Cancer Blog #73
By Brian Zimmerman
Begun on July 31, 2021
Email: dyingman1@yahoo.com
My Dying Words
Entry #73– What Happens When We Die?
February 19, 2023
[Luke 23:42-43] 42 And he was saying, “Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!” 43 And He said to him, “Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise.”
[Luke 24:37, 39, 42-43] 37 But they were startled and frightened and thought that they were seeing a spirit. … 39 “See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” … 42 They gave Him a piece of a broiled fish; 43 and He took it and ate [it] before them
What is the nature of our life as we pass through the portal of death? We’ll have more to say about heaven later, but here we gain a clearer picture than was possible in the OT. We hear the words of the first man of the new age describing our new life. In the initial passage (Luke 23), Jesus comforts the thief who confesses Jesus as the Christ, as Savior, by telling him not that the man would just fall asleep as would seem to happen from our perspective as ones who remain behind. That is a perspective on death in the NT that we have seen before. Rather, Jesus is looking at death from the other side, the side of our eternity. And, from that perspective, the thief will be awake with Jesus in “Paradise”. How we can understand that when it seems we will not yet be incarnated, residing in resurrected bodies, I don’t really know, but the hope it should engender in us ought to be profound. For wherever and whatever paradise may be, it is a place of great joy, for there we will be with our Savior.
In the next passage, we gain another step towards understanding the nature of our life in the new age. For here Jesus reassures the disciples that they will not – as He is not – become disembodied spirits, transparent, translucent ghosts. Instead, we will be a re-embodied people, made of flesh and bone, able even to eat. Our life in eternity will be a full and rich one. As John writes:
[1Jo 3:2 NASB95] 2 Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.
We shall be like Him; that is our promise and our hope. We will be people as complete and incorporated as He was when He appeared to the disciples, human beings able to completely fulfill the creation mandate: to subdue the earth and learn, work, and explore the new creation for all eternity, making new music, architecture, books, crafts, food, all for our enjoyment in righteousness, peace, and joy with Him and with those whom He loves. What better hope could there be?
Next: Death Could Not Hold Him