This Lord’s day is the last day of the year on our calendar for 2023. What will be the last Sunday in your life and mine? We don’t know. I do not know when my last day on earth will be (Ecc. 7:14; 8:6-8; 9:2-10). However, I do know there will be a last day for the earth and all the works in it. There will be a last day of all time. I do not know when it will be, nor do you (Mt. 24:35, 36). I don’t know if it will be a Sunday, but I do know it will be the “day of the Lord” and will come unexpectedly “as a thief in the night” (1 Thess. 5:2; 2 Pet. 3:10).

Sometimes in the Bible the day of the Lord refers to a judgment on a particular nation (Isa. 13:6, 9), but, looking at the context of the “day of the Lord” in 1 Thessalonians, it becomes apparent that this final day will be the day when the dead in Christ are raised (1 Thess. 4:16). Jesus spoke of resurrection on the last day. He said, “This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn. 6:39-40). He further explained that imbibing of His instructions and following them would lead to eternal life including resurrection on the last day: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day” (Jn. 6:54). In the previous chapter, Jesus had spoken of giving life and said, “Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation” (Jn. 5:28, 29).

Martha believed her brother Lazarus would rise again in the resurrection on the last day (Jn. 11:24). In reply to Martha, Jesus said just before He raised Lazarus from the grave, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live” (Jn. 11:25). The apostle Paul believed in the resurrection on the final day even after he became a Christian, a truth the Pharisees recognized but the Sadducees rejected (Acts 23:8; Lk. 20:27-40). His upbringing as a Pharisee taught him of the hope of the resurrection of the dead (Acts 23:6; Phil. 3:5). He then met the resurrected Lord Jesus (Acts 9:3-6; 22:6-10; 26:13-231 Cor. 9:1; 15:8).

Paul spent the rest of his days looking forward to the victory Christians will have over death on that final day of resurrection (1 Cor. 15). Paul by inspiration expressed his confidence that he will receive a reward in the final judgment on that day when Jesus judges the living and the dead (2 Tim. 4:1, 8). He wrote his epistles preparing people to meet the Lord in judgment on the final day and give an account of the deeds done in their bodies (Rom. 14:8-12; 2 Cor. 5:10). He instructed Corinth to withdraw from the fornicator in their midst so that he would repent and his spirit would be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus (1 Cor. 5:5). He further instructed that “the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body. And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power” (1 Cor. 6:13, 14). To the persecuted Thessalonians, he assured them that the Lord Jesus would be revealed from heaven would repay their persecutors in flaming fire on that final day, the day when the Lord would be glorified and admired among them who believe (2 Thess. 1:6-10). We should likewise live in view of that final day.