The Program of Resurrection (As Outlined in Scripture) (By Pastor Kelly Sensenig) There are two distinct resurrections in the program of God. They are the resurrection of life and the resurrection of judgment (John 5:2829; Dan. 12:2; Acts 24:15). A. The Bible never uses the phrase "general resurrection." Some people teach by these verses that there will be one, general resurrection of both the saved and unsaved. This is a false theory. These verses merely point to the entire or complete resurrection program of God. Our Lord in John 5:28-29 only said that all will be raised (both saved and unsaved). *There is not the slightest implication that both classes (saved & unsaved) will be raised at the same time. Jesus was not teaching the time element in John 5:28-29. B. Rev. 20:5 makes it very clear that there must be two resurrections and that between these two bodily resurrections there is 1,000 years (the Millenium). The idea of a "first resurrection" implies that there are two resurrections. The first resurrection is first in the sense that it comes before. It precedes the second resurrection. C. I Cor. 15:20, 23 tells us that there is division in the resurrection program of God. Every man is raised in his own order. Different ranks of people are raised at different times. There is no such thing as a general (one time event) resurrection! The First Resurrection There are three different stages in the first resurrection. There are also three different ranks of people in the first resurrection. The first resurrection is not a single event but an order of resurrection. It is like a military parade of order. A. There is Christ's resurrection (I Cor. 15:20).
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There can be no future resurrection of people without Christ’s resurrection (John 11:25-26). Christ must begin the parade of resurrection before any other people can have the promise of resurrection (1 Thessalonians 4:14-16). This is the first stage in God’s resurrection program. Christ becomes the first person to be raised in the ranks of people within the first resurrection. Christ is the leader in the parade of resurrection. B. There is the resurrection of the church saints at the close of this dispensational church age (I Thess. 4:16; I Cor. 15:52). This group of people is termed as being “in Christ” which is the unique position of God’s New Testament people called the church, composed of both Jew and Gentiles. It is the organism of the church, united to its Head, which is Christ (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 1:22-23). This company of saints today is distinct from the Jewish saints that we read about in the Old Testament (see Eph. 2:12-16). The church is not merely some kind of extension of the Jewish nation of people in the Old Testament. The church is not some kind of spiritual Israel of the Old Testament as some false teaching suggests. The church is a completely new body of believers incorporated into a new program of God for this dispensation of grace (1 Cor. 10:32; Eph. 3:1-6). The resurrection of the church age saints is the second stage and second class of people to be raised in the ranks of the first resurrection. They follow after Christ in this parade of resurrection. Note: Those who were restored to life at Christ's resurrection (Matt. 27:52) evidently died again. They will be raised with the church age saints according to God's ordered resurrection program. These people were united to the church at Pentecost (Acts 2). They were simply a token of a greater coming harvest, when all the saints will be raised at Christ’s coming (1 Cor. 15:23).
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C. There is the resurrection of tribulational martyrs and Old Testament saints at the end of the tribulation period. Martyrs of the tribulation - Rev. 20:4 Old Testament saints - Dan. 12:1-2; Isa. 26:19; Job 19:25-26 These Old Testament passages cannot be taken figuratively without doing violence to the whole principle of literal interpretation. Old Testament saints will be literally and bodily raised at the end of the tribulation. The martyred tribulational saints and the Old Testament saints are the third stage and third class of people to be raised in the ranks of the first resurrection. This then completes the parade of people being raised within the first resurrection. Christ begins the resurrection parade. Then the resurrection of the church age saints who have lived within this present dispensation will follow in their time of resurrection. This is when the saints will really come marching in! Then the tribulation martyrs and Old Testament saints will be raised at the close of the tribulation period, when Christ returns to earth to set up His Kingdom. This completes the parade of people being resurrected within the first resurrection. The Second Resurrection The second resurrection occurs after the Millenium or 1,000 year reign of Christ (Rev. 20:5). It will be a time when the unsaved are resurrected for the Great White Throne Judgment (Rev. 20:12-15). A. The "rest of the dead" (Rev. 20:5) refers to the dead bodies of the unsaved men and women of the tribulation period and all the past ages, whose souls are still imprisoned in Hades. Revelation 20:13 declares that at the end of the Millenium (following the 1,000 years), "Hades" will deliver up these souls or spirits (the immaterial part of man which does not die). This will occur so that the spirit can be united once again with the
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body, which has been dead. Their bodies will be resurrected from their state of "death." The spirit will be once again united with the body and these unsaved people will "live again" (Rev. 20:5) in a body prepared for eternal suffering. Revelation 20:12 clearly points to the fact of a bodily resurrection of the unsaved. These people were seen standing before God. The only way a dead body can stand before God is through a bodily resurrection. B. This statement in Revelation 20:5 ("lived not again") makes it crystal clear that both these verses (Rev. 20:4-5) speak of bodily resurrection and not spiritual resurrection of the soul as false teachers claim. The phrase "live again" would be meaningless except in terms used for the body. The same verb was used for Christ's bodily resurrection (Rev. 1:18, 2:8). The spirit of man needs spiritual life (John 3:6). The body of man needs bodily resurrection (John 5:28-29). C. The Amillenial teacher disbelieves in a first resurrection to accommodate this theory of only one resurrection or a general judgment at then end of earth’s history. This teacher also denies the reality of a literal Millenium; therefore, he denies the first resurrection as a bodily resurrection and likens it to a spiritual birth (regeneration). He then spiritualizes the thousand years making it only a symbol. This false teaching claims many strange things. Some say that the thousand years refers to the saints reigning with Christ in Heaven, others say it points to the saints reigning with Christ now and others claim the thousand years refers to eternity. *We reject this spiritualization of the Scripture, for we take the Bible to be literal and study each passage within its context. A thousand years means a thousand years! Resurrection means bodily resurrection! To come to any other conclusions is exegetical gymnastics and a clear distortion of Bible truth.
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The Conclusion There are then two distinct and separate resurrections separated by 1,000 years (Rev. 20:5). A. The first resurrection with its appropriate stages and ranks of people is called the "resurrection of life" (John 5:29), "the resurrection of everlasting life" (Dan. 12:2), "the resurrection of just" (Luke 14:14; Acts 24:15) and a "better resurrection" (Heb. 11:35). This resurrection occurs in its various stages following the church age and tribulation age. It is a resurrection parade of the redeemed or saved. B. The second resurrection is called the resurrection of damnation or judgment (John 5:29), the resurrection of unjust (Acts 24:15), and the resurrection of everlasting contempt (Dan. 12:2). This resurrection occurs after the 1,000 year reign of Christ and is commonly described as the resurrection of all the unsaved dead before the Great White Throne Judgment (Revelation 20:12-15). Progressive revelation as seen in the writing and completion of the New Testament and rightly dividing the Scriptures will definitely reveal to us the time element of 1,000 years between these two resurrections. What Daniel and Isaiah could not know we do know! We have been given the New Testament Scriptures to reveal God's precise prophetic program for the resurrections.
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