Easter: No ordinary afterlife

Photo by Bruno van der Kraan on Unsplash

Most people I know assume an afterlife. Heaven for the good folks. Hell for the bad folks. They assume that, when a person dies, her or his spirit drifts up to the “sweet by and by,” where they will lounge about in loose white robes and strum their harps forever.

This, however, is not a picture of the Christian afterlife.

The Christian afterlife, you see, is no ordinary afterlife.

In truth, there is no such thing as an afterlife in Christianity; there is only the resurrection life.

The central, defining essence of Christianity is not that people “die and go to heaven”; it is that God raises the dead.

Put another way: The promise of Christianity is that God will make all things new (Book of Revelation 21:5). Dead things. Lost things. Things that could have been (but never were).

There is a resurrection body (First Corinthians 15:35-58). There is a resurrection Earth (Revelation 21).

What is gone will come back. What is lost will be found.

What is dead will come back to life.

“See, I am making all things new.”

All things. Things in heaven. Things on Earth.

You. Me. All that we love and lost along the way.

When?

“Surely I am coming soon!” (Book of Revelation 22:20).

This is the Gospel.

Happy Easter.