Finding Jesus in the Bible…So We Can Follow Him in Life
Bible Reading Plans
- Plan One: New Testament Only
- Plan Two: New Testament + Psalms
- Plan Three: New Testament + History
- Plan Four: The Entire Bible – Year 1 of 3, Year 2 of 3, Year 3 of 3
Don’t know which plan? Go to A Christ-Centered Bible Reading Plan: Quick Start.
Extras
Verse of the Day, Audio Capsule, and Video Minute
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The One True Church
Chapter 25 – A Permanent and Unlimited Kingdom
Recall this verse from the 1 Corinthians 15 passage I showed you yesterday. It specifies a key element of the Second Coming: victory over death.
1 Corinthians 15:26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.
If the Second Coming has not yet happened, then death has not yet been defeated. But Jesus said that death would not prevail over His church. (Recall that the church Jesus built was the New Testament church.)
In reading the passage below, remember that Hades (Sheol in Hebrew) was a reference to death because it was the place to which everyone descended at death.
Matthew 16:16 Simon Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”
Matthew 16:17 And Jesus said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.
Matthew 16:18 “I also say to you that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of Hades will not overpower it.
Matthew 16:19 “I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven.”
Connect in your mind “the gates of Hades will not overpower it” with “The last enemy that will be abolished is death” from 1 Corinthians 15. If death was not to prevail over Jesus’ church, then we have one more confirmation that 1) the Second Coming occurred in the 1st century, and 2) His church would be the first generation of human beings who went straight to heaven at death – instead of Hades (Sheol). This is because the Second Coming ushered in the new heavens and earth in which there was no compartment below for the dead. Death was rerouted from Hades to Heaven.
This transition had been foreshadowed in the life of Samson, centuries before.
Judges 16:1 Now Samson went to Gaza and saw a harlot there, and went in to her.
Judges 16:2 When it was told to the Gazites, saying, “Samson has come here,” they surrounded the place and lay in wait for him all night at the gate of the city. And they kept silent all night, saying, “Let us wait until the morning light, then we will kill him.”
Judges 16:3 Now Samson lay until midnight, and at midnight he arose and took hold of the doors of the city gate and the two posts and pulled them up along with the bars; then he put them on his shoulders and carried them up to the top of the mountain which is opposite Hebron.
God moved the goalposts of death – legitimately! And in our favor!
Thus was the kingdom of God birthed from His church, and thus does the gospel of Jesus Christ deliver humanity from the fear of death.
Hebrews 2:14 Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same, that through death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil,
Hebrews 2:15 and might free those who through fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives.
The end of death as humanity had known it was tied to the coming of the kingdom of God. And the coming of the kingdom of God was tied to God’s promised deliverance of the one-generation church.
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