They Enter the Eternal Kingdom
By Tyler E. Bowen
The Resurrection Precedes — They All Go in Together
"MANY shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven." Matt. 8: 11. This is a perfectly familiar scene, real and natural. Jesus is here speaking of His own kingdom when it shall be established. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob will be there. Others will come and sit down with them, to hear of their experience, to become personally acquainted with them, as we now go to the home of some friend and sit down and visit with him. But Abraham and Isaac and Jacob are now sleeping in their tombs. Yes; but what difference does this make as to that future scene? Our God is able to make them live. Whether they have been asleep a few or many years, does not matter with the infinite Creator. He is able to bring them out of their tombs, and give each of them a body, which both they and their friends will recognize. A RESURRECTION IMPERATIVE
The resurrection becomes a very important part of our heavenly Father’s plan in setting up for His Son the fifth universal kingdom upon this earth. The subjects of that kingdom will not be ghosts, phantoms, nor spirits of people who once lived upon the earth. They are to be real individuals — as real as are the subjects of earthly kingdoms now. There is no place in God’s universe where only phantoms float about. God has made worlds, and created beings after the order of men to live upon them, intending that they should be obedient to Him, and lead happy lives. The soul-without-a-body theory is all a myth of Satan’s to lead such as do not believe God, off into the miasmal swamps of darkness and death. God deals in actual men and women, and surrounds them with conditions that can be seen and understood and known. ALL ENTER THE HEAVENLY CITY TOGETHER
No one goes to heaven, the Bible tells us, to enjoy the bliss of that city Jesus went to prepare for us, until all the nations of the saved go in together. This includes Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and all the rest of God’s sleeping saints. "I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren," wrote the apostle Paul, "concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him. . . . We which are alive and remain [alive until His appearing] shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord." 1 Thess. 4: 13-17. That is when the King of the next universal kingdom is making up His subjects for that kingdom. They are all taken out of the earth together. The living ones have no preeminence over those who have passed into their graves, neither have they who have died any preeminence over those who live. Neither class have gone to heaven. None of them have gone through the gates into the city prepared for them. No; God has something better for the dead, and that is that they shall wait until all are ready to go home together. "They were stoned," wrote the apostle to his Hebrew brethren, "they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented; (of whom the world was not worthy:) they wandered in deserts, and in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And these all, having obtained a good report through faith, received not the promise [of going into that city — see verse 10]: God having provided some better thing for us [who live], that they [the dead] without us should not be made perfect." Heb. 11: 37-40. WITH WHAT BODY DO THEY COME?
"But," says one, "I cannot understand how a man who may have been dead two or three thousand years can be put together again so as to be the same person, so much so that he shall recognize that he is the same man who once lived, and the friends who lived at that time shall likewise recognize him." Paul, as he went from city to city in his gospel work, preaching the resurrection from the dead through Christ, met this identical question. "But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?" 1 Cor. 15: 35. Paul meets the question by saying: "Thou foolish one, that which thou thyself sowest is not quickened except it die: and that which thou sowest, thou sowest not the body that shall be, but a bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other kind: but God giveth it a body even as it pleased Him, and to each seed a body of its own." Verses 36-38, A. R. V. A man sows wheat. Kernels are produced later, that he could not distinguish from the one planted, could he by any possibility regain possession of that original kernel. In the process of living, our whole body is gradually changed, broken down tissue cells being replaced by new ones. But did you or your friends ever experience any trouble in distinguishing yourself in a crowd? GOD’S RECORDS IDENTIFY MEN
Again, did you ever read that remarkable text of Scripture which tells us that every minute tissue and organ of our bodies is noted in a book by God’s record keepers in the archives of heaven? Suppose we turn and read it: "My substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." "Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it." Ps. 139: 15, 16, 6. Here God gives us the key to the secret of the resurrection. The One who formed man, keeping a record of every fiber and member that went into that organism, unlike all others in its fashioning — for He has made us different in our personality, our individuality — and who has in books up there the exact history of that life from its beginning to the grave, with all the thoughts recorded, all the words written, every act put down just as it occurred, whether done openly or in secret, is abundantly able to reproduce that marvelous organism, even though it may have moldered to dust hundreds of years ago. He will give back to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, bodies the exact counterpart of the ones they lost through Adam’s disobedience. Their features will be as when known by their friends living in their day. Such knowledge is truly too wonderful for us, but not too wonderful for our God, nor too wonderful for us to believe of Him. And so it is written of all the saints of God, whether alive or sleeping: "The ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away." Isa. 35: 10. A PRAYER OF JESUS’ ANSWERED
When the King of kings comes, and the nations that know not the Lord are smitten before Him, as revealed to Nebuchadnezzar, being in that day all broken together, the glorified ones of earth, from the east, the west, the north, and the south, shall be taken out of the world, away from the earth, to spend a thousand years with God in heaven. The King, Christ Jesus, will in that day have His own with Him — actually be in possession of the subjects of His kingdom. "I will that they also, whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am; that they may behold My glory." This is what Jesus prayed just before He died. When He comes from heaven and gets His people, this prayer will be answered. By His own blood, He has bought them, redeemed them from the power of the enemy; and they, on their part, through Him, will in that day have attained immortality. And while the territory of their kingdom is made a prison house for Satan and his associate host of fallen angels for a time, they must only wait a thousand years, when it too will be restored to them. Then will the promise be fulfilled, "Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." JOB’S HOPE OF SEEING GOD WITH HIS OWN EYES
Then shall Job’s desire be satisfied, and that also of all the saved: "For I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." Job 19: 25, 26. Reader, do you not see, in all these assurances of God’s word, sufficient evidence upon which you may lay hold by faith, so that the heavenly country, the kingdom you have so long looked forward to, becomes a living reality, and appeals to you? What more could the Lord do than He has done to convince you that His promised home is a real one, and worthy your best and highest endeavors to obtain? A few more changes in the kaleidoscope of earthly nations, as foretold in the Word, and then comes the ushering in of that glorious kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. It will not be by clash of arms, but "as the lightning, that lighteneth out of the one part under heaven, shineth unto the other part under heaven; so shall also the Son of man be in His day." "Behold, He cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see Him, . . . and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of Him." "Then shall He send His angels, and shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven." Then is answered the prayer so long prayed by His followers, "Thy kingdom come." "Even so, come, Lord Jesus."