For as the earth brings forth its sprouts, And as a garden causes the things sown in it to spring up, So the LORD GOD will cause righteousness and praise To spring up before all the nations. Isaiah 61:11
From the ground God will cause flowers to grow. First the small shoots will break out of the ground, and then the full stem and leaves and bloom will come last. It is the early signs of a promise.
Just like how out of the cold and dead ground of winter, where no life or color has shown itself for months and months, God promises the same for us the crown of His creation. He promises us in Christ, just like that first bud of spring, that splendid vitality and radiance will break forth and fill the earth with glory. He speaks into creation and it bears forth life and every living thing. He says to us, “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”
This is an amazing thing – life breaking free out of death. God’s miracle of life in the spring is a reminder of His promise to raise our bodies out of the earth at the great day of resurrection.
The Apostle describes it as a mysterious and wonderful thing. We will not all sleep, but we will be changed forever. In the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet, all the dead will arise and be raise imperishable. And we will all be changed, for the perishable will put on the imperishable and these mortal bodies will put on immortality. And death will be swallowed up by triumphant life! 1Co 15:51-54
Just like Jesus rising out of the tomb, just like us having the Holy Spirit poured out on us as a seal of our redemption and having fruit sprout within us, all of this is a first taste of what will happen. Jesus Himself promises us and comforts that God will clothe us with much more splendor then all the lilies of the field.
How much more glorious and wonderful will it be when we see God’s garden of righteousness, all the redeemed and reborn in Jesus, in their full, unfading, and unwithering beauty just like Him, when we are in His presence.
So we should take great comfort now in the hope that God has promised us glory and righteousness and perfection in Christ Jesus.
Beloved, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 1 John 3:2
