What the Bible Teaches--A Guide to Total Christian Commitment 
by Rev. James McRobbie    ©Pillar of Fire, International 
"It is with the hope of the resurrection that the people of God are to 'comfort one another.'"
[Bottom of page] [The Living Word] [Back: Chapter 6] [Next: Chapter 8] [Index]
Chapter 7 Contents: [Christ the Firstfruits] ["With What Body Do They Come?"] [The First Resurrection] [The Second Resurrection] [Supplementary Resurrection] [Resurrection Hope]

[What the Bible Teaches refers to numerous passages from the Bible. Your study will be greatly enhanced by looking up the verses as you go along. If you want to look up Bible verses online as you study, clicking here will open up "The Bible Gateway" in a new window. You may then use the title buttons on your browser screen to move back and forth between the Bible and this study. All quotations in What the Bible Teaches are from the King James Version [KJV] unless otherwise specified.]

Chapter 7: What the Bible Teaches ABOUT THE RESURRECTION

    The constant theme of apostolic preaching was the resurrection. It was a strange and startling doctrine. When the Athenians heard Paul preaching on the "resurrection of the dead, some mocked." When this apostle was before Agrippa, he said, "Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?" [Acts 26:8] Since the resurrection was so ardently preached at the outset of the church era, and since it constitutes the hope that lends comfort to despairing hearts, it ought to be of great importance to us.
 

Christ the Firstfruits

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    The miracle and majesty of the resurrection is not incompatible with the power of God considered in the light of His omnipotence. Martha was confident that her brother would rise again in the resurrection at the last day, to which Jesus replied, "I am the resurrection." In that wondrous resurrection chapter [1 Corinthians 15], our Lord is declared to be the "firstfruits of them that slept" [verses 20, 23]. He was the first to return from death with a glorified, resurrected body. Our resurrection is in Him -- made possible by His spotless life and the atonement He made for sin on the cross, by which He was vindicated as the divine Son of God and man's divine Savior.
    At various times, both in the Old and New Testaments, others had been brought back to life from the dead: three in the Old Testament and five in the New [1 Kings 17:21; 2 Kings 4:34; 2 Kings 13:21; Luke 7:15; Matthew 9:25; John 11:44; Acts 9:40; Acts 20:10]. While these persons were restored to life, it was simply a re-animation of the body, being subject again to death. Resurrection is to be differentiated from resuscitation, the latter being simply a coming to life again, the resurrection implying a new state of existence. When Christ arose, while it was true that the tomb was empty, it was also true that His resurrection body was spiritual and supernatural -- capable of adaptation either to the terrestrial or celestial spheres.
    Though Christ was the "firstfruits of them that slept," the "resurrection and the life," yet long before His incarnation many Old Testament saints firmly believed in a future resurrection of the body. Job's beautiful declaration, which we should all be able to repeat from memory, implies this:
I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: And though after my skin worms destroy my body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another." [Job 19:25-27]
    You will remember Abraham's wonderful expression exhibiting an indomitable faith in connection with the offering of Isaac. He believed that "God was able to raise him up, even from the dead; from whence also he received him in a figure ["figuratively speaking," NIV]" [Hebrews 11:19]. The Old Testament saints endured fiery trials and countless sufferings in order that they might "obtain a better resurrection" [Hebrews 11:35]. The Psalmist had the same confidence, for he said, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell [sheol, the place of the dead]," and, "I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness" [Ps. 16:10; Psalm 17:15]. Look at Ezekiel's prophecy of the resurrection of dry bones: "I will open your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel" [Ezekiel 37:12], was a resurrection-emblem showing how the Jews were to be brought from their spiritual and political death through the miracle of God's sovereign grace.
    There is also a spiritual resurrection for the "dead in trespasses and sins." Of the prodigal son it was said, "This my son was dead, and is alive again." Our Lord said, "The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead [spiritually dead] shall hear the voice of the Son of God and they that hear shall live" [John 5:25].
 

"With What Body Do They Come?"

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    In Paul's day, as in ours, some were saying, "How are the dead raised up?" There were some false teachers in his time who explained away the sublime truth of the resurrection, saying that the "resurrection in past already." In Christ's time this truth was denied by the Sadducees [Matthew 22:23; Luke 20:27; Acts 23:8]. Even in the early church the resurrection seems to have been disputed, for we read, "How say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" [1 Corinthians 15:12].
    While we know that the resurrection is surrounded with mystery and is beyond the power of our finite minds to fully comprehend, yet we are not left in complete darkness regarding this subject so dear to the hearts of Christians. This glimmer of light radiates from the 15th chapter of 1 Corinthians. [Top of Page] [Down] [Top of Page] [Down]     If we are consecrated, Spirit-filled believers we are not to look for the grave but for glory. The living saints at the time of Christ's coming will be changed and wafted away without dying, and the bodies of the saints who have been sleeping in the dust ever since the beginning of time will awaken and come forth. Then death, that insatiable monster who has glutted himself on the harvest that sin has given him, will be swallowed up "in victory." How gracious God is! How marvelous are all His holy ways! May we lift our voices with the apostle: "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."
 

The First Resurrection

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    Apart from the resurrection of Christ, who is the "first-fruits," there are two specific resurrections. The first is to take place at the first part of Christ's second coming, which will be at the beginning of the tribulation. "Every man in his own order," says the Word, "Christ the firstfruits; afterwards they that are Christ's at his coming" [1 Corinthians 15:23]. This is not a general resurrection; it is for those who are Christ's or, as we read in 1 Thessalonians 4:16, "The dead in Christ shall rise first." To be Christ's and to be "in Christ" are the evident qualifications for participation in the first resurrection. This blessed and happy state is holiness, for without this no man shall see the Lord [Hebrews 12:14], and, "Blessed and holy [sanctified] is he that hath part in the first resurrection" [Revelation 20:6].
    At the first resurrection the saints will be judged according to their works, and rewarded [2 Corinthians 5:10]. This is also called the "resurrection of the just," when the faithful shall be recompensed [Luke 14:14].
    There is a reference in the book of Hebrews to the "better resurrection" [Hebrews 11:35], which the Old Testament saints sought to obtain at the cost of great persecution and suffering.
    St. Paul longed to share the sufferings of Christ -- suffer as He suffered, die as He died -- that he might attain unto the "resurrection from among the dead" [Philippians 3:11, Weymouth]. What Paul had in mind was the "first" or "better" resurrection. Well he knew that the "rest of the dead" would sleep on until a "thousand years were finished" [Revelation 20:5], to awaken, as Daniel stated, to "shame and everlasting contempt."
 

The Second Resurrection

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    A thousand years separates the two resurrections. The resurrection which takes place at the close of the millennium, and which is associated with the last judgment, is the "second resurrection," and is for the wicked dead. Paul plainly declared by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost that there is to be a "resurrection of the dead, both of the just and the unjust" [Acts 24:15]. The unsaved are to be reunited to their bodies -- sinful, diseased and unredeemed. Since they will not have partaken of the salvation of Jesus Christ, they will know nothing of deliverance from sin or the redemption of the body. They will be reunited to the same old bodies, only changed according to the power of God, to live forever. These resurrection bodies of the wicked will have the same old unsatisfied lusts and cravings, the same inexorable pride, the same defiance and godlessness, the same animosities and profanity. They who will have rejected or neglected the Lord Jesus, they whose fatherhood is the devil, they who will have chosen to live for the world and sense and time, with its gold and pleasure and dissipation -- unchanged, unrepentant, hopeless and godless -- will live then, body and soul reunited, in a far more real and vivid manner than they live now.
    The second resurrection will be universal. The redeemed, having already responded to the first resurrection, will be in heaven, then "all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth" [John 5:28-29], for at the "name of Jesus every knee shall bow" [Philippians 2:10]. Time, distance or place will make no difference. The sea shall give up the dead which are in it, and death and Hades will deliver up all who are in them -- and must come forth.
 

Supplementary Resurrection

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    Since the "first resurrection" will take place before the tribulation, it is to be remembered that those who suffer martyrdom, who refuse the "mark of the beast" during the tribulation period, are to "live and reign with Christ a thousand years" [Revelation 20:4].
 

Resurrection Hope

    It is with the hope of the resurrection that the people of God are to "comfort one another." In this world of bereavement and separation Christians are not to mourn as those who have no hope. If the great Husbandman sees fit to gather our dear ones as flowers to bloom in His spotless paradise, never again to be subject to change and decay, it should be an incentive to those of us who remain to meet bravely the storms of time, to remain faithful and true to our high calling, until we meet with them in the "sweet by and by" where we shall "know even as we are known," and where there will be no more separation, no more anguish, no more tears or pain or death. It is with this thought that St. Paul closes his great classical passage on the resurrection:
Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
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