Tal Brooke · Christian investigation · 1979
I recommend The Other Side of Death because it refuses to treat every extraordinary experience as self-authenticating. Brooke places popular claims about death, consciousness, spirit guides, reincarnation, and the afterl…
View recommendation →Not escape from the body, but its redemption
…ing something more like a ghost than a human being. Christians do have a real hope beyond death before the resurrection. Paul desired to depart and be with Christ, which he said was "far better" (Philippians 1:23). To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (2 Cori…
Read article →Brian E. Daley · Historical theology · 1991
…e Hope of the Early Church because it showed me how varied early Christian thinking about death and the world to come really was. Daley traces the development of the intermediate state, apokatastasis, resurrection, judgment, and the principal eschatological expectations without p…
View recommendation →Seeing God, bodily resurrection, and life in the renewed creation
…is a body fully animated and governed by the Spirit, no longer subject to corruption and death. The same chapter insists that what is sown is raised and transformed. The intermediate state—believers being with Christ between death and resurrection—is blessed (Philippians 1:23).…
Read article →Marvin W. Meyer · Historical sourcebook · 1987
…Greco-Roman world Paul's Gentile mission Ancient worship Initiation Sacrifice Life after death
View recommendation →The Messiah cut off before the Temple fell
…the Second Temple was destroyed, how can the Qur’an preserve His title while denying His death? The argument must be made carefully. Daniel is not named in the Qur’an. No surviving Dead Sea Scroll contains Daniel 9:26. The Hebrew word translated “Messiah” can describe more than…
Read article →Why the final seven is unfinished, future, and centred upon Israel and Jerusalem
…istological reading identifies "he" with Messiah. Christ confirms God's covenant, and His death renders the old sacrificial order obsolete. This rightly centres atonement upon Christ. It must still explain why the subject's activity is associated with abomination and desolation,…
Read article →Responding to five common criticisms without defending what Scripture does not require
…led through the apostles, but hidden does not mean unplanned (Ephesians 3:3–10). Christ's death occurred according to God's determinate counsel and foreknowledge (Acts 2:23). The Church is therefore neither an accident nor an interruption that caught God unprepared. The real dist…
Read article →What the historical evidence proves—and what it does not
…vers found alive in the flesh. The latter are transformed, put on immortality, and escape death itself. This is not pretribulational evidence. Tertullian's surrounding comments associate those believers with Antichrist's oppression. It is evidence for the complete event: resurrec…
Read article →The crucifixion in history, Scripture and the Qur'an
…history, Scripture and the Qur'an Christianity and Islam cannot both be correct about the death of Jesus. The Gospel declares that Jesus was crucified under Pontius Pilate, died, was buried and rose bodily from the dead. His death is not a peripheral detail which can be removed w…
Read article →Abraham, Lot, divine wrath, and a pattern that must be used carefully
…ed never results from His losing track of the righteous. Sometimes deliverance is through death, sometimes through endurance, and sometimes through removal. Noah was preserved through the Flood inside the ark. Lot was removed from the place of judgement. The forms differ; the mor…
Read article →The gathering of the elect, one taken and one left, and Paul's revealed mystery
…ught future resurrection. What Paul newly clarifies is that an entire company will bypass death, be instantaneously transformed, and join the resurrected saints. If Matthew 24 had already plainly taught the complete Pauline event and its timing, the force of Paul's announced myst…
Read article →The event is explicit; the real dispute is its timing
…nthians 15:51-52 "We shall not all sleep" means that not every believer will pass through death. Yet "we shall all be changed" means that every believer requires the same final bodily transformation. Those in the grave must be raised incorruptible. Those still living must put on…
Read article →The man of sin, the last trumpet, the first resurrection, and the last day
…tion. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power..." —Revelation 20:5-6 If the dead in Christ rose before the Tribulation, how can martyrs raised after it belong to the first resurrection? "First" cannot mean the first…
Read article →A history of interpretation, polemic, and forgotten tension
…esents Christ as the fulfilment of the Passover and contains powerful proclamation of His death and resurrection. It also addresses Israel collectively as the killer of the Lord. "I," says Israel, "killed the Lord." —Melito of Sardis, On Pascha The Passion narratives plainly iden…
Read article →Signs, expectancy, and the event the Church is told to await
…hurch is taught to live with an undated, direct expectation of Christ. What about Peter's death and the Great Commission? Imminency should not be overstated. Jesus foretold the manner of Peter's death (John 21:18-19). The gospel was to go to the nations. Paul knew at certain mome…
Read article →Testing Islam's evidence for divine revelation
…rmation alone. It rests upon who Christ is and what God did in public history through His death and resurrection. Experience must answer to truth. Truth cannot be inferred simply from the strength of experience. Do the arguments become stronger together? The informed Muslim may o…
Read article →The covenant son and the sacrifice that points to Christ
…rries a secret meaning. Scripture itself, however, interprets Isaac's deliverance through death and resurrection, identifies Christ as the promised Seed and presents Jesus as God's unique beloved Son and sacrificial Lamb. The cumulative pattern is extraordinary. The unique belove…
Read article →The question reaches beyond prophecy to the faithfulness of God
…ot second-class members of God's household. Every sinner is reconciled to God through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The question is whether this unity in salvation removes the distinctions which Scripture continues to make between Israel, the Gentiles, and the Churc…
Read article →What God's faithfulness to Israel means for everyone who trusts His promises
…(Romans 15:8). Christ confirms them by bearing sin, satisfying righteousness, conquering death, and accomplishing what neither Israel nor the nations could accomplish for themselves. He is the reason divine judgement does not have the final word over any redeemed people. Conside…
Read article →The peace Christ gives in a troubled world
…us avoid the questions we cannot answer. Its peace is finally powerless before guilt and death. The world may teach us to manage regret, but it cannot remove sin. It may postpone death, but it cannot defeat it. It cannot reconcile us to God. The world can offer peace when the th…
Read article →The divine identity of Jesus across the Gospels
…eived worship, claimed the heavenly throne and spoke of eternal glory is not abandoned to death. He rises, commissions the nations and continues to receive the honour given to God. John adds another distinctive element. Jesus says of His life: "I have power to lay it down, and I…
Read article →Sources behind Qur’anic narratives
…en the Qur’an contradicts the canonical Gospel on its central historical proclamation—the death and resurrection of Jesus—while incorporating memorable elements from legendary infancy and hagiographical traditions. The Qur’an rejects the cross preserved by the earliest witnesses.…
Read article →Which Gospel does the Qur'an affirm?
…material cannot simply be discarded. Jesus' authority, His unique Sonship, His predicted death, His saving purpose and His resurrection are embedded throughout the Gospel tradition. Selection by agreement is not recovery. It is manufacture. Did Jesus preach a different gospel fr…
Read article →Christianity, Islam and the verdict of the evidence
…odily from the dead. Islam has no resurrection of Jesus from a tomb because it denies the death which preceded it. Christianity says that the one God eternally exists as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Islam treats that confession as an assault upon divine unity. Christianity says th…
Read article →What mercy, holiness and the cross reveal about God
…ied for us" (Romans 5:8). "For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life" (Romans 5:10). Without strength. Ungodly. Sinners. Enemies. Paul removes every suggestion that Christ's death is…
Read article →The wicked husbandmen, the fruit-bearing nation, and what Jesus said afterwards
…. Matthew 21 is therefore a declaration of judgement, but not a certificate of covenantal death. The rejected stone became the head of the corner, and in Him both the Church's present inheritance and Israel's future kingdom remain secure. References for further review Isaiah 5:1-…
Read article →Earth-dwellers, heaven-dwellers, and the literary structure of the Apocalypse
…"them that dwell on the earth" with striking consistency. Earth-dwellers rejoice over the death of God's witnesses, worship the beast, receive deception, and become the objects of the coming test and judgement (Revelation 3:10; 6:10; 8:13; 11:10; 13:8, 12, 14; 17:2, 8). The phras…
Read article →Labour, purpose, and faithfulness in a fallen world
…man beings from being embodied creatures with something worthwhile to do. He removes sin, death and futility, and brings His servants into a world where service is no longer frustrated by the curse. Work unto the Lord The biblical vision is not "live for work", nor is it "escape…
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