The Lord Came to Live Again, And He Will Come Again
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April 15, 2012 |
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The Lord gave us the blessing of salvation and eternal life by overcoming death and resurrecting. Even today, almost 2,000 years after His resurrection, His precious life has changed many people and allowed for them to gain true life. Let's examine the providence and the love of the Lord who gave us hope for the resurrection based on Dr. Jaerock Lee's books, The Footsteps of the Lord I & II taken from his lectures on the Gospel of John.
* Mary Magdalene, the woman who was first to meet the resurrected Lord
Those who believed and followed Jesus fell into deep sorrow when Jesus was crucified. Several women including Mary Magdalene and Virgin Mary were filled with agony and couldn't leave the cross. Only after Joseph from Arimathea laid Jesus' body in his tomb and rolled a large stone against the entrance of the tomb, did the women then leave the place to buy spices and perfumes that they would apply to Jesus' body.
On the first day of the week, at early dawn, they came to the tomb. But they found the stone rolled away from the tomb. And when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. Mary Magdalene went to Peter and John and told these things to them. Some of Jesus' disciples ran to the tomb and also found that Jesus' body had disappeared.
Mary Magdalene followed Peter and John. She couldn't leave the tomb even after the disciples were gone. She kept crying and crying in despair before the tomb. At the moment, the resurrected Lord appeared before Mary. However, she wasn't able to recognize Him and thought He was a gardener.
She came to recognize Him when the Lord said to her, "Mary!" She came close to Him with joy. But He told her to stop clinging to Him, for He had not yet ascended to the Father. This is because He had to see Father God who governs all the process of human cultivation and put on the glory of God first.
Why did the resurrected Lord appear before Mary Magdalene first? This is because Mary's love for the Lord and her heart of goodness were exceedingly great. Jesus' disciples hid themselves out of fear for the moment while Mary wouldn't even spare her own life for Jesus. She would even have taken the cross of Jesus on behalf of Him with no hesitation if it had been possible. The Lord asked Mary to let His disciples know about His resurrection and urged her to live as His witness until the appointed time came. He promised to meet her again soon.
* Mary Magdalene, the woman who was first to meet the resurrected Lord
The Lord who appeared before His disciples with the resurrected body
Jesus' disciples were afraid of what kind of reaction the Jews would show concerning the disappearance of Jesus' body. So, they hid themselves in Jerusalem behind firmly closed windows and doors not to be spotted by the Jews. Then, the Lord appeared before them and said, "See My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself; touch Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have" (Luke 24:39).
His disciples came close to Him and saw His hands and feet that had the imprint of nails and His side that had the imprint of spear. They found that He was the Lord who was crucified and resurrected.
The resurrected body is a combination of spirit, soul, and spiritual body. The body is visible and touchable, but it is totally different from our body that we have now. Those in the resurrected body cannot only breathe and eat, but they can also go and come freely with no limit of time, space, and material on the earth. A locked door or hardened wall is not a problem. They are no obstruction to them. Regardless of sex and age at death, the resurrected body appears to be that of a 33-year-old like the resurrected Lord. Yet, one person can still recognize another.
The resurrected Lord appeared before His disciples for the third time. Then, the Lord gave bread and fish to His disciples who had worked hard to catch fish all night.
The resurrected body dissolves food and it comes out of the body through respiration. We will live in the resurrected body during the Millennium Kingdom. After the Great White Throne Judgment, we will put on the perfect spiritual body called 'heavenly body' and live in the heavenly kingdom. While we were living in the heavenly body, we will drink the water of life and eat various kinds of fruit. We will also enjoy their fragrances. Of course, we can survive in Heaven without eating, but when we smell fruit in Heaven, the fragrance will waft into our body and give us fullness.
The Lord helped His disciples have faith and fulfill their future duties by showing what the resurrected body is like. He also let them feel the love, mercy, and warm heart of the Lord by showing them His humanity as well as divinity. He let them be embraced in the Lord's arms.
* The ascension of the Lord and another Helper
The resurrected Lord appeared before His disciples for 40 days and spoke of the things concerning the kingdom of God. Before He ascended into Heaven, at Mount Olives, He gave some commands to His disciples (Acts 1:4-5; Mark 16:15-18; Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). He told them to receive the Holy Spirit and lived a life as His witness. After His final command, He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. He parted from them and was carried up into Heaven (Luke 24:50-51).
The disciples who witnessed the ascension of the Lord returned to Jerusalem with great joy and prayed earnestly waiting for the Holy Spirit who He promised to send. On the day of Pentecost, they prayed together as usual. And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. The disciples who received the power of the Holy Spirit became the witnesses of the Lord in every corner of the earth.
The works of the Holy Spirit have been unfolding through the Lord's witnesses who received the power of the Holy Spirit. His works even become more powerful at this end time. What's clear and definite is that the ascended Lord will come again.
Therefore we have to be prepared for the Lord's second coming by living a life as His witnesses just as Jesus urged us, following His footsteps, and preserving ourselves as His pure and holy brides.
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