Job 19

Moses, describing the creation of Adam, says that God formed him or “of dust from the ground.”  (Gen. 2:7).  The good news of the resurrection is described by Job using the same term that details what we are made of.  Job proclaims “For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.” But that word “earth” is not the word used in Genesis 1:1.  It is the same word translated dust in Genesis 2:7.  The dust that the Messiah will stand on at the last day will be the dust of Job’s body.  But then something amazing happens. Job continues “Even after my skin is destroyed, Yet from my flesh I shall see God; Whom I myself shall behold, And whom my eyes shall see and not another.” The Messiah stands over the dust of Job’s dead body and brings it back to life!

This is the hope that the Bible gives humanity.  It is not survival after death but rescue from death.  It is not being “found naked” (without a body) in the intermediate state but being “further clothed” with a resurrection body. The Bible says that when Jesus Christ returns “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.”  The nature of that change is made clear as well: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven.” We are dust: that is what we are made of, but our destiny is to be more.

LORD, thank you for the hope of resurrection.

(adapted from my article Formed from the dust – Snips and Snails.)