Perhaps it has not caught your
attention, but did you know that the celebration of the Lord’s Supper will
cease? Do you not recall that in Communion we proclaim Christ’s death
“until He comes.” At the return of the Lord we shall have no need to meet
Him in the Lord’s Supper, for we shall know Him face to face. So when we
take Communion we are telling the world that we believe He will return.
Face to face means just that; the dead shall rise.
It is, on the face of it, rather
absurd. The dead shall rise? What makes you think such a thing
could be? Permit me three reasons:
First, the Old Testament prophets
who foretold the coming of Christ also proclaim the resurrection of the
dead. Consider first what might be the oldest book in the Bible, Job:
"As for me, I know that my
Redeemer lives, And at the last He will take His stand on the earth. "Even
after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself
shall behold, And whom my eyes will see and not another. My heart faints within
me!
(Job 19:25-27
NASB)
And this from the book of
Isaiah:
Your
dead will live; Their corpses will rise. You who lie in the dust, awake and
shout for joy, For your dew is as the dew of the dawn, And the earth will give birth to the
departed spirits.
(Isa 26:19 NASB)
Not enough? Consider God’s
justice. Do you think Adolf Hitler got what he deserved in this
life? Is it because God is not just? Never! Is it because God
is powerless? Absurd! Or is it simply that He is not finished with
us yet? The Day of Wrath approaches, and with it the resurrection of the
dead.
Finally, the greatest proof of
all. One man—one only—foretold His own death, burial and
resurrection. The Man who did it tells us that just as the Holy Spirit
raised Him from the dead, so shall the Spirit raise all mankind. The Man
Who has been to death and back says it will happen.
So as you take Communion today,
remember: as you do, you proclaim His death—until He comes again. Soon,
Lord Jesus, soon.