Back in 2004, I had the privilege of seeing the Christian band Mercy Me in concert. This is the band who wrote the greatest selling Christian song of all time, “I Can Only Imagine.” This song is so powerful that a movie was even made about it back in 2018 entitled by the same name. What makes the song so moving is how it ponders what that moment will be like for the believer who finally gets to one day see Jesus. Jesus kind of hinted at this when His disciple Thomas refused to believe that Jesus had actually risen from the dead, because Thomas had not yet actually seen Jesus with his own eyes…
John 20:24-29 (HCSB) – But one of the Twelve, Thomas (called “Twin”), was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples kept telling him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “If I don’t see the mark of the nails in His hands, put my finger into the mark of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will never believe!” After eight days His disciples were indoors again, and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them. He said, “Peace to you!” Then He said to Thomas, “Put your finger here and observe My hands. Reach out your hand and put it into My side. Don’t be an unbeliever, but a believer.” Thomas responded to Him, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus said, “Because you have seen Me, you have believed. Those who believe without seeing are blessed.”
Here are the lyrics to Mercy Me’s stirring tribute to what that great moment might be like when “Those who believe without seeing…” finally get to see:
I can only imagine
What it will be like
When I walk by Your side
I can only imagine
What my eyes would see
When Your face is before me
I can only imagine
Yeah
Surrounded by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for You Jesus
Or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in Your presence
Or to my knees, will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
When that day comes
And I find myself
Standing in the Son
I can only imagine
When all I will do
Is forever, forever worship You
I can only imagine, yeah
I can only imagine
Surrounded by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you Jesus
Or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in your presence
Or to my knees will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine, yeah
I can only imagine
Surrounded by Your glory
What will my heart feel?
Will I dance for you Jesus
Or in awe of You be still?
Will I stand in your presence
Or to my knees, will I fall?
Will I sing hallelujah?
Will I be able to speak at all?
I can only imagine, yeah
I can only imagine
I can only imagine, yeah-yeah
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
I can only imagine
When all I will do
Is forever, forever worship You
I can only imagine
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Bart Millard
This leads to a question…
When do “Those who believe without seeing…” finally get to see Jesus?
Throughout my Christian walk I have been given the impression from the church circles that I have experienced and have been a part of that at the moment that I die (unless Jesus returns during my lifetime), that this is when I will finally get to actually see my Lord and Savior. But, is that true?
A Friend’s Bible Study
During recent a Bible study that a believing friend led on the subject of resurrection, he pointed out that the Scriptures do not describe anywhere that believers get to finally see their Lord between their death and the resurrection (the intermediate state), but at the resurrection itself.
He’s right…
When you search through both testaments, it is not until the resurrection do those who trusted in the Messiah when they were alive finally get to see Him with their own eyes. Take this reference from what many Bible scholars believe to be the oldest book of the Bible…
Job 19:25-27 (HCSB) – But I know my living Redeemer, and He will stand on the dust at last. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. I will see Him myself; my eyes will look at Him, and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me.
Job says that he will see God in his “flesh,” with his own eyes, “Even after my skin has been destroyed…” That is only possible when Job is once again bodily alive, due to the resurrection. In the intermediate state Job does not have eyes to see, nor does he have any flesh for that matter, after his “skin has been destroyed.” Right now, as you read this, Job is nothing but dust…
Psalms 103:14 (HCSB) – For He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust.
David eludes to the same thing in other Psalms that are credited to him as well. He also says, just like Job, that he will not see God’s face until he awakens from death…
Psalms 17:15 (HCSB) – But I will see Your face in righteousness; when I awake, I will be satisfied with Your presence.
Seeing God
Earlier in history when Moses requested to see God fully, this was His reply…
Exodus 33:20 – But He answered, “You cannot see My face, for no one can see Me and live.”
If you read the surrounding verses, God graciously allowed Moses to see something, but barely. Such was veiled by His hand covering Moses. (See Exodus 33:12-23) But, it wasn’t anything like what seeing God at the resurrection will be like for the believer.
Face to Face
Whatever a diligent reader of the Old Testament might say about the times that Moses met with God “face to face” as described in places like Exodus 33:11, Jacob’s wresting with God in Genesis 32:30, or those rare times when the Angel of the Lord visited people in person causing them to realize that they had actually been in God’s presence yet they did not die (like in Judges 13:22), in the New Testament the apostle John says this two separate times…
John 1:18 & 1 John 4:12 (HCSB) – No one has ever seen God.
For the record, those rare moments in the Old Testament were not during the intermediate state. So even if one wanted to try to question the validity of John’s claims in his letters (based upon the Old Testament examples of people seeing God) regarding what I have typically heard in church circles about finally seeing Jesus between my death and resurrection, it still has no merit. Now, you might be thinking, “Ok, well that’s the Old Testament, and John was only pointing out that no one had seen God fully up to that moment. But now, post-cross, we believers will see God between our death and resurrection because the resurrection of Jesus changed that.”
Well, no…
Look at what Paul says:
1 Corinthians 13:10 & 12 – But when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end… For now we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.
Paul might not have used the term “resurrection” here, but that is what’s in view. The resurrection is the moment when “the perfect comes,” and when “the partial will come to an end.” No? And if so, then the “then” that Paul has in mind is when we believers will finally experience that “face to face,” no longer seeing “indistinctly” as we do now.
John also brings out this same theme…
1 John 3:2 (HCSB) – Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him because we will see Him as He is.
The resurrection is “when He appears,” and it will not be until then that we will not only “be like Him,” but that is when we believers will finally “see Him as He is,” and not prior to it which “has not yet been revealed.” This is why the writer of Hebrews warns us to pursue peace and holiness now, in this life. Because, if we don’t, we will miss out on something at the resurrection…
Hebrews 12:14 (HCSB) – Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness — without it no one will see the Lord.
Jesus
What the future resurrection will bring is the motivation behind why Jesus encouraged the pure in heart…
Matthew 5:8 (HCSB) – The pure in heart are blessed, for they will see God.
When does that happen? A few verses earlier we have the context…
Matthew 5:5 (HCSB) – The gentle are blessed, for they will inherit the earth.
“The pure in heart” and the “the gentle” are the same people in view here, where their long awaited desire of seeing the Lord finally comes when the earth is inherited by them; and that’s not anytime prior to the resurrection.
Hebrews
The writer of Hebrews also points out that those who have already died who have been “approved through their faith,” do not yet enjoy anything ahead of us who are still alive…
Hebrews 11:39-40 (HCSB) – All these were approved through their faith, but they did not receive what was promised, since God had provided something better for us, so that they would not be made perfect without us.
In other words, we believers will all “receive what was promised” together at the same time.
Thessalonica
That same “together” theme is also found in 1 Thessalonians. The church in Thessalonica was worried for their fellow believers (who had already died) thinking that they would miss out on something glorious because they were now dead. Not only did Paul encourage them by reminding them of the resurrection, but he also described when all believers (dead or alive) would finally get to be with Jesus…
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (HCSB) – We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, concerning those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve like the rest, who have no hope. Since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, in the same way God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep through Jesus. For we say this to you by a revelation from the Lord: We who are still alive at the Lord’s coming will certainly have no advantage over those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the archangel’s voice, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are still alive will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.
Paul wanted the recipients of his letter to be assured that even though the “dead in Christ” were now “asleep,” they were not at all disadvantaged compared to them (who were still alive) with regards to seeing Jesus when He returns. Why? Because Paul was encouraging them with the fact that no believer will meet Jesus until the trumpet sounds, which ushers in the resurrection. In other words, after the dead in Christ have been awoken from their “sleep in death” (see Psalm 13:3) in the graves below ground, “THEN we who are still alive will be caught up TOGETHER with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air.” Again, Paul was putting the church in Thessalonica at ease by clarifying that no believers, whether currently dead or alive, get to meet the Lord until we are all together, at the “trumpet of God.” “Therefore,” we must, “encourage one another with these words.”
Towards the end of this same letter, Paul finds it important to repeat this vital truth…
1 Thessalonians 5:9-11 (HCSB) – For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep, we will live together with Him. Therefore encourage one another and build each other up as you are already doing.
The Final Vision
I just want to close with a reference from the very last chapter of the Bible. This is how the final vision of Scripture, which John received, ends in the book of Revelation. It gives us a picture of the post-resurrection reality. Notice what believers will together finally see…
Revelation 22:1-5 (HCSB) – Then he showed me the river of living water, sparkling like crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the broad street of the city. The tree of life was on both sides of the river, bearing 12 kinds of fruit, producing its fruit every month. The leaves of the tree are for healing the nations, and there will no longer be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and His slaves will serve Him. They will see His face, and His name will be on their foreheads. Night will no longer exist, and people will not need lamplight or sunlight, because the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign forever and ever.
*If reading this brings to mind Philippians 1:21-23, check out a previous article that I published entitled To Die Is Gain.
Godspeed, to the brethren!
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