God of the Living

 The God of the Living

First Series – Sermon Twelve

Original by George MacDonald

Paraphrase by Dale R. Howie

Indeed, a man's body at death will seem no more to him than the changing of clothes. Like one tossing aside his old garments at night, intending to put on new and better ones in the morning. Resurrection is the unveiling of a new body—the new lens through which the New Life is revealed.

"We are perhaps," resumed Falconer, "too much in the habit of thinking of death as the culmination of disease. But I think rather of death as the first pulse of the new strength, shaking itself free from the old moldy remnants of earth, that it may begin the new life that grows out of the old. The caterpillar dies into the butterfly. Who knows, but that disease may be the coming of the keener life? And then disease may be the sign of the salvation of fire, of the agony of the greater life to lift us to itself?"  (The Tutor's First Love)

These words seem especially fitting when we remember that George MacDonald spent much of his own life in fragile health. Tuberculosis and asthma followed him all of his life. As he wrote these first twelve sermons, during his fifties, he may well have believed he was leaving his final testimony. It would be another twelve years before Series Two would appear.

Whether he expected to write again or not, these first twelve sermons stand as a complete movement of thought. As they unfold, MacDonald's gospel becomes wonderfully clear. He reveals a Kingdom of children reflecting the life of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in freedom and love. Along the way, we are aided by Them in discovering the Treasure—Jesus hidden within our humanity, waiting to be revealed.

This discovery is not instantaneous but unfolds through our journey of transformation. We are changed from takers into givers, passing through darkness and death as the caterpillar dies into the butterfly. Even our bodily resurrection is not the end of that journey, but another beautiful change of form in the ongoing unveiling of the Life of Christ within us.

This is a fitting conclusion to the first movement of MacDonald's gospel. The journey that began with The Child in the Mist now arrives at The God of the Living—where the Father is revealed not as the God of the dead, but of the living, "for they are all alive to Him."

 

Outline

Sermon Question: What is the central message of this sermon?

P1 - Simple Truth – God is not the God of those who once lived, but the God of the living, for His relationship with His children never ends

      P2 - We All live in Him – Our lives are continually sustained by the Trinity, for all who belong to God live in Him.

            P3 - Resurrection Life – Resurrection is not an unreasonable hope, but the natural expression of the God whose very being is Life.

                 T - Purpose of the Body - The body is God's instrument of revelation, through which we discover His creation, one another, and our true selves.

            R3 - Recognized as Me – Our resurrected bodies will reveal us more fully than ever, allowing those who love us to recognize the people we have always been becoming.

      R2 - Our True Selves – Love does not end at death but continues as God completes the unveiling of who we were always created to be.

R1 - Transform Us! – The hope of resurrection is that Christ will complete His transforming work until we perfectly reflect His Life together.

 

Luke 20:31-38 NLT

"…this continued with all seven of them, who died without children. Finally, the woman also died. So tell us, whose wife will she be in the resurrection? For all seven were married to her!"

 Jesus replied, "Marriage is for people here on earth. But in the age to come, those worthy of being raised from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage. And they will never die again. In this respect they will be like angels. They are children of God and children of the resurrection.

 But now, as to whether the dead will be raised—even Moses proved this when he wrote about the burning bush. Long after Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, he referred to the Lord as 'the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.' So he is the God of the living, not the dead, for they are all alive to him."

 

 Simple Truth

Question: Why did Jesus silence the Sadducees?

There is a recurring problem we have with Jesus' teaching. He is too simple for us. We are busy discussing the design and "revelation" behind Solomon's carved and gold-plated door, while Jesus is quietly speaking about the simple foundation of His Kingdom.

If you think Jesus was merely having a verbal argument with the Sadducees, think again. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. Jesus answered them by referring to His Father as, "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Then He drew the obvious conclusion: "He is the God of the living." Your ancestors found Me faithful and you will find Me trustworthy, even in death.

Not one of the Sadducees dared reply.

They were trained theologians. They could see they had moved beyond logic and were holding a losing hand. Would God define Himself as the God of the dead? Of people who once lived, but whom He either could not—or would not—keep alive?

Imagine God saying,

"Trust Me. I took care of your ancestors while they were alive. Worship and obey Me, and I will be good to you for seventy years or so. Then you too will die, the world will go on without you, and I will still call Myself your God."

But God is the One who changes not. Once He is your God, He is forever your God.

If He once said to a man, "I am your God," and that man finally ceased to exist, then the Sadducees were right. We would have to say that God is, indeed, the God of the dead.

Answer: Because the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is the God of the living, not the dead.

 

We all Live in Him

Question: Why can death never have the final word?

So, according to the Sadducees' own beliefs, would He not indeed be the God of the dead? If God were faithful only during this brief earthly life, what kind of relationship could this ever-living, life-giving, and unchanging God truly have with His creatures? Are we not partakers of His Life? Or are we beings driven only toward death, unworthy of our Maker's keeping?

To let His creatures simply pass away would be for God Himself to change. It would call into question the very nature of the Trinity. If we are not worth keeping alive, then His creation is not truly "good." He is no longer the infinitely good Father Jesus revealed, but only as divine as the weak and dying thoughts of men have imagined Him to be.

But Jesus says, "All live in Him." In Him there is no death.

The Trinity thinks of us far more than we think of Them. Were They to forget us for a single moment, we would cease to be. What we call death is only an outward appearance. To us it looks final—an awful end, a total change of being. Yet that is only because we judge only by what our eyes can no longer see.

Answer: Because all who belong to God continually live in Him.

 
Resurrection Life

Question: Why is resurrection reasonable?

But if God sees us before we are born, and makes each of us beautifully unique, why should changing our form make us invisible to Him? Simply because we are no longer visible to our friends is no argument that we are no longer visible to God. The change appears so overwhelming to us, so final to our eyes, that the unseen life becomes uncertain to our imaginations. Yet resurrection is not an unreasonable thing to believe.

God still saw Abraham after Isaac could no longer see him, and Isaac after Jacob could no longer see him. He still saw Jacob after the Sadducees doubted whether there had ever been a Jacob at all. As if God merely remembers them. As if those whom God remembers live only in His thoughts. As if God takes to Himself the name, "their God," out of sentiment alone. How impossible! The Living One cannot call Himself the God of the dead. His very being is the giving of Life. Therefore, they must be alive.

If He remembers them and continues to speak loving thoughts toward them, would He not keep them alive if He could? And if He could not keep them alive, how could He have created them in the first place? Can it really be easier to create than to sustain?

Answer: Because the God who creates His children also faithfully sustains them.

 

Purpose of the Body

Question: Why do we need a resurrection body?

So, if we live to God, we are aware of Him. And if we are aware of Him, we become more fully awake to our own being. Why then, the resurrection? So that our relationship with others may continue in a fresh and deeper revelation. But in what kind of body shall we come? Surely, a man's body at death will seem no more to him than the changing of clothes.

First, let us consider the purpose of the body. It is God's instrument of revelation—the lens through which the eternal image of God is made known. Through it we relate to one another and receive revelation from nature, from others, and from God Himself. The body welcomes all our lessons in passion, suffering, love, beauty, and truth. It continually points us outward toward others and inward toward our true selves, where God is waiting to be discovered.

Living here and now, we cannot learn all we were created to learn through the body. There is still so much left to discover. Even the brightest and most diligent among us have scarcely scratched the surface of this life. Shall everything left undiscovered simply be lost? The man who has learned to love all of creation will surely long for the spiritual body of which Paul spoke—a body capable of an even greater revelation. The meek, inheriting the earth as Jesus promised, will find everything aglow with spiritual meaning. Such people would not care most about the loss of earthly pleasures; they would grieve the loss of this marvelous instrument of revelation. If this body has been such a channel of enlightenment, they would naturally desire another.

Yet all of this only tells us that some kind of body is needed. Resurrection means far more than merely possessing another form. Our bodies not only reveal God's world to us; they reveal us to one another. Our thoughts, affections, hopes, and imaginations require a body through which they may be expressed. Without that expression, our unseen humanity remains hidden, and we remain lonely.

Answer: Because God created us to continue revealing Himself and one another through embodied life.

 

Recognized as Me

Question: Will we recognize one another?

The new body should be like the old, yet renewed—recognizable as me. My humanity recreated, bearing all that makes me distinct from every other person, more truly myself than ever before. All that is accidental, incomplete, and insignificant will have vanished. This body, seen again by those who love us, will be our resurrected one. The same body, regenerated—not composed of the same dead matter, but revealing the same person in greater fullness.

When our eyes behold those we have loved, our hearts will cry, "My special ones again!" We know something of this even now. We say, "He is not himself today," or, "She seems more herself today than she has in a long while." In those moments we smile, because we have caught another glimpse of the person we have always known and loved. That glimpse, however fleeting, is our nearest experience of resurrection. It is seeing someone becoming more fully themselves.

Answer: Yes. We will know one another more truly than ever before.

 

Our True Selves

Question: What becomes of the relationships God has created?

Resurrection—what else could we call it? Oh, how the letter kills! There are those who imagine they will rise as little more than animated dust. They doubt they will ever again see or know those they have loved. Can this truly be called resurrection?

What then? Shall we learn to love our neighbor only to lose them forever? Shall we finally discover one another in love, only to become strangers in eternity? Better, they seem to think, never to know ourselves at all than to know one another no longer. Shall God's love for families end at the grave? Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, husbands, wives, and children simply vanish forever? Worse still, shall our love for them vanish as well? Will God alone remain, and that somehow be enough?

No! The Trinity is forever unveiling and revealing Life. They will raise you so that I may see you again. The temporary will give way to the permanent. My brother will still reach for me, and my sister will still hold me in truth and love. The one I knew before will still be there, yet more fully themselves than ever before. The relationship will not be discarded but deepened. Love will not be diminished but purified. Mortality will have put on immortality.

Our friends are transformed. More authentic than before. More refined than before. The very best of the person we caught glimpses of during this life will stand before us at last. Their true selves, once seen only through the veil of our shared imperfections, will be revealed in all their beauty.

Answer: Love deepens as God completes the unveiling of our true selves.

 

Transform Us

Question: What is our prayer?

Jesus, You give us this resurrection! A body like Your own, transfigured and filled with Life. Transform us, that we may see, hear, and know as You do. Give us glorified bodies through which the thoughts of heaven may be fully expressed.

May our lives reveal You, Father, through Your Son, Jesus Christ. May we become the children You created us to be, reflecting Your Life in freedom and love. Come, Lord Jesus—the obedient Child of God. Complete in us what You have begun.

Then we shall be one with You, and one with every man and woman You have created. The God of the living will be all in all, and we will rejoice together in the endless unveiling of Your Life.

Answer: Lord Jesus, complete Your transforming work in us until we fully share in Your Life.

Sermon Answer: God is the God of the living, and because our lives are forever held within His Life, resurrection is the continuing unveiling of who He created us to be.

 

 

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CLIFF NOTES WITH MACDONALD’S ORIGINAL QUOTES

 

 

Simple Truth

 

“Your ancestors found Me faithful while they were alive. Listen to Me, and you will find Me trustworthy, even in death.”

 

We all live in Him

 

“But our Lord says, "All live unto him." With Him death is not. Thy life sees our life, O Lord. All of whom all can be said, are present to thee. Thou thinkest about us, eternally more than we think about thee… If thou didst forget us for a moment then indeed death would be.”

 

Resurrection Life

“But if God could see us before we were, and make us after his ideal, that we shall have passed from the eyes of our friends can be no argument that he beholds us no longer.”

“The Living One cannot name himself after the dead; when the very Godhead lies in the giving of life. Therefore they must be alive.”

Purpose of the Body

 

“It is the means of Revelation to us, the camera in which God's eternal shows are set forth. It is by the body that we come into contact with Nature, with our fellow-men, with all their revelations of God to us. It is through the body that we receive all the lessons of passion, of suffering, of love, of beauty, of science. It is through the body that we are both trained outwards from ourselves, and driven inwards into our deepest selves to find God.”

 “The thoughts, feelings, imaginations which arise in us, must have their garments of revelation whereby shall be made manifest the unseen world within us to our brothers and sisters around us; else is each left in human loneliness.”

 

Recognized as Me

 

”Now, if this be one of the uses my body served on earth before, the new body must be like the old. Nay, it must be the same body, glorified as we are glorified, with all that was distinctive of each from his fellows more visible than ever before.”

 

Our True Selves

 

“Shall we not feel that the nobler our friends are, the more they are themselves; that the more the idea of each is carried out in the perfection of beauty, the more like they are to what we thought them in our most exalted moods, to that which we saw in them in the rarest moments of profoundest communion, to that which we beheld through the veil of all their imperfections when we loved them the truest?”

 

Transform Us!

 

“Transform us so we can see, hear, and know as You do.”