Life After Death: The Resurrection and the Life Eternal
Subtitle: The King and The Keys
Scriptures: Matthew 28:18–20; Revelation 1:17–18; Psalm 115:17; Psalm 16:10; Psalm 49:15; Luke 23:43; Philippians 1:23; 2 Corinthians 5:4; Isaiah 3:10–11; Matthew 13:36–43; Galatians 6:7; John 5:24–29; Matthew 25:31–46; Romans 8:11, 23; John 17:1–3; 1 Corinthians 6:19–20.
We recently spoke about life before death as part of our series on death, resurrection, and our life in the renewed heaven and earth.
What do we believe about life after death? We live in a culture that treats death as the ultimate "full stop". We shield our eyes from the reality of the grave, treating it as a dark, unknown basement. But the Gospel begins with a staggering claim of ownership that transforms our fear into hope.
We spoke before about not just getting our "ticket to heaven", but truly living a life under the calling and authority of Christ the King. Jesus says to His disciples in Matthew 28—and by extension to all those who follow Him: "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age." — Matthew 28:18–20
Additionally, in Revelation 1:17–18, the glorified Jesus stands before John and declares: "Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and now look, I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades."
If Jesus holds the keys, then death is no longer a prison with a broken lock. It is a corridor under the absolute command of a King. Today, we look at what it means for that King to turn the keys—and why the "Life Eternal" He offers is not an escape from our bodies, but the redemption of them.
I. The Mystery of Sheol: The Prison Without a Key
To understand the power of the Keys, we must understand the place they unlock. In the Old Testament, the biblical writers spoke of Sheol. It was described as a "house of silence" (Psalm 115:17). To the ancient Israelite, Sheol was a shadowy "waiting room" deep in the earth where the dead were separated from the vibrant life of the Temple and the land of the living.
Even in the darkness of Sheol, a flicker of hope remained. The Psalmists did not believe God’s power stopped at the grave. In Psalm 16:10, David cries out: "For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption." This was not just a prayer for a long life; it was a prophetic longing. While everyone went to Sheol, the righteous believed God had the power to redeem them from its grasp (Psalm 49:15). For the Old Testament saint, Sheol was like a prison with locked gates. They died in faith, but they died waiting for someone to break those locks.
- The Waiting Room of the Dead: Sheol was the territory of death, the "Unseen Realm" where humans were separated from the land of the living. For centuries, it was a door that only opened one way: inward.
- The King’s Invasion: The miracle of the Gospel is that Jesus entered Sheol. But because He was the Holy One, Sheol could not hold Him (Psalm 16:10). When He walked out, He did not just escape as a "ghost"—He walked out in a transformed, physical body. He did not leave His humanity behind; He perfected it.
Jesus went into the "enemy's bunker" and plundered it. This is why He could tell the thief, "Today you will be with me in Paradise" (Luke 23:43). He was not taking him to a shadowy hole in the ground; He was bringing him into the "royal garden" of God's presence. Because of Christ, the "map" of the afterlife has been redrawn for the believer.
So, what changed? Apart from everything, we go from "Down" to "With": We no longer go "down to Sheol"; we depart to be "with Christ". Paul says in Philippians 1:23 that to die is to be "with Christ, which is far better." Paradise is a place of conscious rest and presence, but it is not the end. We are still waiting for the day the "last enemy" is destroyed and we receive our resurrected bodies. We no longer look at the grave as a silent prison. Because the King of Glory walked into the depths and came out with the keys, the shadowy realm has been flooded with light. For those in Christ, death is no longer a descent into the dark; it is a step into the garden to rest until the King returns to make all things new.
II. Against Dualism: The Hope is Not "Leaving the Body"
As I said before the end goal is not that we live eternally as spirits dwelling in heaven, separated from the "cage" of our humanness. If this were our belief, we would fall for a great lie that has crept into the church: the Greek philosophy of Dualism rather than the New Testament teaching of resurrected, immortal bodies. Dualism is the idea that the "soul" is good and the "body" is just a disposable cage. It suggests that the body is evil and unredeemable.
- The Biblical Truth: God created the world and called it "good". He created the body and called it "very good". The hope of the Gospel is not that we shed our bodies like an old coat, but that our bodies are clothed with immortality. “For indeed while we are in this tent, we groan, being burdened, because we do not want to be unclothed but to be clothed, so that what is mortal will be swallowed up by life.” 2 Corinthians 5:4
- The Physical Resurrection: When Jesus turns the keys, He is not letting spirits out of a cage; He is calling bodies out of the ground. John 5:28 says those in the graves—the physical places of rest—will hear His voice.
- The Redemption of Matter: God is not going to destroy the physical universe; He is going to fix it. Our hope is a renewed Earth, and we will need new bodies to live on it.
III. The End Time Harvest: The Seeds of the New Body
Jesus describes the end of the age as a harvest where the wheat and the tares are gathered. The Jews at the time of Christ believed in an end-time resurrection, apart from the Sadducees. This belief meant that while we suffered in this life, there was hope that God would sort out things in the end and living a devoted life here and now meant something for eternity. As it says in Isaiah 3:10–11: "Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done." (See also Luke 18:7–8, Psalm 37:6, Psalm 37:28, Psalm 103:6, Isaiah 3:10–11, Isaiah 61:8, Proverbs 21:15, Ecclesiastes 3:17, Acts 17:31, Romans 2:6, 2 Corinthians 5:10, 2 Thessalonians 1:6–7)
"His disciples came to Him and said, 'Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field.' And He said, 'The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels... Then the righteous will shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.'" — Matthew 13:36–43
The King turns the keys according to a "Harvest". As Paul tells us in Galatians 6:7, "A man reaps what he sows." Further it is by grace we have been saved through faith and that we are not saved by our works; we do good works because we are saved. (See Ephesians 2:8–9, Titus 3:5, Romans 3:23–24, Romans 11:6, Galatians 2:16, 2 Timothy 1:9)
IV. Resurrection to Life and to Judgment
In John 5, Jesus speaks of two resurrections and two consequences.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who hears My word, and believes Him who sent Me, has eternal life, and does not come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life... an hour is coming, in which all who are in the tombs will hear His voice, and will come forth; those who did the good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgment." — John 5:24–29
- The Resurrection of Judgment: Humans were made to reflect the image of God and worship Him alone. However, to reject the Source of Life is to undergo a "hollowing out". If we spend our lives using our bodies to serve false gods and idols, we arrive at the resurrection as a remnant—an "ex-human" who has lost the ability to reflect God’s glory. Our choices today shape the "vessel" we will be for eternity. (See 2 Timothy 2:20–21, 2 Corinthians 4:17, Matthew 6:19–20, 1 Corinthians 3:12–15, Galatians 6:7–8, Revelation 22:11–12)
- The Eternal Consequence: To reject an infinite God is to incur an infinite loss. This is the "Second Death"—a state of existence permanently cut off from the Source of Life. Rather than asking why a loving God sends people to eternal torment, we should ask: why would we want to spend eternity with God if we spent our lives rejecting Him? It is we who choose to spend eternity without Him. If we refuse His offer, God will not force us to spend eternity with Him. C S Lewis wrote in The Great Divorce "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'”
- The Resurrection of Life: For those in Christ, our physical bodies today are "seeds". When the King turns the keys, that seed sprouts into something glorious. Romans 8:11 promises that the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies. "The New Testament writers... believe that because [Christ] has risen we shall rise... (See 1 Corinthians 15:20–23, 1 Thessalonians 4:14, 2 Corinthians 4:14, John 14:19)
- The Resurrection is the first instance of a new mode of being... It is a new nature, a new kind of matter, which has appeared in the world. (See Romans 6:5, Philippians 3:20–21, 1 Corinthians 15:49, 1 John 3:2)
V. The Evidence of Life Eternal: The Sheep and the Goats
In Matthew 25, Jesus shows us that our physical actions matter.
"Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me. These will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." — Matthew 25:45–46
- The Holy Body: The "Sheep" fed the hungry and clothed the naked because they understood that the bodies of others were sacred. They treated physical needs as a spiritual priority.
- The Dualist Trap: The "Goats" may think spirituality is just "in the heart". They ignored physical suffering because they did not value the physical world. In the end, they find themselves excluded from the physical joy of the New Creation.
VI. The Great "Crossing Over": Eternal Life Starts Today
"Life Eternal" is not a prize you get after you die; it is a reality you enter now. As Jesus said "This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." — John 17:3
- The Present Tense: Jesus says in John 5:24 that whoever hears His word and believes "has crossed over from death to life."
- The Whole Person: If you have crossed over, your body belongs to the King. 1 Corinthians 6:19–20 says your body is a temple. We do not wait for the resurrection to start living for God; we start using our eyes, our hands, and our feet to serve Him today. (See also 1 Corinthians 3:16, 2 Corinthians 6:16, Romans 12:1)
- Furthermore if the body were just a "cage," God would not choose to live in it. By making our bodies His "Temple," the King has already moved into the house. The Resurrection is simply the day He finishes the renovations and makes the house immortal. Our "choices today" are either decorating that temple for its King or defiling it for an idol.
Conclusion: The Choice of the Ages
Church, the King is standing at the door of history. He holds the keys to your resurrection. If you are living for yourself, choosing idolatry instead of Christ, and treating the physical world as a playground, you are sowing a harvest of decay. But if you hear His voice today, you can "cross over". Trust in the King who entered Sheol and came out with the keys. Value the body. Serve the King in the face of suffering. Because the harvest is coming, the graves will open, and the King will make all things new.
Closing Prayer:
Lord Jesus, we thank You that You did not abandon the world You created. We thank You for the promise of a physical resurrection. Help us to reject the lie that this world does not matter. Give us grace to honour You with our bodies and to serve the physical needs of our neighbours, looking forward to the day when You turn the keys and lead us into the New Creation. Amen.
