1 Thessalonians 4:16–18: For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words.

We’re told in Romans 1 and Hebrews 10 that the JUST shall LIVE by faith. When you and I placed our faith in Jesus as Savior, He filled our hearts and our souls with His life. I find that interesting because Christians still grow old and they still pass away. Even so, the Bible says that the just shall live by faith.

After Adam sinned and brought death on humanity, God told him that he was taken from the dust and to it he would return. When Jesus promised us life, He didn’t mean we wouldn’t physically die. He was letting us know that at the time of death, we will pass from this temporal life into eternal life. Though my body is alive, it doesn’t have eternal life. My soul has eternal life because it’s filled with God’s Word and His Spirit. When my body dies, it will go into the ground, but my soul—which contains life—won’t go to the ground. Instead, it will go to be with the Lord. Therefore, we must live by faith, even though our outward man is perishing day by day.

In Isaiah 55 we’re told by the Lord that the Word which goes forth from His mouth won’t return void, but it will accomplish what it was sent to fulfill. God sent His Word into the earth in the form of a seed. However, when His Word returns to Him, it won’t be in the form of a seed. It will reside inside the fruit, and the fruit will be gathered to Him. If we have this hope, then we know by the Spirit of God, who dwells in our hearts, that one day we shall see all of our loved-ones who have gone before us in the faith. Our faith in Christ shall once again reunite us in glory.

Even though our souls have been redeemed from the power of death, and we shall never die, our earthen vessel will perish and return to the dust. The body is the last part of our triune being that will be redeemed from death. Then the final work of the redemption process will be completed, and the souls of those who have died in Christ will receive their glorified body. Just as we’re going to be reunited with our loved-ones, we will also be reunited with our bodies—new and improved of course!

Romans 8:22–24: For we know that all creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as His adopted children, including the new bodies He has promised us. We were given this hope when we were saved. (If we already have something, we don’t need to hope for it). —submitted by Pastor Asa Dockery, US