Back From the Dead

5/29/14                      Tom             58

One thing that has surprised me as I’ve talked with unbelievers is a question I had never thought to consider.  I’m surprised by how many people struggle with the idea that “no one has ever come back to tell us, so how can I be sure what happens after we die?”  I guess it just seems obvious to me that eternity is so permanent, so why should I expect anyone come back to this temporary life?  But, nonetheless, many people do ask this, like Tom, 58, whom I reached out to while he was smoking out on his front porch.  Tom was very open to talking about God and eternity, saying “I want to believe like you do, but I just have these nagging doubts that won’t go away.”  As we talked about some of them, it seemed to me that he did have honest questions, not trying to disprove Christianity, but not ignoring his doubts either.  And one of them was this question about people returning from the dead to tell us.  Jesus spoke to this issue in the parable of the Rich Man and Lazurus, saying “‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”  From this I understand that God has left enough evidence, such as the words of Moses and other prophets, so that most people are without excuse, and Paul expands upon this in Romans 1 when he teaches that because of the Creator’s general revelation of Himself in his creation, no one is without excuse for not believing and obeying.  Yet God did send someone back from the dead – His own Son.  I have been emphasizing the importance of Jesus’ death in our place on the cross, but we also can’t forget His resurrection.  It is central to the Gospel message, and questions like Tom’s help remind me of that.  I told Tom that while it is true that we must have faith in order to believe and receive Christ, that faith can and should be a “reasonable” faith, not a blind faith.  There is plenty of evidence from eyewitnesses who saw Jesus after his resurrection, and they are just as important to people today as they were when Paul penned these words – “For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.”  (1 Cor. 15)