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It’s October, and do you know what holiday is coming up? Halloween! It’s quite a fun holiday as kids and adults can dress up, eat candy, have parties, and watch scary movies and such. Vampires, werewolves, ghosts, goblins, zombies, and plenty of other horrific creatures and scenes decorate houses, schools, and community centers. A popular theme around this time is the dead coming back to life, like this:
Return of the Living Dead Part 2
It’s pretty gruesome right? While this movie is old and the effects look so dated that it takes away the horror aspect of it, the idea of dead bodies rising from the grave is still pretty terrifying. Did you know that in the Bible, Jesus talks about the dead coming back to life?
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.
John 5:25
He’s Alive!!
While Jesus talks about the dead coming back to life, do you think he is speaking about a physical resurrection? We do see an example of a physically dead person rising up and coming out of his grave. It’s the story of Lazarus. In John 11 we read that one of Jesus’s friends, named Lazarus, died. You can read the full story in John 11:1-44. Life and death are quite serious according to God and the Bible. Let us understand it much more deeply and clearly from this video.
Healings Leaves
Here is an example of physical resurrection from the dead. Also, we know that Jesus died and rose again as recorded in the Scriptures. Both Jesus and Lazarus give us examples of physical resurrection. The difference between the two is that Lazarus died again, and Jesus did not. Why? Well, we will get to that later. In the meantime, let us understand what Jesus said in John 5:24-28.
Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. Very truly I tell you, a time is coming and has now come when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself. And he has given him authority to judge because he is the Son of Man.
Do not be amazed at this, for a time is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and come out—those who have done what is good will rise to live, and those who have done what is evil will rise to be condemned.John 5:24-28
The Resurrection of the Spirit
The Bible is a spiritual book because its author, God, is also a spirit. That means the things recorded in the Bible have a spiritual meaning that’s deeper than what we may see at face value. Do you remember that I said Lazarus died again after coming back to life, but Jesus did not? Are you still curious to know why? It’s because God’s spirit is with Jesus. John 1:1-4 says that the Word is God and gives life. So, Jesus who had that Word, also had God’s spirit in him giving him life.
For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself.
John 5:26
What’s the meaning behind this? When we have God’s Word in us, we also have God’s spirit in us, and we live because of that. Maybe you’re thinking of it like this in your head:
Frankenstein
Thankfully, it’s not like that. We won’t have any zombies coming our way. We come to life again in spirit through the words of Jesus.
Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment but has passed from death to life.
Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live.John 5:24-25
When we listen to, believe, and obey Jesus’s words, then our spirits will live again. Death came into God’s creation through Adam, but life comes back through Christ Jesus. Even the apostle Paul writes about the resurrection of the dead in 1 Corinthians. He says the second Adam (man) became one who gave life.
It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus, it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.
1 Corinthians 15:44-45
That second “Adam” is Jesus, and his words give us life.
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.
John 6:63
When Jesus died on the cross, there was an earthquake, the temple curtain separating the Holy Place and Most Holy Place was torn in two, and many graves were opened. The dead were raised and went into the city (see Matthew 27:51-53). If we took Jesus’s words about the dead literally, would it make sense? Can the dead hear? No, they can’t. Now, if we understand Jesus’s words spiritually, however, it should make more sense. Jesus often said, “He who has an ear let him hear,” and we know he doesn’t mean physical ears. He was talking about those who can hear and understand the words Jesus spoke. Those who understood who Jesus was, the promised savior prophesied in the Old Testament, believed in him, and then spread that gospel they heard – that was coming back to life spiritually.
What Does That Mean for Us Today?
If we truly call ourselves Christians, as in followers of Christ, we must understand what Jesus taught in the New Testament and what it means for us today. We must also obey it. Paul often talked about dying with Christ, being raised with Christ, and putting on the new self.
Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
Romans 6:3-4
The dead coming back to life, in the true spiritual sense according to the Bible, is not just physical resurrection, but our spirits that are dead because of sin come back to life through God’s Word and Jesus’s spirit.
But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Romans 8:10-11
In the Old Testament, God shows us this concept through the prophet, Ezekiel. Let’s learn from it now.
God, Ezekiel, and Skeletons
In Ezekiel 37, God shows the prophet Ezekiel the valley of dry bones. In that vision, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, and God says those bones will come back to life.
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
Ezekiel 37:1-6
Maybe you’ve read this story before, but we should know what it means for today. In this story, Ezekiel is seeing all this happen in a vision (it’s a prophecy after all), but we should understand where we are in the Bible. Are we like Ezekiel, or like those dry bones coming back to life? Ezekiel does what God commands, and those bones come back to life.
So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a sound, and behold, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them. But there was no breath in them.
Ezekiel 37:7-8
Ezekiel sees these bones come back to life, but once they’re fully formed again, they’re just empty shells in a sense. As that last sentence says, there was no breath in them. What does that mean? What is that “breath”? In Genesis 2:7, when God formed Adam, it says God put the “breath of life” in him, and Adam became a living being (or spirit). Was God doing CPR and giving physical breath? No. In John 1:4 God’s word tells us that there is life in the Word. So, when God gives His word to His people, their spirits live again. Let’s continue to see this in Ezekiel’s story.
Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, an exceedingly great army.
Ezekiel 37:9-10
When Ezekiel did what God commanded, the breath came into those bodies and they received life again. It also says they became a great army. Why is that? God has been fighting with the Devil for the past 6,000 years. As God and His angels fight in the spiritual world, His people need to fight in the physical world. We don’t fight actual wars with real weapons, but a spiritual war and our weapon is the Word of God (Ephesians 6:10-17). But if we don’t have that Word, that breath of life, then we cannot fight. We are just the walking dead.
Thankfully, when we understand God’s words and obey them, we receive that breath of life and live again spiritually. The Words of God aren’t just the Ten Commandments or Jesus’s teachings in Matthew 5-7, but also the prophecies about the second coming, and the testimony of those prophecies when they are fulfilled.
Jesus told us what would happen beforehand, so when it does happen we will believe (John 14:29). Just as Jesus’s disciples believed when Jesus testified the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and lived, when the New Testament prophecies are fulfilled and testified, we should believe. That Word is what gives us life. We are spirit and flesh, but what good is our flesh if our spirits aren’t alive?
Let Us Live Again
So, let us become those who live again – not as zombies – but as true living spirits through God’s Word. We must hear the word of fulfillment when that time comes, and believe it, just as the disciples and others did at the time of Jesus’s first coming. But to recognize the fulfillment, we have to know the prophecies Jesus spoke. We do that by studying God’s Word. If you want to live as God intended for His people truly, then come and study with us. I pray you can come to life again in God’s eyes according to His Word.
Written by Kenny
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