The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob

“He is not the God of the dead but of the living, because all are living to Him.” – Luke 20:38

Did you ever read something in the Bible and think, “How did that get in there?” I’ve read the Bible through many times in my life and it still happens. It happened when I read this yesterday. I had to go back to my old KJV and check to make sure it was there. It is. I also went to Wuest’s translation which sounds like Yoda might have said it:

“Now God He is, not of dead people but of those who are alive, for all live with respect to Him.”

MacDonald says it like this in What’s Mine is Mine:

The brothers believed most devoutly that the God who is present at the death-bed of the sparrow does not forget the sparrow when he is dead; for they had been taught that he is an unchanging God; "and," argued Ian, "what God remembers, he thinks of, and what he thinks of, IS."

I suppose the quickening of that particular verse is related to my father’s passing. This is the Holy Spirit coming along with a subtle sprinkle of reassurance and comfort.

Even a heathen like Robert Heinlein believed something similar. If you read Farnham’s Freehold -- not an RAH novel I recommend – he expresses the idea that those who have died are alive as they were in the past.

Jesus goes beyond that, assuring us that those we think of as dead are fully alive to God in the present. God knows no past or future, except as He relates to us. He dwells in the eternal unchanging now, and so shall we. The passing joys of this life will be translated into perfected, eternal joy while the sorrows and suffering will fall away like the husk on the grain, or perhaps will become as a salt or spice to enhance the joy further.

When I was a kid and had nothing better to do, I would take my rifle and go for a walk. An old two-rut excuse for a road led off a hillside and along a branch that was always dry unless it was raining. There wasn’t much space between the steep wooded hillsides, just enough for the branch and the road, so we never bothered to clean it out. It was a tree-lined tunnel, a tube of shade from May until October. After a few hundred yards, the bottom began to widen out. I would go over a little rise and come out from under the trees facing east into the morning sun above and the dew-jeweled grass below. No matter what else was going on in my life, I always felt an overwhelming peace viewing that scene. I feel it now as I see it again.

Somehow I connect that with heaven and eternity. Death is no more than passing through a shady holler with light and life waiting at the end. I’ll walk that road someday and it will be just as I remember, except when I top that little rise, Jesus will meet me there. We’ll talk for a while about one thing and another. I may shed a tear or two, but He will wipe them away. Then He’ll say, “Let’s go on down to the Old Spring. Some folks are waiting there to see you.”