Our passage from Romans steers us between these two dangerous misconceptions: The mythical monster Scylla of believing the body to be evil on the one shore, and the beast Charybdis of believing the body constitutes all there is on the other.
The biggest point Luther makes about the descent is not that Jesus triumphed over hell idle and unaffected, but that Jesus defeated hell by suffering hell away.
The Easter season is designed to cultivate our resurrection thinking throughout the year. When God looks at us each day, He sees us through the lens of Christ’s resurrection. We should look at our lives the same way.
In our liquid world, strung out on the meth of evil, full of poor souls fighting to stay afloat, where are you, O God? Don't you care that we are perishing?
Don't let people convince you that staying home is heroic. Unless of course you are listening to Ringside while staying home! Than you, my friend, are an Erol Flynn! Luther on the Resurrection.
When Christians die, heaven does not “get another angel.” We cannot become angels any more than we can become giraffes or ocean waves or stars. We are people and will remain so after this present life. God did not make a mistake when he made us human.