The whole purpose of our bodies is so that we can experience the physical world and come to know and love our Creator. We will loose our bodies, but this won’t cause us frustration or suffering because the telos of our bodies will be more perfectly fulfilled in the direct union of our minds with God. However, after the resurrection, our blessedness will be experienced in more ways because the perfection of our intellects will overflow into our bodies.

This is, at least, my take on the matter.

Would it be appropriate to say that Christ suffered in the time between his resurrection and ascension?

Would it be appropriate to say that Christ suffers (in some sense) even now since his bride is not yet perfected? At the death of Lazarus Jesus was grieved at the impact of the curse upon mankind and upon the creation. Until the second coming death and decay are still present in creation and the final ultimate vindication of Christ’s people has not been publically declared.

Could prelapsarian Adam and Eve be said to have suffered because their final eschatalogical goal still lay in front of them? Adam and Eve were not subject to sin, death and curse in any way. Separation of the body from the soul in the intermediate state are still a consequence of death/curse.

Would not be Romains 8 pointing to that ? If we are now suffering, as the whole creation, with Christ because we are not yet in the consommation, does it not force us to see the intermediate state as a state where we continue to suffer in the same way ?

Around me, they are several suicides the last years, some where believers, one was the pastor of a friend of mine. He had four children. A friend of my wife had written a letter where she said that her wonderful family is not the cause of her suicide, she had enough and wanted to be with her lord to be relief.

I wonder our continually putting the accent on the “way to go to heaven” instead of the resurrection is not one of cause of this suicides…

All my questions in this post are not rethorical but real questions and very practical ones.

Thanks for all the great contents you put on the web. I’m very grateful for this, in France and in French is very difficult to have regurlary such good things.

Greetings,

Emmanuel

I think your topic is a good one. It maybe that we can argue from Romans 8:22, that the departed saints are still part of the ‘whole creation’ that is groaning? But even if that is a stretch, Paul makes it clear in 1 Cor 15; 2 Cor 5; and Philippians 3:21 – that the resurrection “BODY” is a crucial part of our glorification. Saints who are with the Lord now, are waiting for that fulfillment of their glorification – so they have not come to the consummation of their personal salvation. However, that may not be concluded as ‘suffering’. But if we think about ‘corporate’ eschatology, the believers stake in the perfecting of the Church and the consummation of Christ’s glory by judging the creation – then how could it not be a type of suffering? Indeed, the desire to cry out, ‘how long O lord!’ would only increase as we see so much more clearly what is left to be done.

Peter, that is an excellent point. But for the sake of discussion, Revelation 6:9-11 depicts the souls of those who had been slain crying out for judgment. This seems to indicate that they are not entirely satisfied in the present circumstances.

When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the witness they had borne. They cried out with a loud voice, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you will judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?” Then they were each given a white robe and told to rest a little longer, until the number of their fellow servants and their brothers should be complete, who were to be killed as they themselves had been.