In this episode, Bob George dives into the complexities of Biblical teaching on life after death and spiritual resurrection. As callers raise questions about the nature of resurrected bodies and what it means to be ‘absent from the body and present with the Lord,’ Bob offers insights grounded in scripture, helping to clarify common confusions. Through engaging conversations, listeners are guided toward a deeper understanding of these spiritual truths, offering reassurance and clarity in navigating their faith journey.
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Today we are pleased to present a special radio show featuring call-in listeners from Bob’s original people-to-people daily radio program that was on the air for over 30 years, offering real answers for real-life problems as he addresses common questions as well as the tough issues of today, directing callers to the centrality of Christ in you, your only hope of glory. We want to remind our listeners that Bob George Ministries needs your financial support to continue to have Classic Christianity Radio on the air. Please visit BobGeorge.net to find out how you can help support us financially. Let’s now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights as he helps people experience a life of faith, hope, and love in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 03 :
We’re going to go to Oakland, California, listening on KCBC. Jan, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 05 :
thank you very much for, for taking my call.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re welcome.
SPEAKER 05 :
Second time that I’ve called and all, I have to say this once again, I so appreciate your ministry. And I, you may remember, I mentioned that I’ve heard more people come to Christ by listening to your program than any other. And I’ve listened to quite a few and do listen to quite a few. So I really appreciate that so much.
SPEAKER 03 :
It’s one of the privileges that we have being on live radio, uh, Jan, that, uh, uh, came into being probably about 20 years ago was the first time I think in that area where satellite was actually put up where radio programs where you could beam your program up to a satellite and be picked up all over the United States at the same time. And we were really the first real true biblical counseling, uh, organization that was on the air and we’ve been on the longest of anyone. So it’s been a real privilege of Bob and myself and all the people involved in this ministry to, uh, be doing what we’re doing, and have the privilege of leading people to a knowledge of Christ. So I appreciate your appreciating it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I wasn’t aware of that. I didn’t know that. My question is a non-essential. Okay. I’ve heard you talk about absent from the body, present with the Lord. And I certainly can’t disagree with what Paul said, and I won’t disagree with it. Yet, tell me if you think my thinking is really off here when I say that when I look at two other verses, John 6.39 and 1 Corinthians 6.14, it seems to me that when one dies in the Lord, we go to the Lord. It also looks like from these verses, that a resurrected body will somehow be unified with this spirit that has gone to the Lord. Now, I’ve heard you talk about a presence with the Lord, but quite frankly, I’m not aware of your view on this resurrected body. It seems to me those two scriptures are pretty clear that the body will be resurrected. Now, whether that means that we’ve been asleep or not, I don’t agree with that either.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Jan, the thing of it is, is flesh and blood will never inherit the kingdom of God. You’re familiar with that verse. So there is nothing in this flesh and blood that we have that will go into the presence of God. The resurrection will be a spiritual resurrection and our body will be a spiritual body. And that’s why it says in Corinthians that you have a natural body and then you have a spiritual body. And so I don’t have a spiritual body right now. I have a physical body. That’s going to go in and become worm food. And so that’s why people get all hung up, should you not be cremated or this or that. It doesn’t make any difference. What happens to you when you die? That body is gone. You came from the dust. You’re going to return to the dust. But your body, you will be given a glorified body. And that’s brand new. That’s something given to you from God, just like our spiritual body. birth was given to us by God. And a lot of people don’t realize that truth. They ignore the passage that says flesh and blood, right in that same context. Flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. And that means that this body of ours is not going to go. It’s going to go to the grave where it belongs, and we’re going to get a new glorified body. And that, to me, at my age and in the condition of my body, is good news.
SPEAKER 05 :
It is.
SPEAKER 03 :
But it basically, to me, is as clear as the nose on her face that flesh and blood is not going to inherit this kingdom of God. And yet we keep thinking, we’ve got people talking about that at the final moment, last days that God is going to come along with a spiritual vacuum and suck up all these bodies all over the place. That’s just not true. It cannot be true because it’s flesh and blood. It’s not going to go into the presence of God. Now, that’s why I believe very strongly anymore. I didn’t believe that way as strongly in the early days of studying this. But the more I study it and the more I see the context of Paul’s teaching in Corinthians, What I see and what I think is going to be taking place is not what we’ve been taught. And that is that you’re absent from a body present with the Lord in the spirit, but your body is going to be raised at the rapture. But when you read that. And you hear that. It’s talking about that we who remain and are left behind will go to meet them in the air. And it says the dead in Christ will be the first to rise. Well, we look at that and say, why would you say that something that’s going to happen in an absolute split second, shorter than a split second, how are you going to put a timeline that you go first and I go second? And so to me, when the dead in Christ are the first to rise, answers the question that the people would have been asking Paul when he was talking about the rapture, well, what about the people that have died before the rapture comes? And his most logical answer is, well, they’re the first to rise. And I believe at the moment that I close my eyes and die, that I would go into the presence of God with my glorified body. I don’t think I get one at the rapture. I think I already got one because it says he’s coming with the saints. And then we who are left behind will go to meet them in the air. So I believe that those are the things that happen to saints that are in existence at the time that Christ comes for us. But I think for us who are dead, I think we’re already there.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, see, I’m in… I’m in agreement with you, and I read about the glorified body, and the glorified body can’t be flesh and blood.
SPEAKER 03 :
No.
SPEAKER 05 :
And so I’m glad to hear you say that because that means that maybe I got a hold on that one.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, you know, if you’ll put those two together, and so many times, you know, you’ve got people who think you’re going to soul sleep, and so I guess Jesus goes to sleep because he says he’s in us and we’re in him. So if I’m asleep, he’s going to have to be asleep. That to me is nonsense, and I don’t think it makes any sense at all because why in the world would you want to think that you – where is that spirit going to go to sleep? Your body is dead. Your body is probably eaten up by worms or if you’re in the ocean, whales or something. So where is that spirit going to reside for all that period of time? It says, raps in from the body present with the Lord, and that doesn’t mean at the rapture. It means right then. Jesus was raised from the dead right then. It said just as he is raised from the dead, we will also be raised from the dead. 1 Corinthians 6, 14, by power God raised the Lord from the dead. He will raise us also. He was raised bodily. He was raised, and basically we wonder sometimes, Jan, if the Lord, his body, Maybe it didn’t need to be glorified. We don’t know these things. It still had the holes in the hands, but the people that didn’t recognize him before because of his condition of being beaten, it says, beyond measure, certainly didn’t see him in that beat-up form. They saw him in a pure form. So something took place where God did something to his body miraculously because he was back in the shape that he was before he was beaten on the cross. So we have to understand, I think, that we don’t know all of the answers to these things. But I think when you’ve got a firm passage of Scripture, you don’t go to the obscure to interpret the obvious. The obvious passage is that flesh and blood will not inherit the kingdom of God. We also know you’re absent from the body and present with the Lord. Why would we not think that? That just as Jesus’ body was transformed in some way, he certainly wasn’t there with blood hanging all over him and beaten up as no man. So why would we not think that God would give us and reward us? Jesus said, where I go, I want them to be with me. I prepare a place for you. Yeah, he’s going to prepare a place. Why would we not think that God would not take our spirit, our soul, and join that with our heavenly body at the time we die. And that’s exactly what I believe takes place. And I think one of this passage in Thessalonians, I think it’s confused people. The dead in Christ will be the first to rise. They’ve taken that. Well, that’s the rapture. And they say, well, no, you’re absent from a body present with the Lord, but your body’s going to go at that time. Well, why would I need to wait 2,000, 3,000 years for a body? In other words, right now, My spirit has a body, but when I die, I’m homeless? It just doesn’t make any sense.
SPEAKER 05 :
I can appreciate that. I tell you, I’m really struggling with what you just said. The part that I struggle with is that what Jesus says in John 639. I think it’s possible, and I could be way off with this, but I think that I don’t know that we know what it means. To be present with the Lord. I don’t know that we know what that means.
SPEAKER 03 :
I’m present with the Lord right now, and so are you, if you’re in Christ. Right, exactly. So the issue is we go and see him face to face, as we’re told, and see him as he is.
SPEAKER 05 :
That doesn’t mean then that there could not be the spiritual glorified body that we’re united with, See, I don’t know what you can do with John 6.39. I don’t think I don’t do anything with it.
SPEAKER 03 :
The last day is the last day you got here on earth. I’m not talking about the last days, which is the way it’s expressed in other passages. He’s talking about the last, at the last day. Well, what’s the last day for you?
SPEAKER 05 :
I die.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s when you die. Yeah, raise him up at the last day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, I see what you’re saying.
SPEAKER 03 :
You see, other times it talks about in the last days. This doesn’t talk about in the last days. It talks about at the last day. My last day is going to be when I close my eyes and wake up in Jesus.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, that’s good. That’s great.
SPEAKER 03 :
And you see that repeated all the way through that, at the last day. Well, the last day for you and me is when we die.
SPEAKER 05 :
Good point. Good point. Thank you so much. You’re very patient.
SPEAKER 03 :
Okay, brother. Well, thank you for your call. These are good calls. These are good questions, and I appreciate your patience with it. Thank you, sir. Okay. God bless you, my friend. You also. Bye-bye. Okay. Bye-bye now. Let’s go to Oxon Hill, Maryland, listening on WFAX. Janice, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hi. How are you?
SPEAKER 03 :
Doing good, Janice. Thank you.
SPEAKER 02 :
I need an explanation, layman’s explanation of 1 Corinthians 15, 56. The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. Well, Janice, the law, the power of sin is in the law. Paul said, I would not have known what sin was had the law not said, don’t covet. But when I read, don’t covet, sin stirring up every kind of covetous desire inside of me, and I died. The power of sin is in the law. All you have to do to get a kid to go out and touch the fire is to say, don’t touch the fire. You can draw a crowd by putting a sign up on a fence, don’t look through the hole. The power of sin is in the law. And so as long as we keep people under the law, we keep them under the power of sin. We had to be released from the law in order to walk in a newness of life, being led internally by the Spirit of God, the living Spirit of God, not by laws written on stone, but by the Holy Spirit of God living in our hearts. And so that’s basically it. In Corinthians, what Paul was trying to get across is the sting of death or sin is death and death is in the law. Under the law, the wages of sin is death. That’s all the law can do for you is to kill you. It can’t make you righteous. It can’t make you holy. It can’t give you life. All it can do is to show you your state of spiritual death so that you will turn to Christ for his spiritual life.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you very much.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re welcome, Denise. Thanks for your call.
SPEAKER 01 :
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SPEAKER 03 :
Englewood, Colorado, listening on KLTT. Delmarie, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, Bob George, I wanted you to… sort of touch on something. A lot of the churches, or the ones that I’ve gone to anyways, teach a lot about the submission of women to their husbands. And I agree to a point on some things, unless there is some abuses, things like that. But The question I’m asking is, why does it seem like from the pulpit that it comes down as men are under grace but women are under law, the law of man?
SPEAKER 03 :
I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what that is, Delmarie. The issue is that, first of all, you have to start with an assumption. The assumption that Paul was writing there are two people, who are walking in the spirit. In other words, being controlled by the love of God. That’s the first admonishment. These other things wouldn’t mean anything if you weren’t being controlled by God. Are we together on that?
SPEAKER 05 :
True.
SPEAKER 03 :
Because the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. So if you have two people who are walking, being controlled by love, is that going to be a problem for you to be submissive to your husband? No. No. It’s going to be a problem for him to be loving you as Christ loved the church? No, not at all. So there’s the premise that we’re dealing with. The problem of it is, as we get down, it says it doesn’t matter whether you’re married to a horse’s neck or who you are, you’re supposed to be submissive to it. So you become a blanket or a footstool or a doormat to a husband that isn’t walking in the spirit, isn’t walking in love, he’s just trampling all over you. And that’s not what the context is dealing with. It’s dealing with two people who love the Lord, who want to, uh, walk in his spirit. And that, that’s the only way that a husband’s going to be able to love you as Christ loved the church. I mean, try that one on for size. Uh, we can’t do that. And so any more than you can live in submission. So both of those things are an impossibility unless Christ is doing it through us. So there’s the assumption. We’ll see when you, when you get away from that assumption, Delmarie, um, Then you’re just into the fact husbands love your wife, you know, and wives submit to your husband, and you’ve missed the whole content and the whole context of what he’s trying to get to there. He’s saying this should be the norm for a Christian. Husbands, you ought to be loving your wife as Christ loved the church. Wives, you should live in submission to your husband. Who wouldn’t to a husband that was loving you like Christ loved the church? And so that presupposition is set aside. And all we’re teaching is legalistic obedience. Okay. Why that is being done, Delmaria, I think is because people really don’t understand what it is to be controlled by the love of God. That’s what it means to be filled with the Spirit, is to be controlled by the Spirit. And that’s in Ephesians 5. And what that means was spelled out clearly in Ephesians 3 when Paul said it, I pray that out of his glorious riches that he’ll strengthen you with power in your inner being so that Christ will be at home in your heart through faith.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay. Now, another question to go along with that. They’re saying that if your house is divided, it’s not going to stand, but God can’t bless you. He can’t hear your prayers, and he’s not going to listen to you. He’s not going to answer your prayers. Do you see what I’m saying?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s nonsense. You’re in Christ, aren’t you?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, I am.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, then how could God not be listening to your prayer when he lives in you?
SPEAKER 07 :
Because it does. It causes such a conflict even with your own prayer life, then. You’re thinking, okay, well…
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, that’s your fault. That’s not God’s. I mean, again, if you can’t get down to the place in your Christian experience that regardless of what you did, that you can’t talk to God, something’s wrong with your relationship with God. You don’t understand the fullness of God’s grace. You don’t understand his fullness of his mercy. You see, in reality, Delmarie, if it were not for Jesus, you and I would be a goner. We just have never come to grips with how depraved we are. And we have to come to that point where Paul said, wretched man that I am, wretched woman that I am. Until we see our wretchedness, how would we ever be appreciative of his mercy and grace? But if we think we’re pretty much okay, you know, I’m 90% okay. I just need a little dab will do me just 10% of Jesus. I don’t even have Jesus. I got to see there’s nothing in me worthy of going into the presence of God, nothing. And so God has done it all. So when we understand that truth, and we understand his love and his mercy and his grace and his kindness to us, why that’s what prepares us to live in a relationship with each other because God is meeting that need for your unconditional love and acceptance. And that’s a need that’s a spiritual need that can only be met by Jesus. Well, when we don’t understand that and Satan comes along and says, oh, no, that’s a soulish need. You can get that met by your husband or your kids. While we become like ticks on a dog sucking the life out of each other, trying to get my husband or my wife to love me unconditionally and to accept me unconditionally, they can’t do it. It’s impossible. And so that need has to be met in Christ. Once that need is met, we take a deep breath and say, wow, now I’m prepared to start serving my mate in love instead of getting because I already got. Now I can start giving, you see. And that’s how marriages can stay together. But if you’re getting married so that your husband will meet your needs, you’re going to be one miserable wife and vice versa. Christ will meet your needs. Now you can serve one another in love, you see. Nothing legalistic about that at all. It’s just grabbing a hold of the grace of God and hanging on to it and being able to see there for the grace of God go I and resting in his love and his mercy.
SPEAKER 07 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Does that help at all, Delmarie?
SPEAKER 07 :
Yes, it does. It helps in clarifying some of it that they use as far as the submission is for the woman under the husband. But if the husband isn’t exactly an end.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Delmarie, let me interrupt just a minute there. I’m sorry to do that. But you see, when you’ve got people teaching you that if you’re not doing this, God ain’t going to listen to your prayer and God turns his back, that’s a bunch of nonsense. God lives in you. He never turns his back on you. Christ is your best friend. Nothing can separate me from the love of God, Paul said. Well, people come in and say, oh, sin does. No, sin doesn’t. Sin’s been put bodies back never to see it again.
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 03 :
How in the world could sin separate you when he’s taken it away? So what separates it is your lack of understanding of the grace of God.
SPEAKER 06 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
So the issue is nothing’s going to separate you from the grace of God. So you can always go to God. I mean, how much more would you want to go to God than when you’ve been blowing it with your husband? You know, that’s when you need to go to him and say, well, I’m not going to hear you until you get right. And we say, well, I’m already right with God. How could you get any more right with God than to be totally forgiven? You are a totally forgiven person. To be totally indwelt by Christ Jesus, totally loved by Christ Jesus, how could you get any more complete than that?
SPEAKER 06 :
Correct.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. So don’t ever hesitate to go into the presence of God. It sounds like there’s some teaching that’s going on there, Delmarie, of putting people under that legalistic bondage. And that’s it. You must do this. You must love your husband. You must be obedient. These poor women are out there driving themselves crazy, trying to be obedient to sometimes a man that isn’t worthy of obedience.
SPEAKER 07 :
Sometimes that’s where the conflict comes in, too, because you want to do what the Lord wants you to do.
SPEAKER 06 :
Sure.
SPEAKER 07 :
However, sometimes the husband isn’t even right there where you know what the Lord wants you to do.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
And there can be a conflict there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sure. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 07 :
And it’s not, you know, you can’t go along with lying or cheating or any of that kind of stuff when that’s what, you know, in your heart you know that God has told you, no, you don’t need to go there.
SPEAKER 03 :
Absolutely. And there’s times that a woman… Where the husband like that needs to draw a line in the sand and say, this is it. This is it. You’re either going to get your life turned around or you’re going to not see me. I’m not advocating that. I’m just saying that you’ve got husbands in that realm that absolutely say, this is the best news I’ve ever heard in my life. Now I’m going to treat my wife like a doormat.
SPEAKER 07 :
Right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And that is not the spirit of what Paul was teaching there at all.
SPEAKER 1 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
Not at all.
SPEAKER 07 :
All right. That helps me out a lot. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER 03 :
You’re sure welcome, Delmarie. You call again, okay? All right. Thank you.
SPEAKER 07 :
God bless you.
SPEAKER 03 :
You too. Bye-bye now. Well, let’s go to Rich in Gloversville, New York, listening on WJIV. Rich, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hi, Bob. Hi, Bob.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hello, Rich. Hey, Rich.
SPEAKER 04 :
How are you guys? Good. Bob, you’re really with it, Bob. You’re honest and upfront.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, thanks, brother. I try to be. You certainly are.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m basically where you just were. My question involves the Revelation. What was the island of Patmos? And who revealed all these writings in Revelation? Was it Jesus, God, an angel? I’m a little confused on that, Bob.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, the Isle of Patmos is a little island that is across from, not too far from Ephesus. And I think in the, I’m trying to think whether it’s in the Ionian Sea or the Mediterranean. I’m not sure. It’s close to Greece. But it was where John was in exile on the Isle of Patmos. And on the Isle of Patmos is where he wrote John, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd John, Book of Revelations. The revelation that came to him in regard to what he wrote in Revelation is very, very confusing, in my opinion, and very, very difficult to understand. There are some parts that you can understand because they’re written to the churches at that particular time, and you’ll see that in the early chapters. And then when you get into end times and you start talking about all of those things, We have to just, you know, if you’re going to interpret it, you have to interpret it. I believe you have to interpret was this is what it appears to say, but I’m not sure of the meaning.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I agree with you.
SPEAKER 03 :
And, yeah, so I’m certainly no authority on the book of Revelation. I have to be the first to admit that there’s a ton of that and that that I just plain don’t understand. And I don’t want, I don’t need to understand it. I feel that when God’s ready for me to understand that, he’ll reveal it to me. And I also believe that like in most prophecy, it gets revealed as it gets fulfilled. And in the meantime, we’re just speculating.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I can see the way that could be. I have a lot of trouble with it.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. I don’t spend that much time in it.
SPEAKER 04 :
No, I don’t blame you. I look at it and I more or less stop after two pages. Let me try it another time.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And there’s nothing wrong with that. I think that that’s where I think that when God is ready for us to know the truth of these things, I think we will. And I think some people have studied Revelation and studied all of the different passages, how the Old Testament, dealing with end times and that type of thing, and have come up with some pretty good consensus of what it might be saying. But in reality, we just don’t know. And I think that’s where we have to stand is we don’t know for sure. Okay, Bob. All right, brother. Thank you very much. All right, my good friend. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you so much for tuning in to Classic Christianity with Bob George. We hope you’ve enjoyed today’s program. We truly hope that today’s message has inspired you to walk a life of faith in the Lord. Find more information online at bobgeorge.net. There you’ll also find available CDs, DVDs and Bible studies available for purchase. It’s through your help that we are able to spread the good word of Jesus Christ. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another and praise the Lord. Amen.
