psalm97vs6

The psalmist pauses as he continues to look for words to tell us about his God. He has just written about the clouds and darkness that surround him, the righteousness and justice that characterise his rule, the fires of judgement that say to the world of anarchy ‘that’s enough,’ and the lightning and the volcanic eruptions that speak of his power. But now as he stands in awe looking up into the heavens, he is lost for words. What can he say of the Lord who has created those heavens? As he looks up into the sky, in the quietness of his thoughts, he hears what the heavens are trying to tell him …

What exactly is it that the heavens are saying? English speakers usually associate the word righteousness with the words goodness or morality. And so we wonder how the heavens can be telling us that God is righteous. It is of course true, as other psalmists have said, that “The Lord is good.”[1] But is it only his goodness that the heavens are declaring to us?

It may help if we take a moment to look at the Hebrew word the psalmist used. The word is tsedeq. It is one of a cluster of four Hebrew words translated ‘righteousness’ in the Scriptures. All four words are derived from the same Hebrew word. They are connected in their meanings but each has a different focus. One of these words, tsedaqah focuses on qualities like honesty, or doing good. Another, tsadeq, is a verb form of the word that focusses on being just or righteous, while the focus of another, tsaddiq is on being just or righteous. Linguists tell us that the taking of what technically is called a ‘morpheme’ to or from a word alters the focus, thus giving us a different but related meaning to the other forms of the word. You can see some of these morpheme changes occurring, associated with the changes in the word endings, in the four words we are looking at.

Now back to the form of the word the psalmist uses to tell us what the heavens are saying to us, tsedeq. A Hebrew dictionary tells us that this word conveys the notion of rightness, of correctness, about a person’s actions. The word also has in its components of meaning the sense of something being done with accuracy, with precision. Job uses the word with this meaning when he says of the Lord, “If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hastened after deceit, let him weigh me with accurate (tsedeq) scales.”[2]

Let’s try and put some of this aspect of the meaning into the psalmist’s words, an amplified version if you will allow me the liberty ...

The heavens declare the rightness of all he does—his exact positioning of the planets and stars, the accuracy and preciseness of his measurements in determining and maintaining their distance from each other, the splendor of their creation reflecting his glory for all to see.

I woke up early one morning this week and drew back the curtains in the living room of our unit on the edge of a picturesque conservation park in the Adelaide Hills. Looking out across the deep tree filled go

rge, and over the ridge of hills towards the east, I called out to my wife, “Come and look at this. Wow! The sun hasn’t moved a millimeter since yesterday. The planet on which we live has turned on its axis at exactly the right speed to position us in the light of the sun for another day as we move out of the darkness, and at the same time our planet has continued to move at exactly the right rate in its year long orbit around the sun to give us our seasons of the year! Wow! If the sun had moved just a fraction or the earth altered its rotation or orbital speed, our situation would be somewhat catastrophic, to say the least. The heavens are telling us that the Lord is doing everything just right, the universe of which our planet is part is held in his hands, perfectly balanced and controlled.”

This word from the heavens also has something to say about the way our lives are unfolding each day. Because our world is held securely in God’s hands, we can rest assured that every day of our lives is also safe there. With a careful selection of words in giving us his rendering of this Scripture, Eugene Peterson retains the original sense but moves on to draw our attention to its application for us right now, that the Lord does exactly what is right for us. Peterson offers this thoughtful translation …

The heavens announce that he’ll set everything right, and everyone will see it happen—glorious. (Psalm 97:6 The Message)

David writes of his assurance that God is doing everything just right in his life. He understands that what the heavens are saying has relevance for him. He knows that the Lord only does what is best for him …

The LORD says, “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you. Do not be like a senseless horse or mule that needs a bit and bridle to keep it under control.”

Many sorrows come to the wicked, but unfailing love surrounds those who trust the LORD. So rejoice in the LORD and be glad, all of you who obey him! Shout for joy, all you whose hearts are pure! Psalm 32:8-11)

After thinking about this word from the heavens, we may now be wondering if there is anything else they have to say. Turning again to the Scriptures we soon find that the heavens do have many things to tell us. We read for example, of …

It is God who sits above the circle of the earth. The people below may seem to him like grasshoppers! He is the one who spreads out the heavens like a curtain and makes his tent from them, He judges the great people of the world and brings them to nothing. They hardly get started, barely taking root, when he blows on them and their work withers. The wind carries them off like straw.

Look up into the heavens. Who created all the stars? He brings them out one after another, calling each by its name. And he counts them to see that none are lost or have strayed away. (Isaiah 40:22-26)

It’s worth not

ing that the form of the Hebrew verb in the phrase ‘spreads out the heavens’ is in the present continuous sense, telling us that the creation in the heavens is still going on. This statement matches the expanding universe concept of twentieth century astrophysics. It tells us something about the infinite vastness of our universe and those beyond it. The reference also shows us that when the biblical record touches on something related to science it is always correct. This is also evident in the reference to God as sitting ‘above the circle of the earth.’ When people thought that the earth was flat, and when the Catholic church condemned as heretics any who suggested it may be round, the Scriptures were scientifically correct in referring to ‘the circle of the earth.’ Likewise, whenever the biblical record brushes against some factor relating to history, geography, philosophy, culture, archaeology, the Scriptures concerned are always correct. But we digress. What does all this mean for us in our one small corner of a tiny planet in just one of many universes?

It follows that if the expansion going on in the heavens is infinite, then our creator God is also infinite. The Scriptures tell us that he is infinite in his person, in all his attributes, his understanding, goodness, love, grace and his power, to mention just a some. He is not limited in what he can do. This is why Paul was able to encourage his Christian friends in Ephesus with these words …

May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope. (Ephesians 3:17b-20)

Because it is infinite, Paul couldn’t really put a precise measurement on God’s love. All he could do was talk about it in terms of measurement as we understand it, but it does look as though he is thinking infinite rather than measureable distance. Whatever the trouble or how difficult or big the problem we may be facing just now, the Lord is there to help us through. There’s an old chorus that we used to sing as young people …

Because our God is infinite in his love and in his power, he is not limited in what he wants to do for us and what he is able to do for us. He can do what we cannot do, and ‘infinitely more.’ This is why Peter says to us …

Give all your worries and cares to God, for he cares about what happens to you. (1 Peter 5:7)

On a wall in my study hangs a poster. A traveler is camped by the wayside. He is sitting comfortably on his swag, a contented smile on his face. He is watching the billy coming to the boil over the campfire. As he anticipates that warming cup of tea, he prays …

In sitting down to write yet another song for use in the worship services, it seems that David may well have been listening and looking around him for inspiration. As he looks into the heavens he hears what they are saying to him. In the first stanza of his song he writes …

How are we to understand what is meant when David tells us in the opening lines of his song that ‘the heavens tell of the glory of God?’ The Hebrew word he uses, translated ‘glory,’ is kabod, meaning in its primary sense, ‘heaviness.’ This word is derived from the verb kabed ‘to be heavy.’ Using our English word heavy in a metaphorical sense, we can say that the word from the heavens tells us that God is heavy in splendor and honor. He cannot be outweighed in his magnificence and brilliance, his majesty, his grandeur, and his greatness.

Macquarie Dictionary gives us thirty one situations in which English speakers use the word ‘heavy.’ In phrases like these for example—‘a heavy load, heavy taxes, a heavy style, a heavy smoker, a heavy heart, a heavy task, a heavy heart.’ In each situation the word is referring to something that is way in excess of anything to which it may be compared. The picture of God’s majesty and grandeur created by the word kabod ‘heaviness,’ tells us that he is incomparable, there is no one to match him in all his glorious attributes. And his glory, continues David, is there for all to see in the heavens, for “The skies display his marvelous craftsmanship.” Heavy, we might say, with his creative genius.

Among the components of meaning for kabod we also find the idea of abundance, of richness. This brings us to look for ways in which the Lord is abundant, or rich towards us. So let’s go exploring in the Scriptures. We soon discover that the Lord is heavy, abundant, rich in …

The Hebrew words chesed and racham share components in their meaning, so that we have the various English translations, ‘loving kindness, unfailing love, mercy.’ The words express God’s attitude to us when he offers us mercy instead of the punishment we deserve. He can show mercy because Christ has borne that punishment for us. Some seven hundred years before his coming, Isaiah described Messiah’s sacrificial death, the sinless one taking the place of sinful humankind, …

The fact is, it was our pains he carried—our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins! He took the punishment, and that made us whole. Through his bruises we get healed.

We’re all like sheep who have wandered off and gotten lost. We’ve all done our own thing, gone our own way. And God has piled all our sins, everything we’ve done wrong, on him, on him …

He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many, he took up the cause of all the black sheep. (Isaiah 53:4-6, 12b. The Message)

In many of his psalms David writes of how he asked for, and was a recipient of, God’s unfailing love. For example …

Be merciful, O LORD, for I am calling on you constantly. Give me happiness, O LORD, for my life depends on you. O L

ORD, you are so good, so ready to forgive, so full of unfailing love for all who ask your aid. Listen closely to my prayer O LORD, hear my urgent cry. I will call to you whenever trouble strikes, and you will answer me.

Nowhere among the pagan gods is there a god like you O LORD. There are no other miracles like yours …

But you O LORD are a merciful and gracious God, slow to get angry, full of unfailing love and truth. Look down and have mercy on me. Give strength to your servant. Yes, save me, for I am your servant. (Psalm 86:3-7, 15-16)

Yes, the Lord is heavy, rich in mercy, unfailing love, loving kindness. Paul writes of it this way to God’s people in Ephesus.

Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.

So we praise God for the wonderful kindness he has poured out on us because we belong to his dearly loved Son. He is so rich in kindness that he purchased our freedom through the blood of his Son, and our sins are forgiven. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding …

We were born with an evil nature, and we were under God’s anger just like everyone else.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so very much, that even while we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s special favor that you have been saved.) For he raised us from the dead along with Christ, and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms—all because we are one with Christ Jesus. And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus. (Ephesians 1:4-8, 3b-7)

In another of his psalms David offers praise to the Lord for his unfailing love and care …

Your unfailing love, O LORD, is as vast as the heavens, your faithfulness reaches beyond the clouds.

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the ocean depths.

You feed them from the abundance of your own house, letting them drink from your rivers of delight.

All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. (1 Peter 1:3-4)

When scrolling though the Scriptures it is interesting to note how often that God’s mercy and truth are spoken of together. For example, David tells us that when God speaks, “Unfailing love and truth have met together.”[3] We notice it again in the affirmation given to Moses when the Lord met with him on Mt Sinai.

Then the LORD descended in the form of a pillar of cloud and stood there with him, and passed in front of him, and announced the meaning of his name. “I am Jehovah, the merciful and gracious God,” he said, “slow to anger and rich in steadfast love and truth.” I, Jehovah, show this steadfast love to many thousands by forgiving their sins.” (Exodus 34:5-7a. The Living Bible)

John attributes the same glory, the same heaviness, richness, abundance, in mercy and truth to Christ when he writes of him …

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

John’s intriguing reference is understandable when we remember that Jesus is God with us in human form. John makes this clear in the opening paragraph of his book when he writes, “In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God.”[4] Matthew tells us that Joseph, extremely worried about the nature of Mary’s pregnancy, was also given this information when the angel of the Lord reminded him of Isaiah’s prediction regarding the coming of the Messiah. “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and he will be called Immanuel, meaning God is with us.”[5]

Jesus confirmed John’s statement about him when answering Thomas’ question “How can we know the way?” …

Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had known who I am, then you would have known who my Father is. From now on you know him and have seen him!”

Jesus replied, “Philip , don’t you even yet know who am, even after all the time I have been with you? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father! So why are you asking to see him? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words I say are not my own, but my Father who lives in me does his work though me. Just believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. Or at least believe because of what you have seen me do. (John 14:5b-11)

God’s glory is shown to us in Christ who is “the exact representation of his being."[6]

And as we continue to explore the Scriptures searching for ways in which the Lord is abundant, or rich towards us, we find reference after reference, so many that we come to think that his ways of showing his abundance are infinite. Here are some of them. The Lord is abundant, rich—in the redemption he has provided[7], his goodness[8], his strength[9], the provision for our needs[10], in giving of himself to us in the person of the Holy Spirit.[11] This should not surprise us for God himself is infinite in his being. He and his ways with us are infinite, reminding us again that “he is able to accomplish infinitely more than we would ever dare to ask or hope.”[12]

The abundance, the richness, the fullness, that is in the character of God, is also in Christ because he is God. And the amazing thing is that he imparts fullness to us. No longer the emptiness that is there when we do not know him nor the emptiness offered to us by human wisdom, but fullness. This is what Jesus promised when he said, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness.”[13] Paul wrote of this abundance …

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority. (Colossians 2:8-10 NIV)

So far we have discovered that the heavens are telling us how God does everything just right for us. They declare to us the infinite vastness of creation, and the splendor of his glory. But there’s more, much much more. One of the psalmists for example, implies how the heavens speak to him of …

The psalmist made a list of all the things we ought to be thankful for. Among them was the skillfulness in their creation that the heavens speak to us of …

Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good! … To him who made the heavens with skill … To him who spread out the earth above the waters … To him who made the great lights … The sun to rule by day … The moon and stars to rule by night, for his loving kindness is everlasting. (Psalm 136:1, 5-9)

David acknowledges the hands of a skilled craftsman in his making, as he talks over his problems with his God one day.

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—and how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. (Psalm 139:13-15)

David draws two word pictures here to show us how skilful is the creator in putting us together. The first is that of a person

working at the weaver’s loom. The weaver is bringing the threads together, the cross ways threads interlocking perfectly with the vertical ones. The second is that of an embroiderer, painstakingly stitching in the various colored threads to create the desired pattern. Each thread has its own part to play but cannot create the pattern by itself. The person at the loom or the one doing the embroidering on the cloth, draws the separate threads together to produce one living picture.

And so it is, David says, that the weaver and embroiderer extraordinaire, his awesome creator God, has put together the body he lives in. Each complex part has its own distinctiveness, but all working together to hold the body together. The result is a picture of great beauty, showing to us the amazing, the awe inspiring skillfulness of the artist.

Working with the same exquisite skill as in his creation of the intricate structures of the human body and in fact all of the creation around us, God is at work in our lives. It was the psalmist Asaph who wrote of the skillfulness God exercises in caring for his people …

He cared for them with a true heart and led them with skilful hands. (Psalm 78:72)

Another psalmist expresses confidence, in his song of thanksgiving, that everything the Lord does is done well.

Praise the LORD! I will thank the LORD with all my heart as I meet with his godly people. How amazing are the deeds of the LORD! All who delight in him should ponder them.

Everything he does reveals his glory and majesty. His righteousness never fails. Who can forget the wonders he performs? How gracious and merciful is our LORD!

He gives food to those who trust him. He always remembers his covenant. He has shown his great power to his people by giving them the lands of other nations.

All he does is just and good, and all his commandments are trustworthy. They are forever true, to be obeyed faithfully and with integrity.

He has paid a full ransom for his people. He has guaranteed his covenant with them forever. What a holy, awe-inspiring name he has!

Reverence for the LORD is the foundation of true wisdom. The rewards of wisdom come to all who obey him.

When David looked up into the heavens and saw the order that reigned there, the fixed position of the stars and planets in their relationship to each other, he wanted everyone to hear what the heavens were saying. He calls on people everywhere to listen ….

Great is the LORD! He is most worthy of praise! He is to be revered above all gods. The gods of other nations are merely idols, but the LORD made the heavens! Honor and majesty surround him, strength and beauty are in his dwelling.

O nations of the world, recognize the LORD, recognize that the LORD is glorious and strong. Give to the LORD the glory he deserves! Bring your offering and come to worship him. Worship the LORD in all his holy splendor. Let all the earth tremble before him. The world is firmly established and cannot be shaken.

Let the heavens be glad and let the earth rejoice! Tell the nations that the LORD is king.

About world rulers, who think that they are the ones in charge, one of Israel’s psalmists writes prayerfully …

Let them be ashamed and terrified forever. Make them failures in everything they do, until they learn that you alone are called the LORD, that you alone are the Most High, supreme over all the earth. (Psalm 83:17-18)

As John was completing the baptism Jesus asked for, Matthew tells us of the voice he heard from within the heavens …

Then Jesus went from Galilee to the Jordan River to be baptized by John. But John didn’t want to baptize him. “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you,” he said, “so why are you coming to me?”

But Jesus said, “It must be done, because we must do everything that is right.” So then John baptized him.

After his baptism, as Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and settling on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, and I am fully pleased with him.” (Matthew 3:13-16)

There are many scenes described in the Hebrew Scriptures, those we now refer to as the Old Testament, that have in them a picture of the Messiah. Some are found in historical events, such as in Abraham being willing to offer up his son Isaac.[14] Other pictures are found in scenes drawn in the mind of a person while sleeping. Jacob had one such experience. As he slept one night he saw a stairway reaching from earth to heaven, with heavenly beings moving up and down it. He realized on waking that this stairway was none other than the way to heaven. Do we see a picture of Messiah in this scene? Is Christ the stairway? Here is the historical record …

Jacob left Beersheba and travelled towards Haran. At sundown he arrived at a good place to set up camp and stopped there for the night. Jacob found a stone for a pillow and lay down to sleep. As he slept, he dreamed of a stairway that reached from earth to heaven. And he saw the angels of God going up and down on it.

At the top of the stairway stood the LORD, and he said, “I am the LORD, the God of your grandfather Abraham and the God of your father Isaac … Jacob woke up and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place, and I wasn’t even aware of it.” He was afraid and said, “What an awesome place this is! It is none other than the house of God—the gateway to heaven!” The next morning he got up very early. He took the stone he had used as a pillow and set it upright as a memorial pillar. Then he poured olive oil over it. He named the place Bethel—‘house of God’—though the name of the nearby village was Luz. (Genesis 28:10-13a, 16-19)

Now back to our question. Is Christ the stairway from earth to heaven? Many years after the revelation given to Jacob, Nathanael of Bethsaida may have been pondering this very question. There was talk going around the town about someone who even some of his friends were saying was the Messiah. Philip was one who was convinced that Jesus was the long awaited Messiah and took Nathanael to meet him. It was during his conversation with Jesus that Nathanael came to a partial understanding of who Jesus was. This can be seen when he said to Jesus, “Teacher, you are the Son of God—the King of Israel.”[15]At this stage of his understanding Nathanael was only thinking of the prophetic references to the coming Messiah as King. He had overlooked the prophetic references to the suffering Messiah, to the fact that before his coming as King he would first come as Saviour, “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”[16] He was only seeing Jesus as the king who would restore the Davidic kingdom of Israel.

But it was then that Jesus gave Nathanael the opportunity to see him as the stairway that would give him access to heaven, as he made direct reference to the stairway in Jacob’s dream. But instead of ‘stairway,’ Jesus substituted one of the titles he used to refer to himself when he said to Nathanael …

“The truth is, you will all see the heavens open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man. (John 1:51)

In his magnificent commentary on the book of Genesis, Henry Morris[17] writes …

There is not, of course, a literal staircase to heaven on which angels ascend and descend. This was only a dream, but it was a dream symbolizing a marvelous reality. Though earth is surely separated by a vast, seemingly impassable gulf of space from the heaven of God’s presence signifying man’s separation from God’s holiness, a bridge has been built to bridge the gulf. That magnificent ladder could only be built by God himself. As a matter of fact, it is God himself …

Jesus made the tremendous claim and promise, referring to Jacob’s dream: “The truth is, you will all see the heavens open and the angels of God going up and down on the Son of Man.”[18] In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ claimed that he himself was Jacob’s ladder, the one means by which one could go from earth to heaven. He is the Way, He is the one Mediator, between man and God … He is none other than God, the Creator, the Sustainer, and the Redeemer of all things.

Where are we now then, in exploring our topic ‘A Word From The Heavens’? We have heard the heavens telling us that God does everything just right for us, they declare to us the infinite vastness of creation, the splendor of his glory, his skillfulness in everything he does, the supremacy of the Lord, and the confirmation of Jesus as Messiah.

But wait! There’s more! Something more that we are to hear from the heavens. And not only hear about but to see happening. And not only to hear and to see but to be a part of! Be listening for …

The sounding of the ram’s horn[19] was associated with significant events in the life of the people of Israel. For example, when God met with Moses on Mt Sinai …

On the morning of the third day, there was a powerful thunder and lightning storm, and a dense cloud came down upon the mountain. There was a long, loud blast from a ram’s horn, and all the people trembled. Moses led them out from the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. All Mount Sinai was covered with smoke because the LORD had descended on it in the form of fire. The smoke billowed into the sky like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain shook with a violent earthquake. As the horn blast grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God thundered his reply for all to hear …

When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the horn, and when they saw the lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear. (Exodus 19:16-19, 20:18)

That then was the scene as the people were put under law. It was not long before …

The purpose of the law was to act as a standard against which conduct could be measured. As people soon discovered, there was no way in which they could measure up. There would have to be another way, for the law would show, as Paul later wrote, “All have sinned. All fall short of God’s glorious standard.”[20] Paul writes of that other way as he continues his letter, the way that puts us under grace not law …

Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins. For God sent Jesus to take the punishment for our sins and to satisfy God’s anger against us. We are made right with God when we believe that Jesus shed his blood, sacrificing his life for us. (Romans 3:24-25a)

It was a voice from within the heavens, a voice like the sounding of a trumpet, that summoned John to a viewing of future events and to a hearing of a song that spoke of those who were continuously being added to the number of people accepting this new way of salvation.

Then as I looked, I saw a door standing open in heaven, and the same voice I had heard before spoke to me with the sound of a mighty trumpet blast. The voice said, “Come up here and I will show you …

I looked and I saw a Lamb that had been killed but was now standing between the throne and the four living beings and among the twenty four elders …

Now we must go back a step to hear the sounding of the trumpet in the heavens to announce …

Jesus took every opportunity in the days prior to his death, to make his disciples and those who would follow after them, aware of what would be happening in the world prior to his return. In the course of his teaching during those days, he left this assurance for all who would accept the salvation he was about to purchase for them. They are to be listening for the the sound of the trumpet …

And then at last, the sign of the coming of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens, and there will be deep mourning among the nations of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man arrive on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send forth his angels with the sound of a mighty trumpet blast, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the farthest ends of the earth and heaven. (Matthew 24:30-31)

Paul explains in several of his letters how this gathering together of believers from both earth and heaven will take place. Notice his use of the euphemism ‘fallen asleep’ for those who ‘have already died,’ in the first part of this statement in a letter to church members in Thessalonica …

Brothers, we do not want you to be ignorant about those who fall asleep, or to grieve like the rest of men who have no hope. We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.

For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. Therefore encourage each other with these words. (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 NIV)

We now learn from another of Paul’s letters that those of us who may be alive at the time of the Lord’s coming will receive our new heavenly bodies as we are taken up to meet those who received their new heavenly bodies at the moment of their death and are now with the Lord as he returns.

Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. Every human being has an earthly body just like Adam’s, but our heavenly bodies will be just like Christ’s. Just as we are now like Adam, the man of the earth, so we will someday be like Christ, the man from heaven.

What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters is that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These perishable bodies of ours are not able to live forever.

But let me tell you a wonderful secret God has revealed to us. Not all of us will die, but we will be transformed. It will happen in a moment, in the blinking of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, the Christians who have died will be raised with transformed bodies. And then we who are living will be transformed so that we will never die. (1 Corinthians 15:47-53)

Putting those two complementary descriptions together we learn that Christians, in their new heavenly bodies, will have taken on, as in resurrection, the personal identifying characteristics of their old earthly bodies, so that they will know each other again, “for we will not be spirits without bodies.”[21]

And so it will be, when Christ returns—God’s people, from every tribe and language and people and nation, those still alive on planet earth and those coming with him, gathered together as one, to be with him and reign with him forever.

[1] See Psalm 100 for example.
[2] Job 31:5-6a. (NASB)
[3] Refer to Psalm 85:10a.
[4] John 1:1.
[5] Compare Isaiah 7:14 and Matthew 1:23.
[6] Look at this phrase in the context of Hebrews 1:1-3.
[7] Psalm 130:7.
[8] Psalm 145:7.
[9] Psalm 147:5.
[10] Psalm 65:10.
[11] Titus 3:6.
[12] Ephesians 3:20b.
[13] John 10:10.
[14] This historic story is told in Genesis 24:1-19.
[15] John 1:49.
[16] John 1:29.
[17] Morris, Henry. THE GENESIS RECORD. Michigan: Baker Book House. 1976. p. 449.
[18] John 1:51.
[19] The ram’s horn had the same cultural significance for the people of Israel as the conch shell in some of the islands of the Pacific and the trumpet in many western cultures. Trumpet is therefore an acceptable translation in many English translations of the Bible.
[20] Refer to Romans 3:23.
[21] 2 Corinthians 5:3a.