RESURRECTION AND AGE TO AGE LIFE

RESURRECTION AND AGE TO AGE LIFE

As Jesus was dying on the cross he said ‘Father into your hands I commit my Spirit’ The Bible says that he then descended - in his Spirit - on a mission of great purpose. Below him was a place called Paradise, and next to Paradise was a place called Hades. Jesus had spoken about these places when he told the story in Luke 16 of the rich man and Lazarus, the beggar. The rich man who lived sumptuously in arrogant self-indulgence all of his life ended up in Hades and Lazarus who lived the life of a humble beggar at the gate of the rich man’s house ended up in Paradise, with Abraham. 

Jesus had now descended to these places. Paradise was where there were millions of souls who had been waiting for him from the beginning of time. These had lived their lives on earth in hope, many of them guided by the Commandments through Moses, but many simply by a good conscience. They were locked away from eternity till Jesus would now come to get them. Jesus would also visit Hades the prison of lost hope.

The bible says that Jesus then preached to all those prisoners of time the message of the Gospel, the plan of the Father to send Jesus into the world to set people free from the captivity of sin and to bring his New Creation life to humanity (1Peter 3:19). Jesus would have sat with Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham, and many others in Paradise as well as his newfound friend that hung next to him on the cross and to whom he said, ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’! He spoke to with them and he rested with them. He was to wait there until the end of the third day when he would ascend into Heaven and set the captives free. (Ephesians 4:8) from the captivity of time, as they had waited till heaven came to get them. Jesus also declared the message of the Gospel to those in Hades who had resisted God and refused to listen to him, including those who were destroyed in the flood of Noah. 
1Peter 3:18 He died once for the sins of all sinners although he himself was innocent of any sin at any time, that he might bring us safely home to God. But though his body died, his spirit lived on, and it was in the spirit that he visited the spirits in prison and preached to them-- spirits of those who, long before in the days of Noah, had refused to listen to God, though he waited patiently for them while Noah was building the ark. 

The Book of Revelation also tells us that Jesus was given the keys of ‘Hell and death’ at this time, and with the key of freedom he was able to unlock those prisoners of the past  and take them into an age to age existence to await an eternal destiny.
Revelation1:17,18 Fear not; I am the first and the last: -- I am he that lives and was dead; and behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and I have the keys of hell and of death.

On the third day when Jesus turned the key of freedom in the prison gate a tremor hit the universe. Power from Father and Holy Spirit in heaven was released into and through Jesus to overcome death and the grave. His resurrection changed the nature of every atom of matter in existence. God had joined himself to his own creation in the person of Jesus Christ and now humanity could become a ‘New Creation Being’, joined in the Spirit with Jesus (2Corinthians 5:14). 

The time had now come for them all to leave, and Jesus led some on a triumphant upward journey, to their new home, his home in Heaven, while others to a place reserved to await an age to come. A company of them was escorted by hosts of angels, ascending ever upwards until they first reached the earth, (Psalm 68:18, Ephesians 4:8, Psalm 24)), and there they stopped for a brief period of time, because there were things for Jesus to do there. The first thing that he had to do was to go to his tomb where his earthly body lay in its shroud. The Archangels Michael and Gabriel went ahead of Jesus to the tomb and found the guards there that the temple priests had appointed to stand watch at the tomb. As the angels alighted the ground shook and the massive stone rolled away as a huge burst of lightning hit the place sending the guards reeling headlong to the ground. They leapt up in fright and bolted. Jesus entered his tomb and united himself again to the wounded shell of his body, leaving the shroud lying separated from the headpiece which had been folded away neatly (John 20:7). 

Michael and Gabriel waited inside the tomb while Jesus walked bodily from that temporary resting place, out into the garden. He walked about and would have recalled vividly the events that had so recently taken place nearby, and his time of kneeling in an agony of prayer when he accepted his cup of unbearable suffering. 

At that same time some women had prepared oils and spices according to the custom, to anoint the body of Jesus. On their way to the tomb, they were discussing the problem of how to move the huge stone that covered the entrance. When they arrived, they were astonished to see that it had been moved and the guards were nowhere to be seen. They peered inside the tomb and were met by the majestic appearance of Michael and Gabriel, sitting in the place where Jesus had been laying.

‘Are you looking for Jesus?’ Gabriel said. ‘He has come back to life as he said he would. Go and tell the disciples that he will be coming to see them, and that they are to wait for him in Galilee.’
The women ran to tell the disciples but one of them dropped behind and walked slowly through the garden, still confused and weeping. She almost collided with Jesus who was also walking in the garden, and she apologized, not recognizing him, thinking he was the gardener. This was Mary Magdalene. And he called her by her name and said, ‘It’s alright Mary, it is me.’

She ran towards him, but he held up his hand and said to her, “Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; go to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God’. Mary Magdalene went and announced to the disciples, ‘I have seen the Lord,’ and she shared the things that he had said to her.’ (John 20.17)

And now Jesus had to fulfill the offering of his blood to his Father in Heaven. The blood of animal sacrifice had been offered for the sins of the people by the High priest of Israel in the holy place of the temple for the last fifteen hundred years for the nation of Israel (Leviticus 16, Hebrews 9) but Jesus had just marked the end of blood sacrifice for sin for all time by sprinkling his innocent blood on the ground at Golgotha for the forgiveness of the sins of the whole earth.
Hebrews 9:11 But Jesus came as High Priest of this better system that we now have. He went into that greater, perfect tabernacle in heaven, not made by men nor part of this world, and once for all took blood into that inner room, the Holy of Holies, and sprinkled it on the mercy seat; but it was not the blood of goats and calves. No, he took his own blood, and with it he, by himself, made sure of our eternal salvation. 

A strange phenomenon then occurred in Jerusalem. Hundreds of souls who had just accompanied Jesus from below and who had recently died were making the briefest of appearances to their loved ones. And when the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom the earth shook, and the rocks were split. The tombs also were opened. Many bodies of the saints who had died were raised up and came out of the tombs after his resurrection, and they went into the holy city and appeared to many. (Matthew 27:52) After the very brief visit to their astounded friends and relatives on earth in their new recognizable forms, they then had to regroup with Jesus and resume their journey to Heaven (Imagine the strange reality of this spiritual world). The magnificent procession began to ascend from their graves to the sky in glorious splendour with its escort of glorious angels. As their ascension took them closer and closer to the throne room a mighty voice could be heard proclaiming his majestic entrance.
Psalm 24:7-10 Lift up your heads, O gates! And be lifted up, O ancient doors, that the King of glory may come in. Who is this King of glory? The LORD, strong and mighty, the LORD, mighty in battle!

At this command the heavenly music began. The sounds of pipes and trumpets, the voices of hundreds of harmonies, and a beautiful range of stringed instruments created a majestic symphony. Jesus had come home, and the Bible trumpets his victorious homecoming. 
Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he sustains everything in the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high. 
This was the moment - purification for the sin of all mankind had been made and now everything in the Universe was integrated into his glorified New Creation Being of power. Ephesians 1:19-21. how powerful is that divine energy that comes from God to us when we simply believe that he is the creator and generator of this supernatural power which exploded into reality when he raised Jesus from the dead and took him into heaven to sit next to him at his right hand. 21. This heavenly place and position took Jesus as God and man above any other force or realm of authority that can be named, whether on earth or in the heavens…and he has become the centre of all consequence and meaning in the universe.
All the angels and all those who had come with Jesus on the upward journey beheld their king in his place of honour and joined in the magnificent celebration. His time in heaven for these celebrations was momentary, as he had left the tomb just before dawn and had to return to earth that same day, still bearing the marks of the cruel wreath of the crown of thorns from his flogging from the guards of King Herod, and the wounds to his hands and feet and side from the cross. 
The reason that Jesus had to return to the earth on that same Resurrection Sunday is that on the Sunday morning after the Passover Sabbath there was another feast that was part of the Passover Feast being celebrated by Israel. This was called the wave offering of the firsfruits – the sheaves or bunches of wheat or barley shoots that were the firstfruits of the harvest season. This festive day of the Passover feast was prophetic of the resurrection of Jesus on that day. The Bible twice declares to be the firstfruits of the resurrection (1Corinthians 15:20,23) 
After the Passover Sabbath when you reap your harvest, bring the first sheaf of the harvest to the priest on the day after the Sabbath. He shall wave it before the Lord in a gesture of offering, and it will be accepted by the Lord as your gift… Fifty days later on the Feast of Pentecost you shall bring to the Lord an offering of a sample of the new grain of your later crops. (Leviticus 23:9-15). Jesus became the prime sheaf of the wave offering on that Sunday and the other company of people who also rose and appeared to many people in Jerusalem made up the rest of the sheaf. So Jesus returned to the earth that same day in a resurrected body that could never ever die again. He would now spend forty days on earth as a witness to his resurrection, and meeting with his disciples and being seen alive again by hundreds of people This resurrected body was without the constraints of a limited physical body, but it could be seen and recognized as a natural body.
The remarkable certainty of how only Scripture can interpret Scripture is seen in this astounding eternal prophetic narrative of the Only One God the Father sending his Only One Son Jesus to bridge the gap between Divinity and humanity - through the sending of the Only One Holy Spirit to all of humanity. This means that there is an Only One way to live life on this earth with purpose and meaning and fulfillment. Any other narrative of life on this earth, no matter what it promises the human soul, is fraught with anxiety and uncertainty and helplessness and even despair. God has lovingly offered us his Gift of life – it is done – it is finished. It awaits our ‘yes’ of believing Him and putting aside any other philosophy or ideology. That is called repentance and faith – Thank you for the Cross Lord.