The Resurrection in Bible Prophecy part 5 of 7 The First Resurrection
THE FIRST RESURRECTION pt-5
The First resurrection, up to this date, deals only with those who have died and gone to heaven. The first ever to do this in a glorified body was Jesus Christ Himself. Matt. 27:52-53. “And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints that slept arose. And came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.” Notice here that Christ was first, then the others.
Other Scriptures that tell us Christ was the first to rise in a glorified body is found in 1 Cor. 15:20. “But now is Christ risen from the dead and become the first fruits of them that slept.” Col. 1:18. “And He is the head of the body, the church; who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead,. . .” Rev. 1:5. “And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead. . .” and Rom. 8:29.
An extremely interesting verse is 1 Cor. 15: 23. “But every man in his own order; Christ the first fruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.” I feel that this verse should have a comma after the word Christ and read, “Christ, the first fruits; afterwards. . .” With or without the comma this is a very key verse for explaining who are to be in the first resurrections.
Not only does this verse tell us that Christ is the first of the “first fruits”, it also tells the order of the first resurrections. Further more it tells us that the resurrections are not to be at the same time. Which means there is going to be more than one resurrection that falls under the heading of “First Resurrection”. The First Resurrection is somewhat like a football game, many quarters, but it is still the same game. Like mentioned in the paragraph above, the first resurrection has many events. We have already spoken about the first event of the series of “The First Resurrection”.
Now in 1 Cor. 15:35-54, Paul describes some of the major events that will occur at the second event of the first resurrection, the rapture. The rapture is where the Christ’s Church or bride is caught out. Paul tells the Church at Corinth that there are bodies made for living in heaven, and bodies made for living on earth.
He explains a “mystery” vs. 51, “Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” Paul lets us know that we will all have to be changed to a “heavenly” body. One that will withstand existing for eternity and one that can adjust to heaven as well as earth. One that is not bound by the physical laws of this earth. A body liken to that of Christ’s resurrected body, called a “glorified” body (For more on the subject of bodies check out the writing “Our Different Bodies”).
A few years earlier Paul told the Church at Thessalonica about the second event of the First Resurrection. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13-17. Paul tells them that he wants to explain this to them so they will know and be able to comfort each other. He tells them that just as Jesus was resurrected so will they be, the ones that have died will be first, afterwards the ones that are alive.
Vs. 16-17. “For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trump of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord.” Now this may be a good time to clear up the term “rapture”. All know that the word rapture does not appear in the Bible. But as you see in the verse above, “caught up” does. Now the Greek word here is “harpazo” which means to snatch or catch away suddenly. In Webster’s Encyclopedic Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language One of Webster’s stated definitions of rapture is “the carrying of a person to another place or sphere of existence”. As you can see the use of the word “rapture” is reasonable or as Mr. Spock on Star Trek might say, “seems quite logical to me”.
Now lets pick up on the third quarter or event of the first resurrection. This will be the ones saved during the tribulation, sometimes referred to as the tribulation saints.
I know that there are those who say no one is going to be saved during the tribulation, it is just a time of judgment. To them I say, you must be like Thomas Jefferson and only use certain parts of the Bible.
My Bible has Revelation in it. Chapter Seven of Revelation tells how “a great multitude . . .stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.” and verse 14 also repeats that ones were saved out of the great tribulation. Chapter 6 verse 9, 10 and 11. Acts 2:20, . . . At any rate “for me and my house” we’ll choose God’s word over man’s ever time.
Then Rev. 20:4-5. “And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them; and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and who had not worshiped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.” This was for this saints, not for the wicked dead. So now all the saints have been resurrected.
That is up to this time, the beginning of the Millennium. (The word “Millennium” is not in the Bible either. The word Millennium is Latin for Thousand Years. )
Now for the fourth quarter of the first resurrection. During the Millennium there people will be born and also die. There are ones that have survived the tribulation. In other words many will be there who are not saved.
Yes, the saints will be there also, we are to be always with Jesus. What is our job in the Millennium?
In verse 6 of Rev. 20 we find that we are to be “priests of God and of Christ”. What is the job of priests during the Millennium? To be an intercessor between Christ and the unsaved people. We will be what Paul called ambassadors for Christ. Doing our Great Commission. It is only logical that out of millions of priests, ambassadors or saints working trying to bring the millions of unsaved to Christ, that at least one, will be successful.
So, now there has to be fourth quarter to the first resurrection. Rev. 20:15. “And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.” This is the same “whosoever” found in Acts 2:21; Rom. 10:13; John 3:15, 16; Mt. 10:32, 33 and so on. Whosoever is many times associated with salvation. Whosoever was not found, would one to believe that there was others that were found written there.
Reason would tell me that there would be no purpose to have the Book of Life there is all were going to the lake of fire. Is Christ going to parley with the unsaved whether or not their name is written there? Christ is not there to be a lawyer, He is the judge. Christ is only going to give the degree of sentence to the wicked.
