhaps later. So that's one question with regards to cremation. The other question is, will we know one another in heaven? Now, there are a lot of songs that we sing in our services that I think say something about that. Now, that doesn't prove it, but we do need to think about what we're singing and what we're saying when we sing. And all those songs that we sing about that talk about the fact that we'll see one another again and that there will be joy about that, and that we'll meet loved ones and things like that. Now, I think that the Scriptures do indeed show that there are indications that we still have an identity, that we still have our identity beyond the grave. And there are lots of passages that we can turn to In Genesis, chapter 25 and verse 8, the text says that Abraham breathed his last and died at a good old age, an old man full of years. And. And he was gathered to his people. Now, that phrase is interesting to me because Abraham was not buried where his ancestors were buried. Abraham was buried in the land of Canaan, and he had been from the land of Mesopotamia. So being gathered to his people, it means something different than being buried with his ancestors. And so it seems as though he and his people had some sort of identity beyond their death. Another powerful passage along these lines is in two Samuel, chapter 12 and verse 23. And perhaps you remember that this is when the judgment comes on David and his family and his baby dies because he was conceived in sin with Bathsheba. Now, we might think of that as only a horrific thing, but this little boy, when he dies, notice what David says. He says, I can't fast. Why should I fast? Because I can't bring him back again. I will go to him, but he will not return to me. Now, that's a powerful statement there, that he says, I will go to him, even though I can't bring him back to me. David seems to have some conception that he can be reunited with him in eternity. Maybe we would see the same thing in Matthew chapter 17, in verse 3, when Moses and Elijah appear there with Jesus on the cross. That is something that is interesting given the fact that they had been dead for a long, long time. And now he says, I can't bring him back, but I will be able to go to. Excuse me. That Moses and Elijah, though they had been dead for a long time, Elijah had been taken up in the whirlwind, but that they were able to be recognized on this occasion. One other place that we might look is in Matthew chapter 22, where the Sadducees ask the question about the status, the marriage status of someone who had been married several times in a right way. Whose wife would she be in the resurrection? And Jesus does say that in the resurrection we won't be married or be given in marriage, but that we will be like the angels of heaven, at least in that regard. Okay, now, what about the memory of those who don't make it? Some have asked if we're going to know one another in heaven, if they have that identity on the other side, will heaven be heaven for me if my loved one doesn't make it? I think that is the key question if we're going to know one another in heaven. And I think for some people, that gives them hope of being able to see folks again. Let me say that that should not be the ultimate hope of heaven. The ultimate heaven is being with the Lord. But will heaven be heaven for me if my loved one doesn't make it. If you've had family that has passed on and maybe you have doubts about their salvation, maybe you don't, and yet they were not right with the Lord and you didn't know it. Is heaven going to be heaven for you if your loved one doesn't make it? Well, we love folks. And there are folks that we love that are headed the wrong way, don't we? It seems to presume, though, that we love them more than God does. And that ain't right. Will heaven be heaven for God even though people are lost, however he does it? Maybe we'll see like he does. But all of those passages about no tears and no sorrow and no crying, they are true. If there are those who make it to heaven who love me, my mother and my grandparents, and I don't make it. If I choose to rebel and I won't do right, I don't believe they'll miss me. But I'll tell you this, I will have missed everything. The end is coming, but it's not here yet. We'll have to choose what we do with moments until then. And if we're not what we ought to be, we need to change that right now. Until next time, we bid you a pleasant good day.
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Back to the Bible. Let it be our plea. God's word alone, our authority, every word, every step in the name of Christ. Back to the Bible for the way of life.