This morning, in Luke 20, I’m reminded of the resurrection.
In this chapter a group of religious people who denied the resurrection and hold only to the first five books of Scripture questioned Jesus about the resurrection in order to trap him, or trick him, if you will. These religious people were called Sadducees. They wanted to know if a woman married seven different men, each man having died, they all were brothers, and each died without children, whose wife would she be in heaven? They based this question off the Law of Moses, which said that if a man’s brother dies and has no children, his brother was responsible for taking the widow and raising up offspring. It’s a family lineage thing.
In response, Jesus said, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him.”
Basically, what Jesus told them is that there is certainly a resurrection of the dead and those who attain such a resurrection will be very much alive because God is not a God of the dead, but the living. Moreover, what Jesus told them was that they, and we, cannot think of heaven as an extension of life as we know it. We can expect to recognize our spouses in heaven, along with others we know. We can also expect that our relationship with such people will be different. That will not be a bad thing. It will be far better than we can possibly dream of. Better than words can explain.
The bigger issue is whether or not a person will attain this resurrection into heaven. You ask, how can one participate in this resurrection? The answer is simple. It’s only those who have repented of their sin (turned from a sinful lifestyle), confess Jesus as Lord, and believes that Jesus is the Son of God whom God raised from the dead, will be resurrected into heaven. If you have not done so, I encourage you to.
***If you want to read more on the topic of the resurrection of the dead consider looking into 1 Corinthians 15, Revelation 20:5-6; 11-15.***