At the lowest point in my life, I wanted to run far away from the faith, Christians, and the Lord. Feeling the full impact of the betrayal of those closest to me, I went for many late-night walks, pouring my heart out to the Lord. In my book, The Triumph of the Redeemed, I summarize just a few of the circumstances that led to my despair so long ago. I do not wish to recount what happened back then, but rather write about how the Lord guarded my heart during that dark period in my life, as I also did in my book.
It was His resurrection and the hope that flows from it that Jesus used to keep me close to Him in spite of my feelings. Later, when I heard a sermon on John 6, Peter’s response to the Lord resonated deep in my soul, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life” (John 6:68). I knew all along that Jesus’ resurrection was an absolute certainty and thus my hope of eternity regardless of my dire circumstances. I knew I had nowhere to go but to remain with the One who gave His life for me.
The lengthy healing process led to a deeper appreciation of my hope in Jesus’ imminent appearing; as for me, that was and is the connection between Jesus’ resurrection and my hope of eternity. As a young pastor, I could recite twenty reasons for my belief in the pre-Tribulation Rapture. But when my world turned upside down and inside out, I came to cherish this hope in a far deeper way as the culmination of the life Jesus promised me.
When all my earthly aspirations perished in a moment, Jesus’ resurrection meant that nothing could take away my hope of eternity. That’s when the Rapture became much more than a doctrine to defend, but rather the time when I would fully experience all the wonders of eternity that Jesus promises to us.
Is this not the theme of 1 Corinthians 15?
Our Hope Begins with the Resurrection
Do you know that many of the people who scoff at our belief in a Rapture also tell us that the promises of 1 Corinthians 15:50-55 happen at the moment Jesus saves us? I was shocked when I first read that someone denied our resurrection hope in such a way, but I have since come to realize that it’s a rather common belief among those who say the church is now God’s kingdom on the earth rather than Israel. They throw out the promise of an incorruptible body along with the Rapture.
I regard such assertions as a form of unbelief because in order to eliminate the Rapture from the promises at the end of I Corinthians 15, one must discard all that Paul wrote in the first forty-nine verses of the chapter.
The apostle begins 1 Corinthians 15 with a concise presentation of the Gospel, highlighting Jesus’ resurrection. He then addresses a faction within the Corinth church who maintained that there was no such thing as a resurrection, to which Paul responded that such a belief undermines the entire Gospel (I Corinthians 15:18-19). Apart from our hope of a future bodily resurrection, our faith accomplishes nothing of any lasting value. It’s not me saying this; it’s the Apostle Paul.
In the verses that follow, he highlights Jesus’ resurrection as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (I Corinthians 15:20). The fact that He rose from the dead is the basis of our hope that someday He will raise us to new life with immortal bodies. The apostle makes this unmistakably clear in verses 47-49: “The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.”
As New Testament saints, we know there’s coming a day when just as surely as we have lived in bodies patterned after Adam, we “shall also bear the image” of Jesus, “the man of heaven.” He “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). That happens during the event we call the Rapture.
We Look Forward to a Future Event
If context and the words of the New Testament matter, then the Lord’s promises to us in 1 Corinthians 15:50-55 speak to a future event that’s just as sure as Jesus’ resurrection. It’s as Ed Hindson wrote in His book Future Glory: “If you disagree on the timing of the rapture, please don’t tell people, ‘There’s never going to be a rapture.’ No, there must be a rapture, or the Bible is not true.”
Because Jesus rose from the dead, there will most assuredly be a time when He appears, raises the dead in Christ from their graves, and gives both dead and living saints incorruptible and immortal bodies (see also Philippians 3:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 4:3-18). Our hope of eternal life in glorified bodies like that of Jesus flows from the fact that He rose from the dead and is coming back to take us, complete with glorious new bodies, back to His Father’s house in Heaven.
That’s why we have hope regardless of our circumstances or age.
Even after the Lord brought healing to the wounds of my past, I believed my usefulness for Him was at a complete and total end. Little did I know at the time, or could even begin to imagine, was that the Lord would someday weave all that happened during the years of hardship into a ministry that seeks to use Bible prophecy as the means to encourage and comfort hurting saints.
