Revelation 20 Part 6 Bible Teaching

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Okay, we were talking about the resurrection and whether it is physical, as many churches and Christian denoms maintain.

We said last week stopped at verse 5 of chapter 20, reading

5 But the rest of the dead (we have already talked about those who were beheaded for resisting the mark of Nero reigning with Christ) “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

And we said that the resurrection of the dead is a question fraught with great difficulty for many and the disputes are not only among the relatively uneducated hayseeds like me – they have been around for some time and argued by the best minds dedicated to the faith.

Can I just pause for a minute here and point out something reasonable and rational to all of this – ALL OF THIS???

God intended for all of these divergent opinions and views to exist. I used to say that God wants us to be united – and I suggest that this is true on our faith and love – but it must be that God intended for the points of doctrine relative to the faith to be disagreed upon – and I would suggest that those who are truly HIS coming to the point where they would NEVER allow for the divergent points to divide them in their agape love for all.

I hope you can hear me on this. In my estimation, there are “better ways” to understand the scripture (better in the sense of allowing it to liberate man in his walk with God) but those ways are NOT enforced by God upon us and they should not be forced on others by us either.

To me, if a person cannot accept people where they are at in their faith IN LOVE then all the knowledge of facts in the world are utterly useless – and perhaps God established things in this manner so as to allow all the information (knowledge) to act like the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil – its there but it is NOT what God wants – He wants us to look to Him and His ways, and show our love for Him and His ways – as He reveals things to us by His Spirit.

Just a preface to all we talk about here. Never ever (ever) lose placing the love first and foremost in your life.

So, Preterists (fulfillment people) maintain, and I agree with them on this point, that the resurrection was and is non-physical, that it is in and of the spirit and not of the body, of man.

Others, including Postmillennialists, believe that the resurrection is essentially fleshly; in other words, there can be no resurrection apart from physical bodies rising from their graves.

I want to address the idea of the “resurrection of the flesh” to see if it accords with the scriptures. We have already consulted 1st Corinthians 15 and to me it is clear as a day after rain but so many people are highly sensitive to the notion that the resurrection is physical it almost doesn’t matter what the scripture says.

I must admit personally that I am staunchly committed to the idea that the resurrection of souls is spiritual and not fleshly so to reiterate – test all things and hold fast to what is good.

We must remember that the study of scripture is really quite relentless as new passages introduced to established views can alter that view all together when the Spirit moves.

Add in the fact that the nature of scripture should be seen as literal at imes, figurative at others, and elusive in others – cloaked in metaphors and poetic imagery – and the main thing to remember among ourselves is love and the fruit of the Spirit in whatever view we take.

Now, we have learned that language that says (in the English) “everlastingly” may actually mean only “age-long.”

We also know that phrases that say that God causes a condition or event, may really mean that he merely allowed it to come about.

I think that the true difficulty in understanding scripture rightly is touched upon by Paul when he said in 1st Corinthians 2:4 (and then 13), that his preaching was not “with words of “man’s wisdom” and that he spoke “not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.”

In that same chapter he also said:

“Howbeit we speak wisdom among them that are perfect; yet not the wisdom of this world…But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory.”

The fact that Paul says “the message of the gospel” was sometimes communicated “in a mystery” and in terms that were “hidden,” (which would they elude comprehension by those who were not “perfect” (meaning, “practiced or trained”
– and hence “accomplished and complete”) is really telling.

I would strongly suggest that this means that we cannot always take words at their face value, but must be alert to deeper meanings – not gnostic knowledge, not secret knowledge – just insights that are available to those “who are better trained and practiced by the Spirit in the things of the Word.”

Remember, Paul says this, not me.

So, regarding the resurrection, Paul said (in 1st Corinthians 15:51, “Behold, I shew you . . . a mystery.”

The term “mystery” can mean something that is marvelous or wonderful. It can also mean something that is hidden and requires spiritual discernment to be correctly understood.

In scripture it often means both.

The scripture’s teaching about the resurrection, like its teachings on eschatology in general, is indeed “marvelous” and “mysterious” and it certainly does require a spiritual discernment acquired only by years of study, prayer, and contemplation.

The difficulty in understanding scripture is especially true of believers (like us) from among the Gentiles who are less familiar with the Hebrew manner of speaking of the prophets.

For example, such language from the prophets often evoked images of the heavens on “fire” and earth “dissolving” “under intense heat” certainly adds a challenge to comprehension when read by Gentile believers.

How was such language relative to that age to be taken? Was the physical creation really to be utterly destroyed as most Christians believe today?

Moving on, what about language that described Christians being “caught up” to meet Christ in the air?

Would Christians really be “changed” and be “borne away bodily to heaven” at Christ’s return? And what interpretive principles were available to guide their (and our) understanding of such imagery?

Proof that the early church had in difficulty gaining a command of prophetic writings may be seen in the idea of the “rapture.”

The idea of a bodily rapture, a notion strongly connected with a “bodily resurrection,” gained quick acceptance in the early church.

The apostle John alludes to this when he reports that the fact that he was to live “until Christ’s return” gave rise to the belief he would be rapturously borne away and never die.

Remember this from his Gospel? We read in John

“Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and what shall this man do? Jesus saith unto him, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me. Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, He shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?” (John 21:21-23)

Now listen, having here reported the popular misconception among the early brethren, John entirely disavowes the idea that if he would remain alive until Jesus’ return it meant that he would not suffer death.

In another place, Matthew 16:27 -28, Jesus made the like announcement: “For the Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works. Verily I say unto you, There be some standing here, which shall not taste of death, until they see the Son of man coming in his kingdom.”

Notice that Jesus did not say death would cease at his coming. Nor did He say that those who would remain would NOT die. He merely said some would not taste death before he came.

Jesus would come before they tasted death and only then would they die. Read together, it is clear that John was to be one of those people.

Therefore, (listen) the idea that Jesus’ coming entailed an end of physical existence in which the righteous would be borne away to heavenly portals was simply without basis and was not the teaching of Christ or the apostles.

In light of this, we might consider that there was to be no bodily rapture as was originally supposed.

But misunderstanding was not limited to the rapture. Some wrestled with the resurrection itself, questioning or denying its very possibility.

1st Corinthians 15:35 tells us that “questions about the resurrection contained questions about the sort or type of body people would receive.

Now, stay with me, questions of this sort occurred also among the Jews. The Sadducees, although denying the resurrection, clearly conceived that any view of a resurrection (if it was ever even a possibility) would have to occur in the flesh.

Because of this conception, the Sadducees believed they had discovered an impossible dilemma to hit Jesus with, and though they refuted the notion of the resurrection, they presented Jesus with a question about the seven brothers who had one woman to wife (found in Matthew 22:23-33). There they asked,

“Whose wife would she be in the resurrection, since each had her?”

What is the assumed notion this question had? That’s right, that the resurrection was physical – who would be married to the wife SINCE each had her.

It’s a questions the Mormon doctrine evokes from people because it is based on the same principle – the resurrection is physical. And since it was physical, it would continue on with the physical properties of marriage established here on this physical earth.

Now, it remains unclear whether this was the popular conception of the resurrection or if this was merely the Sadducees’ idea of it – but it wouldn’t make much sense for the Sadducees to present a hypothetical story based on some esoteric idea of the resurrection so it seems that the question they presented represented what society commonly believed.

So they came to Jesus with the popular idea. At least that is what it seems like happened in my estimation.

Nevertheless, one thing is clear: Are YOU READY TO RUMBLE?

Jesus disallowed the concept entirely.

And He did this in a couple of ways.
For starters, He prove that the patriarchs had not ceased to exist, but were in “hades-paradise,” as Jesus said in verse 31-33 to those questioning Sadducees:

31 But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
32 I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living!!! (meaning, all who had died continue to live).
33 And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine.

And then in verses 29-30 he proved that in the general resurrection that men would exist in the form of angels (which, by the way, are not flesh,) saying:

Matthew 22:29 Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.
30 For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven.

There would be no marriage (and remember how we have long-described the true nature of real marriage as being when the two become one physically) so Jesus says “there would be no marriage” in the resurrection as the resurrection was not physical and therefore it was an impossibility for real marriage to exist in non-material heaven at all!

So where Jewish misunderstanding about the nature of the resurrection had its place in the days of Jesus it also had its counterpart partner in the church and for this reason Paul labored hard to correct it.

He dispensed with the idea of a physical resurrection by his statement in 1st Corinthians 15:37, saying

“And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be.”

Can it be any clearer? The body that is sown (buried) is not the body that is reaped.

A physical body is planted (buried), but a spiritual body is raised up or as Paul say it:

“So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption…It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

I see no credible way to read physical bodies into the text and to tease spiritual bodies out and away from it. And yet it happens every day of the year by well intentioned Bible readers.

It seems that the mistake begins, perhaps, in the assumption (listen) that the resurrection (listen) would occur here upon earth and, hence, be earthly.

LET ME REPEAT THIS –

It seems that the mistake begins, perhaps, in the assumption (listen) that the resurrection (listen) would occur here upon earth and, hence, be earthly.

However, listen – a physical grave cannot / does NOT . . . retain the spirits of the deceased. The grave had an immaterial counterpart called hades where the spirits of the departed “slept” or were pending the second resurrection.

Since these souls were not bound to their earthly bodies, it would not be necessary for them to be reunited to their bodies in order to inherit glory.

In fact, it was just the opposite, as Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 15:50 that

“flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

And then we come to the biggie that we all tend to pass right over . . .

“Absent . . . from the body . . . present with the Lord.” (II Corinthians 5:8)

Not present with a material resurrected body, present with the Lord, but ABSENT from the Body . . . because “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God!”

However valiant the apostle’s labors to speak clearly to the resurrection being not of this world but heavenly and spiritual, error took root (in it as with many other topics) and the belief in a bodily rapture and resurrection of the dead at Christ’s return gained speed in the early church.

And both errant ideas were evidenced by the creeds that grew up among believing Gentiles.

For example, the Interrogatory Creed of Hippolytus (c. 215 A.D.) asks,

“Do you believe…in the resurrection of the body?”

Similarly, the Creed of Marcellus (340 A.D.) declares: “I believe in…the resurrection of the body.”

The Creed of Rufinus (c. 404 A.D.) is more explicit and declares “I believe in the resurrection of the flesh.”

The Apostles’ Creed proclaims belief in the resurrection of the body, but the Nicene Creed states only a belief in the resurrection of the “dead.”

Other creeds and confessions holding to the resurrection of the flesh include the Athanasian Creed, and the second London Confession of 1689 (which is Baptist).

Although the term “body” is ambiguous and elastic enough to mean spiritual bodies, we may assume that physical bodies was intended and understood in most if not all of these creedal professions.

Therefore, the creeds perpetuated the error the Jews had in the early church (of a physical resurrection).

Additionally, the error (reported by John) that there was to be a bodily rapture at the Lord’s return, also survived and has continued to this day.

Now, moving out to our day for a minute, the heirs of “the creeds” we just cited were “the articles and confessions of faith” that came to later centuries.

(Men are ALWAYS trying to capture, systematize and then enforce what they have concocted on the world, aren’t they?)

Revelation 20 Part VI
May 13th 2018
Meat
Well, for example, chapter 32 of the Westminster Confession – which is titled, “Of the State of Men after Death, and of the Resurrection of the Dead” and it says:

“The bodies of men, after death, return to dust, and see corruption (no problem here): but their souls, which neither die nor sleep, having an immortal subsistence, immediately return to God who gave them (I’m still a fan): “the souls of the righteous, being then made perfect in holiness, are received into the highest heavens, where they behold the face of God, in light and glory, (Im still with ya) . . . waiting for the full redemption of their bodies. (sorry? “Waiting for the FULL REDEMPTION of their bodies?” Ah, not so good. But it continues)

“The souls of the wicked are cast into hell, where they remain in torments and utter darkness, reserved to the judgment of the great day.

Beside these two places, for souls separated from their bodies, the Scripture acknowledgeth none.

It goes on,

“At the last day, (now, that phrase, AT THE LAST DAY . . . is used over and over again as coming soon BY THE apostles of Christ, but the Westminster Confession continues to employ it here) “At the last day such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: and all the dead shall be raised up, with the self-same bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall be united again to their souls for ever.

“The bodies of the unjust shall, by the power of Christ, be raised to dishonor: the bodies of the just, by His Spirit, unto honor; and be made conformable to His own glorious body.

END QUOTE

Listening to that we can’t help but notice what I see as a very “confused eschatology” that has the souls of the dead by-passing hades and going immediately to heaven where they behold the face of God, and there they wait the redemption of their bodies, to which they are subsequently forced to later return to exiting God’s presence.

What possible purpose could there be in reuniting the spirits of the saints with their earthly bodies especially after such a long wait and especially AFTER Jesus has had the total victory over sin, death, hell and the grave?

I mean all those souls are in a state that is perfectly suited “to behold the face of God in perfect holiness,” what is the need to clothe them again with houses of clay which Jesus Himself CONDESCENDED below all things to obtain?

Such is the garbled teaching of the Westminster Confession and those who have echoed it.

Another doctrinal statement holding to the resurrection of the flesh is that of the “Belgic Confession” (which is part of the Reformed Church doctrines and theologies). It reads:

“Finally, we believe, according to God’s Word, that when the time appointed by the Lord is come (which is unknown to all creatures) and the number of the elect is complete, our Lord Jesus Christ will come from heaven, bodily and visibly, as he ascended, with great glory and majesty, to declare himself the judge of the living and the dead.

He will burn this old world, in fire and flame, in order to cleanse it. Then all human creatures will appear in person before the great judge– men, women, and children, who have lived from the beginning until the end of the world.

They will be summoned there by the voice of the archangel and by the sound of the divine trumpet.

For all (listen) those who died before that time will be raised from the earth, their spirits being joined and united with their own bodies in which they lived.

And as for those who are still alive, they will not die like the others but will be changed ‘in the twinkling of an eye’ from ‘corruptible to incorruptible.’”

The notion that Christ would return “bodily and visibly” is closely related to the idea of a bodily rapture and a fleshly resurrection which has been errantly perpetuated over several millennia.

The Belgic Confession weaves all of these concepts together.

Now, “bodies,” by definition, are confined by time and space. But according to Ephesians 4:10 Jesus is “ascended far above all heavens, that he might fill all things.”

LISTEN – only spirit is unbound by time and space and can fill all things. Hence, it seems that Jesus is no longer in bodily form, at least in any earthly meaning and conception of that term.

Instead, I suggest that He is Spirit.

It’s not by mistake that Ist Corinthians 15:45 says

The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.

And that 2nd Corinthians 3:17 says:

“Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.”

Some suggest that when Colossians 2:9 says

that in Christ “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,” that this proves the points I’m sharing to be wrong, but I don’t believe that Paul is referring to Christ’s form or appearance. Instead, he could be referring to fulness of divine authority and “God’s redemptive purpose” that the Father embodied in Christ His Son.

See, under the Mosaic law, human beings were incomplete. We find support for this idea in Hebrews 7:19 which says “for the law made nothing perfect.”

But Colossians 2:10 says “But ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power.”

The law was “a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.”

That body speaks to the tangible nature of things come, which were the substance and reality of the promises embodied in Christ (of which the law was but a shadow and type).

Because Christ is not in bodily form he is invisible to human eye. After his ascension, visions of Jesus required special revelation of the Spirit. This is supported in scripture.

For instance, John in Revelation always refers to being in the Spirit or being taken into the heavens by the Spirit in order to “see” things related to Jesus.

Additionally, Acts 9 says that those with Paul heard a voice but saw no man and that post resurrection Jesus is said to “appear” to people on earth.

This leads us to a couple of points that we must address relative to Jesus resurrection and return.

First, was Jesus return in 70 AD physical and what about those who were raised after Jesus was raised – was their raising physical and out of the earth.

Let’s address this last question first which brother Dave brought up last week.

In Matthew 27 we read something interesting. Speaking of Jesus we read:

Matthew 27:51 And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;
52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

Okay, I’m gonna start off radical on this account – particularly verse 52-53. You ready – its just a thinking cap thing for me.

First of all there is no mention by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 of any of this at all! Isn’t that strange? Also notice the use of the term, “MANY” in these two verses.

Many seems to mean a lot to me but we have zero mention of this by any other gospel writers – especially the synoptics but also John?

Additionally, there is not a single extra-biblical report of this – Josephus says nothing.

Then there is no mention of this event by Peter or anyone else on Pentecost or anytime soon or later!

Also, and I think that this is important, it seems that NOT ONE of the MANY to whom these “MANY” appeared appeared to an apostle or anyone affiliated with an apostle!

In other words, we have not a single report AT ALL!

Additionally, the word used for resurrection had not been used as of yet in the new testament nor is it used again thereafter.

In other words, resurrection in the Greek is “ANASTATIAS” which literally means, stand up or resurrect from the dead, but here we are told that they “came out of the graves after His “egg -er-sis”– which means “resurgence” so we have to ask why was this word used here in this passage and NOWHERE else in the New Testament?

So what are we to do with this?

We will lead off with this . . . next week!

Questions and comments

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