The dominance of Jesus’ resurrection in biblical thought cannot be overstated. Of all ‘the great things’ to be said about the Saviour, that he was raised is ‘the central one’.
‘What is to become of us?’ There are two sides to the question: what is to become of us individually, and what is to become of us collectively, as a species.
The New Testament claims that although Jesus was dead and buried on a Friday afternoon, early the following Sunday morning — roughly 36 hours later — his corpse had revived, and he had physically come to life again in a new and unprecedented bodily form.
‘Angels,’ Heppe tells us, ‘are appointed to glorify God, to serve as messengers, to watch over the elect, to support them in bodily and spiritual need, and to bring their souls to eternal rest.’
On earth, angels are devoted to God’s service. While their ‘ordinary’ action in heaven is absorption in praise, ‘their extraordinary ministry is to accompany the history of redemption at its cardinal points.’
Angels are usually unseen. When Scripture does record them appearing, though, what it describes bears almost no resemblance to the images our culture has settled on.
Angels reside in heaven (Luke 2:15) — the heavenly court and throne-room, where they’re obedient to God’s Word and devoted to enacting his will (Psa 103:20-21).
As we seek to understand angels we do well to remind ourselves that, ‘Belief in a spiritual world is rooted in and profoundly expresses the truth of revelation; only God can make it known to us, and he has done so in Scripture.’
We discussed earlier how the Scriptures show us that the Mediator has to be God, and that because of this his sufferings and intercession carry infinite worth and his people are brought safely to salvation.
