'The Resurrection of the Dead
Notice the expression, "sleep in the dust of the earth
Back to The Release of the Material Creation
There are four classes of persons who will be raised from the dead. Hopefully our analysis will be of some aid in understanding what is to be the most important event of our lives:
The overcomers, the victorious saints.
Those who are of Israel, of the royal priesthood, of the elect, but who are immature in spiritual development.
The members of the nations of saved peoples of the earth.
The lost.
Our first point of understanding is, every person who has been born of woman will be raised from the dead. His or her body will be raised from the dead. One would imagine this to be an impossibility given the various kind of death people die, but we must consider the greatness of God. God is well able to re-create the molecular structure of every person who has ever been born. So great is our God!
By being "raised from the dead" we mean the physical body, whether of an infant or of an aged person, whether having passed away in bed or disintegrated by an atomic blast, will be restructured and will come and stand before the Lord Jesus—the Judge of all men and angels.
By being raised from the dead we do not mean the spirit is raised from somewhere. According to our understanding, the spirit is separated from the body at the time of physical death. The body returns to dust, as the Lord said. The spirit goes to the area of the spirit realm where it belongs according to the judgment of Christ.
The soul and spirit of the rich man were in Hell, not in the grave with his dead body.
The spirits to whom Jesus preached before His resurrection were in "prison," not rotting in the ground or in the seas and oceans with their dead bodies (I Peter 3:19).
It is possible that in some instances the spirit of the person is chained to the location of his dead body. It is not unlikely that the punishment of some spirits is in the form of being chained to the material locations and consequences of their deeds. Whether or not this is the case, the Scripture is clear that every physical body will be restructured and will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ (John 5:28,29).
The term resurrection, as we have stated previously, applies primarily to the body of man. The spirit and soul are not resurrected from the dead, except in the sense that they are made alive when they come in contact with the Lord Jesus and then can ascend into the Presence of God in Heaven.
We do not know of all the places where the Spirit and Soul of Christ went after His death on the cross. But we do know of the place and time of His resurrection, of the coming forth of His flesh-and-bone body from the cave of Joseph of Arimathea.
We believe the spirit of the born-again saint is in the heavenlies with Jesus, and when he dies his soul goes to Paradise in Heaven, according to his spiritual development. But this is not his resurrection.
He enjoyed a spiritual "resurrection," so to speak, when he first received Christ. But, according to the Apostle Paul, the Day of Resurrection is yet ahead of us. Therefore, the spiritual "resurrection" of the born-again believers throughout history is not what is meant by the scriptural resurrection of the dead.
The resurrection of the dead, in its primary sense, has to do with the body. Until that is clear to us it is impossible to understand the resurrection of the dead and the release of the material creation.
In the fifteenth chapter of the Book of First Corinthians the Apostle Paul discusses the resurrection from the dead of Christ, and also the resurrection of the bodies of the Christians. We do not find any flavor whatever in this chapter of the current Christian emphasis on a pre-tribulation ascension of the believer to escape Antichrist and the great tribulation. First Corinthians, Chapter 15 describes the resurrection of the body at the sounding of the last trumpet, the seventh trumpet of the Book of Revelation (Chapter 11).
The believers in the so-called "rapture" are not clear whether the "rapture" is of the spirit or of the body—or precisely what role the body plays, if any, in the rapture. This unscriptural doctrine has confused the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead. Yet the resurrection to life of the body of the believer in Christ is the fundamental goal and hope of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
The resurrection of the body of the Lord Jesus was (and is) of the most extraordinary consequence. Paul claims that if the body of the Lord Jesus were not raised, "they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished" (I Corinthians 15:18). Why such a stress on the body of the Lord? And by "perished," Paul is implying a singular lack of faith in the benefit of having died in Christ apart from the prospect of being raised again in the body.
How different from our current viewpoint! We are stressing today that the important thing is to die and go to the spirit Paradise. But Paul ignores this unscriptural emphasis and points to the resurrection of the body in the Day of the Lord.
Why was it not sufficient that Christ gain the victory of having His Spirit and Soul raised from the depths of spiritual darkness? Why did it matter that His body did not experience decay (Acts 2:27,31)?
Why did the Apostle Paul treat the resurrection of the body as though it is this that is salvation and eternal life?
Why did the Apostle Paul speak of the redemption of our mortal bodies as being our adoption as God’s sons? (Romans 8:23).
The fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians reminds us of a fact we observed earlier, that when God condemned Adam and Eve to return to the dust of the ground He gave the impression this would be the end of them—as though their body were their entire personality. There was an ignoring of their spirit and soul (Genesis 3:19).
Speaking of the resurrection of the body :
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (I Corinthians 15:22)
Again:
Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. (Acts 2:27)
He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell [Hades], neither his flesh did see corruption. (Acts 2:31)
The soul of Christ went to Hades while His body remained in a state of incorruption in the cave of Joseph of Arimathea.
Also, it appears from the above that there is a connection between the soul and body of man. In order for us, after we die physically, to regain what we were as a human being, our body must be raised from the dead.
The kind of resurrection of the body experienced by the human being is important in the Kingdom of God. The resurrection of the body is not an afterthought but is central to salvation, to eternal life.
The current stress on the raising of the soul and spirit to Heaven, whether in a "rapture" or however else, is not scriptural. It is not of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.
By the term resurrection of the dead, or resurrection from the dead, is meant the restructuring and reviving of the physical body of the human being.
The Scriptures do not always use the term resurrection this precisely, sometimes adding to it the endowments of life and glory that are the inheritance of the overcomer. But we think we are correct when we state that the meaning of the term resurrection, as it is used in the Scriptures, is the restructuring and reviving of the physical body without reference to its destiny, whether glorious or disgraceful.
The doctrine of the resurrection of the dead is found in the Old Testament:
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. (Daniel 12:2)
Notice the expression, "sleep in the dust of the earth