God With Us - Part 2 - The Return
God longs for community.
The fact that God longs for community is clear from the very beginning of Genesis. In Genesis 1-2 we read about God creating the whole world. God spends six days creating and organizing and filling, and on the seventh day God creates sacred time. God created a day just for us to spend it together. The culmination of the creation week is a big emphasis on relationships, relationship with God and one another. It should be no surprise that love for God and for one another sums up the whole law. (Mark 12:28-31) We see this principle at work from the very beginning. God created us because he was interested in having a loving relationship with us.
The Problem
In order for us to freely chose to be in a relationship with God we must also be free to chose to rebel against God, we must be free to reject His love and plans for our lives. God created a perfect world and especially a garden for Adam and Eve and the tree of life was planted in the midst of the garden (Genesis 2:8-9). Everything was perfect. However, should Adam and Eve wish to reject God and His blessings and His plans for them, God also placed what I personally see as an exit door, a way out. Should Adam and Eve not want to live in harmony with God they had a way out, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve had knowledge of good, but were ignorant of Evil. They could trust that God was good and follow His advice, or disregard His advice choosing to believe that God was somehow withholding something good from them.
So the problem that came form eating the fruit, rebelling against God, mistrusting God, choosing to follow the serpent, a being other than God, was death! Now here is the challenge. What is death? Romans 6:23 Paul refers to death as the wages of sin. So God gives life and without Him we have death. Death exists because of sin, it is an intruder, God placed eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). God’s plan was for us to live forever! That’s why He place the tree of life in the center of the garden. In Genesis 2:17 God warns Adam that the day he eats of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “dying he will die.” What does that mean? According to Genesis 3:22-24 God placed Adam and Eve outside the garden and placed and angel to guard the way to the tree of life.
The way I read this story it seems to me that we as humans do not possess eternal life in and of ourselves. We needed access tot he tree of life in order to live forever. Interestingly in Revelation 22:2 we read a description of the New Jerusalem and John mentions the tree of life being there in the center of the city. The text seems to strongly indicate that humans need access to the tree of life in order to live. I also find it interesting how the lying serpent tried to convince Eve otherwise when the serpent told eve that “You will not surely die.” (Genesis 3:4)
Keep this information in the back of your mind and let us turn to the New Testament and what Jesus had to say regarding life.
The Solution
Many are familiar with Jesus’ words recorded in John 3:16
For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.
The New King James Version. (1982). (Jn 3:16–17). Nashville: Thomas Nelson.
Jesus came to save us from death which is the wage of sin, by giving us life with is the gift of God!
The New King James Version Chapter 6
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Jesus gives us more details in John 14.
The New King James Version Chapter 14
Let not your heart be troubled; you believe in God, believe also in Me. 2 In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also. 4 And where I go you know, and the way you know.”
Jesus came as a baby, Jesus lived and walked among us as one of us, died for our sins, was raised form the dead and ascended to heaven. However, we continue to die. We still lack access to the tree of life.
Death
Death is the enemy, not the portal to heaven. Imagine the conversation with Adam if things were different.
God warns Adam about the death.
Adam asks God what death is.
God explains to Adam how the physical world is less than ideal and full of suffering and how life is so much better in spirit, free from physical limitations. Not only that, Adam will only experience a better life after he dies. But he must do everything he can to not die because killing himself would be cheating. Also, after he dies he spends eternity with God like an angel, living in paradise while witnessing the suffering of his descendants while they live in the physical world.
Sometimes I wonder if this misunderstanding of death is what leads people to neglect the message of the second coming of Jesus. Many churches dedicate the whole month of December to talking about Jesus coming as a baby, and I don’t have a problem with that. Many will also dedicate a whole month to talking about Jesus’ death on the cross and His resurrection. I also don’t have a problem with that. But where is the emphasis on His second coming?
Well, if you believe that when you die you go straight to haven, then you have little need for Jesus to come again.
“And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” John 14:3
Would would Jesus say these words? Why not say I go to prepare a place for you that when you die you may be with me forever? But remember, you’re not allowed to kill yourself. It only counts if you die while trying to live.
Let’s read from 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 and what Paul has to say about us being reunited with Jesus.
The New King James Version Chapter 15
51 Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. 53 For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 54 So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
55 “O Death, where is your sting?
O Hades, where is your victory?”
Paul describes death being defeated at the last trumpet.
Paul explains it even better in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18. Talking about those who have dies or fallen asleep, he says.
The New King James Version Chapter 4
13 But I do not want you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning those who have fallen asleep, lest you sorrow as others who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who sleep in Jesus.
15 For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who are asleep. 16 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord. 18 Therefore comfort one another with these words.
We will always be with the Lord after He comes back for us. Jesus is coming for those of us who are alive as well as for those who have fallen asleep/died. Paul tells us to comfort each other with these words. We are to comfort one another with the promise of the second coming of Jesus. Otherwise, would Paul not tell us to comfort one another with the knowledge that our loved ones are currently in paradise in the presence of Jesus?
Jesus and Paul are in agreement that in order for us to be forever with God Jesus must come again.
God with us is the message of the Bible. The Bible tells the story of a God who wants to be with us. A God who created a perfect world for us, and when we rebelled came and sought us out. A God who was a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night when Israel came out of Egypt. A God who was born as a baby in a manger because He wanted to be with us, to save us from our sins. A God who is coming again that we may be together forever.
The Blessed Hope
11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.
15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.
Titus 2:11-15 NKJV (bold mine)
Too often the second coming of Jesus is associated with catastrophe and great suffering. Many end up becoming afraid of the second coming of Jesus. Instead of quoting from Titus 2:13 and talking about the blessed hope or from John 14:1-4 and Jesus coming to be with us, people tend to quote Zephaniah 1:14-18
The great day of the Lord is near;
It is near and hastens quickly.
The noise of the day of the Lord is bitter;
There the mighty men shall cry out.
15 That day is a day of wrath,
A day of trouble and distress,
A day of devastation and desolation,
A day of darkness and gloominess,
A day of clouds and thick darkness,
16 A day of trumpet and alarm
Against the fortified cities
And against the high towers.17 “I will bring distress upon men,
And they shall walk like blind men,
Because they have sinned against the Lord;
Their blood shall be poured out like dust,
And their flesh like refuse.”18 Neither their silver nor their gold
Shall be able to deliver them
In the day of the Lord’s wrath;
But the whole land shall be devoured
By the fire of His jealousy,
For He will make speedy riddance
Of all those who dwell in the land.
- Zephaiah 1:14-18 NKJV
Zephaniah is focusing on the fate of those who refused Jesus and trust in their power and might and wealth to save themselves. While the other passages I mentioned above focus on the experience from the perspective of those who love Jesus and depend completely on Him for their salvation. The event is the same, what changes the experience is your personal relationship with Jesus.
