I have written about the occurrences of the resurrection of Jesus after His crucifixion. That event and its many seemingly contradictory facts have been seen as a dilemma by many. Read my essay for the solution.
I’ve also written about the resurrection body of believers, also termed the redeemed body. That subject has also been greatly misunderstood. Read that entry for the clarification.
I have written about the question of the ultimate resurrection of the dead, which the Sadducees thought they understood in contradiction to Jesus. That subject became and remains a state of confusion for the churches. Read my note entitled, “Confusion of states of glory – the undoing of many” for the answer.
I am leaving those three topics in place as stand-alone writings because they deal in detail with certain aspects of the overall subject of the resurrection of the dead.
In this essay my purpose is to write about the all encompassing subject of the resurrection of the dead.
This grand and glorious subject of the resurrection of the dead has not been appropriately and properly explained by Bible teachers. The Scriptures are not restricted in their doctrine of the resurrection of the dead like their interpreters are. By restricted I mean Bible teachers are linear, mechanical, and shortsighted. Instead, the teaching of the Scriptures is grand, glorious, deep, and wide. It is full scoped. Such is the superlative way of the Word of God regarding this major doctrine of eternal salvation. The resurrection of the dead highlights the honor and glory due to God! The resurrection of the dead occurred during epochal events concerning Jesus.
I must start where I will finish. According to John’s narrative, Lazarus, the friend of Jesus died. After he was entombed four days Jesus went to his tomb to raise him from the dead so that men would believe that God had sent Him. Martha, the sister of Lazarus, said to Jesus that if He had been there her brother would not have died. Jesus said to her in response, “Your brother will rise again.” Martha said to Him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.” Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die. Do you believe this?” She said to Him, “Yes, Lord; I have believed that You are the Christ, the Son of God, the One who comes into the world.”
Mary, her sister, met Jesus and repeated to Him that He could have kept Lazarus from dying. Jesus went to the tomb and commanded that the entrance stone be rolled away. Martha retorted that Lazarus was in a state of decompression and would stink. Jesus said to her, “Did I not say to you that if you believe, you will see the glory of God?” He then prayed to God for the benefit of those standing by and commanded Lazarus to come forth out the tomb, which he did! Lazarus rose from the dead at the command of Jesus. Lazarus rose from the dead through Jesus, the resurrection and the life, to fully demonstrate that God sent Jesus into the world – the Giver and the Way of eternal life!
I start with this profound event to highlight the author and completer of the resurrection – Jesus Christ, the Word of God! Paul said of God, “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory to the ages. Amen!” And of Jesus he said, “For in Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things have been created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”
Now I will move on to see the resurrection or rising from the dead as being precisely what is was, epochal manifestations of the supreme glory of God in Jesus Christ! This truth must not be missed: the dead were raised during grand and glorious events in the eternal purposes of God in Christ!
First, when Judas Maccabees overthrew Antiochus IV many rose from the dead; the wicked dead to manifest the judgment of God and the righteous dead to manifest the mercies and victory of God! (It is my opinion that the prophet Daniel was among those righteous ones.) That epochal event occurred in the second century BC. The little horn of Daniel’s prophetic vision, Antiochus IV, had risen up to speak great and boastful blasphemies against God in his endeavor to wipe the Jews out of existence as the people of Judah. He sought to remove everything Jewish so that not a vestige remained. He set up the abomination of desolation in the temple of God and utterly defiled God’s house of worship. God rose up His hosts in the Maccabees and completely crushed the blasphemous little horn, who was also known in the prophecies as the King of the North. The wicked dead rose from the dust during that event to magnify and fully demonstrate the wrath of God in His holiness and the righteous dead rose from the dust during that event to magnify and fully demonstrate the mercies of God in His holiness! This very epoch was an historical prophecy of the consummation fulfillment of these great truths in the Lord Jesus Christ at the end of Age of the Law of Moses. He took up this very prophecy of Daniel when He taught His apostles about the fulfillment of the consummation at the end of that Age. The Maccabean epoch occurred in the last days of the Seleucid Empire and highlighted its end and the return of righteous worship in God’s temple.
Another very strong occurrence took place during that epoch. Michael, first of the chief heads of the major angels of God took his stand to help the angel sent to Daniel (most probably Gabriel) with God’s response to his supplication. Gabriel had been opposed and detained by the leading principalities (dark ruling angels) who were over the kingdoms of Persia and Greece. Michael victoriously went to Gabriel’s defense. Also, Michael took his stand to guarantee victory during the great distress among men when Antiochus IV was ravaging God’s people and His temple. We have two telling events that happened which magnified the glory of God in His overthrowing the little horn in his last days. The chief and great war-lord angel Michael defeated opposing principal and powerful wicked angels and wicked men and righteous men rose from the dead to glorify God in kind in His eternal purpose of judgment and mercy, respectively. Such activity and God’s mighty ruling hand must not be neglected in the eternal worship of Jahveh of angels and of hosts! Glory to Jahveh in the highest! Amen!
The next epoch was the crucifixion of Jesus. This is the superlative place where all believers are justified from their sins when they believe the Father, that He made Jesus to be sin for the chosen, in order that He would make the very same believers the righteous of God in His Son! What glory! What splendor! What love! Your salvation is not founded on anything that you have performed in righteousness! What an epoch! Matthew reported the momentous event in his unique way as he often did to magnify the fullness of the Spirit of the Father in the Son! When Jesus was crucified, at the very moment that He died, not only did the veil between the holy place and the holy of holies split from the top to the bottom, not only did the earth shake, not only did rocks split, but also “the tombs were opened, and many bodies of the holy ones who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.” The point was made that many bodies of the holy ones rose from the dead at the time of His crucifixion – not at the time of His resurrection, when such an event would be expected in the miraculous ways of God. The holy ones remained in the tombs and only appeared in the city after His resurrection. Of the two most momentous events, the tearing of the veil and the raising of many of the righteous dead, this last named one is superlatively unique. The epoch of Jesus’ crucifixion was thus magnified in the full scope of its accomplishment and glory!
The next epoch was called the first resurrection. It was unique and only applied to those martyrs who by being faithful until their deaths overcame Nero and his “false prophet”, the company who enforced “divine” submission to Nero at the fundamental level of daily life. The first resurrection was co-incident with the temporary yet complete incarceration of Satan for a short time. The churches have turned that reality into a colossal myth that they call the millennium, the word itself being a Latin translation of the word thousand in the term “a thousand years”. That was the Spirit’s designated time-frame of Satan’s temporary dis-empowering. A universe of compartmentalizing false teaching and much grieving and quenching of God’s Holy Spirit has been built on those millennial shifting sands of men. How ones sees the millennium is right up there with how one chooses to divide himself from others via how he sees denominations. The doctrine is so permeated within the interpretative DNA of the churches that it is unthinkable not to teach about it, although, like in very many of their doctrines, there is massive major division among them about it. Those who took part in that first resurrection ruled with Christ during the time of Satan’s incarceration. That itself was epochal. It declared the imminent utter defeat of Satan and the imminent Great White Throne judgment of men.
The final epoch was the Great White Throne judgment itself! This one-time event was, like the crucifixion of Jesus, an epoch among epochs! This revealed the very end, the terminal point of the Age of the Law of Moses, the Law of sin and death, the Law of condemnation! It revealed the end of Satan, sin, the grave, death and Hades! Those powers were forever finished! The final epoch revealed and manifested the passing away of the administration of God in the old order and the then new administration of God in His Kingdom through His Son! The resurrection of the dead, both small and great was part and parcel with the second death for the unrighteous and eternal life for the righteous! All where measured and judged according to what they had done in the book of life regarding Jesus. Immediately after that final epoch, the eternal heaven and earth was revealed (termed “new” at that time because it had not seen service before), and the holy city descended from heaven. That occurred then and now is the perpetual dwelling and administration of God with His people in Jesus!
Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies, and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die.” What He said to Martha, the Spirit says to all, “Do you believe this?”
Such is the full range, the full scope of the Scriptures concerning the resurrection of the dead.
Hallelujah! Glory to God in the Highest! Amen and Amen!