The Resurrection of Life and the Resurrection of Judgment.

The Resurrection of Life and the Resurrection of Judgment.
We have seen what the Lord has set before believers as the goal of their hopes — His own personal coming to receive them to Himself. It is now proposed to deal with the momentous connected theme of Resurrection. It is believed on all hands, save by men very far advanced in infidelity, that "There shall be a resurrection of the dead, both of the just and unjust" (Acts 24:15). But all are by no means clear as to the matter. It has long been thought that all, both saved and unsaved, will rise together in a general resurrection at the last day. This idea, however ancient, is a serious mistake. Scripture lends it no countenance whatever, but speaks in unmistakable terms of two resurrections, separated from each other by at least a thousand years.
Let us turn to Revelation 20:1-15. There we have the preparations for the millennial kingdom. The previous chapter gives the public appearing of the Lord Jesus, accompanied by His heavenly saints, and the overthrow and destruction of those who oppose His progress. Then we get Satan bound and consigned to the bottomless pit for a thousand years. What remains? Simply to point out those who are to share with Christ in the glory of that wonderful period. Hence we have "the first resurrection." The various classes of the heavenly saints are shown in their risen condition; and we read, "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. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:4-6). Nothing can be plainer than this to a simple mind. It is not a resurrection of good principles, as some have strangely said, but of persons; and that prior to the millennium, and long before the last great judgment. There is no meaning in the term "the first resurrection" if there be but one; and what can be made of the words "the rest of the dead?"
When the Lord Jesus comes for His own every sleeping believer will be raised up in glory. We read, "Christ the firstfruits, afterward they that are Christ's at His coming" (1 Corinthians 15:23). At the same moment that the living are changed the sleepers will be raised. They will hear the shout of their Lord and the trumpet call, and will come forth to be re-united with all their brethren in His presence. The bodies of the saints sown in corruption will be raised in incorruption; sown in dishonour, will be raised in glory; sown in weakness, will be raised in power; sown as natural bodies, will be raised as spiritual bodies, conformed to Christ Himself (1 Corinthians 15:42-44). No others will be raised at that time. "The Lord knoweth them that are His." All who have despised Him, what ever their morality and religiousness in life, will be left in their graves for the judgment at the great day.
This mighty act will include all those who have died in faith from the earliest ages. The Old Testament believers, though forming no part of the Church, and therefore not coming into the heavenly Bride, will unquestionably be raised at the same moment as the Church of God. The expressions, "They that are Christ's," in 1 Corinthians 15:1-58, and "The dead in Christ," in 1 Thessalonians 4:1-18, take them in beyond just controversy. Abel was the first believer to die; all from his day up to the moment of the rapture will be raised simultaneously to go with Christ into the Father's house.
The sleeping saints are as truly waiting for the coming of Christ as we who are alive and remain. They have not yet received all that they have looked for. They are at rest in heaven with Christ, which is far better than toiling and suffering here. They are enjoying His love in a fuller measure than we do, who have so much to hinder us. But they are in a disembodied state; their precious dust is still in the hand of the grave. This cannot satisfy either them or the Lord. The redemption price includes the body as well as the soul, and the Lord will raise up the bodies of all His own at the fitting time. The whole of 1 Corinthians 15:1-58 should be carefully pondered as to this. The subject there is the resurrection of the body, which some at Corinth were disposed to deny. The apostle commences from the resurrection of Christ; and goes on, as regards the saints, until we bear the image of the heavenly at the coming of the Lord from heaven. The resurrection of the lost is not mentioned in the chapter at all; it was quite a different subject to the mind of the apostle, never to be confounded with it.
Ours will be a resurrection from among "the dead." This expression, so frequently used in the New Testament, escapes the notice of Bible readers too often. Look at Mark 9:9-10. As the Lord and His disciples came down from the Mount of Transfiguration "He charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen till the Son of Man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean." Wherein do you suppose lay their difficulty? Not in the general fact of the resurrection, for they were orthodox Jews, not Sadducees, and believed thoroughly in it. But the Lord spoke of a resurrection, "from," or, more properly, "from among, the dead;" and of this they had never heard before. The Old Testament says nothing of a special resurrection for saints, not coming at all within its scope; and the disciples, at the moment, had no clearer light than it afforded. Christ's resurrection was "from among the dead." God came in on the third day and raised Him up. "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades: neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption" (Psalms 16:10). It was not a general resurrection. The great mass of graves were left untouched. True, some saints arose, as an earnest of what is to come (Matthew 27:52-53). Christ's resurrection was an act of Divine favour and love. He had glorified God; God could do no less than glorify Him at His own right hand in heaven. This gives us a title. He rose as the "firstfruits of them that slept" (1 Corinthians 15:20). What God did for Him He will presently do for those that are His. He will make a marked distinction between such and the ungodly, not merging all in one, as so many suppose vaguely.
Some passages in Luke's Gospel may be profitably looked at in this connection. In Luke 14:14 we read, "Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just." What does this mean if all rise together? Is it not something special, something blessed, that the Lord holds out in this place? Look also at Luke 20:35-36. In the course of His reply to the cavil of the Sadducees the Lord said, "They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world (age), and the resurrection from (from among) the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more, for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection." Clearly this is not the mere general fact of resurrection. That cannot be a matter of attainment, for no one can shirk it. The most ungodly man must rise again and stand before the throne. Obviously the verse treats of the special portion of the saved when the Lord claims His own. Such will then be raised from among the great mass of the dead and made equal in condition unto the angels. Our calling is superior, for we are children and sons, while angels are but servants; our condition until the Lord's coming is inferior, but this He will change then by His mighty power.
This is what Paul longed for so ardently in Php_3:11. The Revised Version of the passage is to be preferred to the Authorised, which is quite a mistake: "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from among the dead." This does not imply doubt in any way. What he means is that the prospect to be attained at that blessed moment was so wonderful, so overwhelming, that he cared not how trying the path might be that lay between. The thought of the end sustained him on the road. It lifted him above all his sufferings, and energised him for service and conflict. Does it act thus with us?
Some of our readers may say at this point, "These passages seem to indicate very plainly that believers will have a special resurrection of their own at the Lord's return; but there are other passages that seem to teach with equal plainness a general resurrection;" and John 5:28-29, Daniel 12:2, and John 6:39-40, are the Scriptures usually brought forward as objections.
Let every Christian reader be assured that there are not, nor can be, contradictions in the inspired word of God. It is of the highest importance, in this day of renegade thoughts and principles, to be very firm and decided as to this. If we meet with portions of Scripture at any time that seem to be contradictory the defect is with us, not with the Holy Spirit of God. Never let us surrender what is sure for that which may be doubtful. Rather let us hold fast what we have learnt from God, and wait patiently on Him for clearer light as to the difficulties, even if we have to wait for years.
Let us examine briefly John 5:28-29. The principal difficulty lies in the expression "the hour." "The hour is coming in the which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil unto the resurrection of damnation (judgment)." Some think this shows all to take place simultaneously. Not so. The expression "the hour" is often used in Scripture in an extended way. Of course the context must always decide when we are to take it so. Here nothing can be more plain or simple. In this very context it is used in this way. In John 5:25 the Lord says, "Verily, verily, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live." These are unquestionably the spiritually dead — those who are "dead in trespasses and sins" (Ephesians 2:1). Such heard the voice of the life-giving Son of God when He was present on earth and passed from death unto life; but is this work all over? Blessed be God, no! Sinners are still hearing His voice; "the hour" runs on still. This removes the difficulty with regard to John 5:29. If "the hour" of John 5:25 spreads itself over nearly two thousand years it is not hard to believe that the same expression may cover one thousand years. Moreover, the Lord speaks plainly of "the resurrection of life" and "the resurrection of judgment." He distinguishes them expressly. Surely He would not have spoken thus if all rise together. Consequently the passage, over which so many stumbled instead of being an insuperable difficulty, is really one of the simplest proofs of a special portion for those who have eternal life in the Son of God.
We will now turn to Daniel 12:2. "And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt." This, I am fully convinced, has no reference to the resurrection of the body at all. The words "them that sleep in the dust of the earth" are not usual as applied to the dead. The whole context must be carefully looked into to get the mind of God in this place. Daniel 11:36-45 speaks of the Antichrist and his doings in the glorious land. Daniel 12:1 shows it to be the epoch of Israel's terrible tribulation followed by their final deliverance. Then we have the words I have quoted. I believe them to refer to the ten tribes of Israel. The two tribes only will suffer in the land in the latter-day crisis, and are alluded to in the first verse. There will then be a movement among the ten tribes — a rising up from their long national humiliation — with a view to taking possession once more of the land of their fathers. But only some will enter into blessing. The rebels among them will be purged out, utterly rejected by God. This is what is before us in Daniel 12:2. This national waking up is spoken of as a resurrection in several other places in Scripture. The following passages among others may be consulted: Ezekiel 37:1-14; Isaiah 26:19; Romans 11:15.
If the passage teaches a general resurrection at the end really, how can the words "many of them" be explained? Will not all rise again? Moreover, the epoch is a serious obstacle. It is the Lord's coming to put down the man of sin and deliver Israel in order to the setting up of the millennial kingdom. Consequently, if the resurrection of the dead, saved and lost, is shown here, then all will rise before the millennium — at least a thousand years — before the Great White Throne. This conclusion will not suit any school of interpretation so far as I know. If the verse be read as setting forth, in a figurative way, the national reviving of the tribes of Israel, all is simple and clear.
Now a word or two as to John 6:39-40, "And this is the Father's will which hath sent Me, that of all which He hath given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day. And this is the will of Him that sent Me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day." This is often triumphantly urged as disproving any special portion for the saints of God. Let us look at it carefully. The Jews had in their minds two "ages," or dispensations — (1) that of the Law; (2) that of the Messiah's kingdom. They believed one would give place to the other in due time. This was what was in the Lord's mind in Matthew 12:32 when in speaking of blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, He said, "It shall not be forgiven him, neither in this age, neither in that to come." That is to say, neither in the age of the Law nor in that of the Messiah. This helps considerably to an understanding of John 6:1-71. The term "the last day" means not the last day in an absolute sense, when time will give place to eternity, but "the last day" of the period preceding the kingdom of the Messiah. Christianity is a kind of parenthesis in the age of the Law.
Now we must consider other matters. It is plain that at the Lord's descent into the air all sleeping believers will be raised in glory, and all living saints will be changed by His power. This is the first resurrection, but not the whole of it. The first resurrection is in three parts — (1) the resurrection of Christ; (2) of all sleeping saints at His coming; and (3) of those who will lose their lives during the great tribulation. Such are included in the first resurrection, and will be raised in time to share the blessings of the kingdom of the Lord Jesus. We get these classes carefully distinguished in Revelation 20:4, already referred to. "I saw thrones, and they sat upon them." Daniel saw the thrones, but no occupants (Daniel 7:9). Who are meant by "they"? Those who are manifested with the Lord Jesus at His appearing. Such come forth as His armies, following Him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean (Revelation 19:14). These are the heavenly saints who are caught up, according to 1 Thessalonians 4:14-18. God brings them now with Christ, that the world may know that the Father sent the Son, and that He loves us as He loves Him (1 Thessalonians 4:14; John 17:23). Christ will in that day be glorified in His saints and wondered at in all that have believed (2 Thessalonians 1:10).
All these will reign with Him, and will have judgment given unto them. Their places in the kingdom will be ordered according to their faithfulness on earth. Solemn consideration for all our hearts! Let us ponder it well, and look carefully to our walk and ways.
Then we have the two classes of saints who will be added to them. "I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the Word of God, and those [This word has unfortunately been omitted in our Authorised Version. See Revised Version. It is necessary to make the two classes clear.] which had not worshipped 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" (Revelation 20:4). These are evidently raised just at the commencement of the millennial kingdom, for John describes them as "souls," and adds "they lived." They are added to those already raised, and thus complete the first resurrection.
A few words as to these saints may be helpful. They are not, as some have taught, unwatchful Christians who are left behind at the Lord's coming, and who have to suffer in consequence, and wait a while for their heavenly portion. The Word of God knows of no such thing. Our places in the kingdom depend, as I have said, on our walk and service now; but not our translation to heaven to be for ever with the Lord. That is the fruit of Divine grace alone. Who, then, are these two classes of saints? You will find the one in Revelation 6:1-17, the other in Revelation 15:1-8. In Revelation 6:9 John saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God and for their testimony. This corresponds exactly with the first class of Revelation 20:4. He heard them cry with a loud voice, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?" These are evidently not Christians. Christians, as Stephen in Acts 7:1-60, the rather pray for their murderers and bless their persecutors; at least, we are taught to do so by our Lord Jesus. But the souls in Revelation 6:1-17 call for vengeance. Are they wrong in uttering such a cry? Impossible, especially when we consider that the seer saw them in a disembodied state in heaven! There, surely, all improper feelings have no place. These are Jewish sufferers, the early witnesses of the gospel of the kingdom after the removal of the Church of God to heaven. Their testimony has not been received, for they are seen as slain. They take their stand on the ground of earthly judicial righteousness — quite right for a Jew, but quite wrong for a Christian, who is always expected to manifest the spirit of grace. Their cry reminds us of the Psalms. They live in a different dispensation to Christianity. In answer to their cry "white robes were given unto every one of them; and it was said unto them, that they should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled," or completed (Revelation 6:11). Here we have a reference to a further class of martyrs. Later in the same book we find them (see Revelation 15:2-4). "I saw, as it were, a sea of glass, mingled with fire; and them that had gotten the victory over the beast and over his image, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sang the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb," &c. Here are the fellow servants of the martyrs of Revelation 6:1-17, the second class of raised saints, as in Revelation 20:4. These are not necessarily preachers of the gospel of the kingdom. They are perhaps more passive. They lose their lives because they decline to receive the mark of the beast or to worship his image. Like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego of old, they stand true in an evil day, confiding in the living God. At all cost to themselves they refuse to take part in so great wickedness and sin against God. There will be no middle ground in the day of Antichrist. All must declare plainly whom they serve. If the true God, then all the power of hell will be let loose upon them. Such will find comfort in the Lord's words, "Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven" (Matthew 5:12). If they lose the earthly kingdom, through faithfulness, just when it is about to be set up, the Lord will give them a better portion in the heavens, though they are too late to form part of the Church. None are really the losers who suffer for His sake. His heart will take a great delight in dealing out to all such a full reward.
The raising up of these bands of latter-day martyrs completes the first resurrection — the resurrection of life. They will all reign with Christ. "Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power, but they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6). Happy souls! Wondrous the grace that will introduce us into such a place!
But what of the rest of the dead — the ungodly? Their tombs will be left untouched until the judgment of the Great White Throne. During the blessed period of Christ's beneficent reign over the earth they will remain in their graves, to be judged at the end. "'The rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished." How awful to be found among them!
When the term of universal peace and blessing has run its course, we read, "I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, from Whose face the earth and the heaven fled away; and there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God: and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books according to their works" (Revelation 20:11-12). This is the final resurrection — the resurrection of judgment. There is no trace of saved persons in this throng. They are the lost, called up by the quickening voice of the Son of God to hear their righteous doom. They are "clothed," i.e., they resume their bodies, to be found, alas! "naked" before Him (2 Corinthians 5:3).
Man has a hereafter, either of bliss or woe. He does not and cannot perish like the beasts, though he may degrade himself morally to become like the beasts that perish (Psalms 49:12; Psalms 49:20). Man has a life that is endless. He derived it by the direct inbreathing of God. The beasts have not this. They lived when made, but of the man two things are recorded. First, "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground" (Genesis 2:7). This refers to the body, which became mortal through the entrance of sin. Mortality is never spoken of in Scripture in connection with the soul.
"Dust thou art, to dust returnest
Was not spoken of the soul."
Secondly, we read — "and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." Such is the simple yet majestic language of Scripture. Having received such a life, man lives on, either in happiness or in woe. Many confound this with eternal life, which is very unintelligent. The latter is God's gift in Christ to believers only. It is life in association with the Son of God in His own sphere of blessedness above. Immortality is by no means synonymous with eternal life. The former, man had from the very beginning, before the fall; the latter is the gift of God, through grace. It cannot be earned by works of law or by fleshly effort of any kind; it is alone to be had through faith in the Son (l John 5:11-12).
Has my reader received the gift of eternal life? If so, very soon God will apply the power of it to your poor body, and "mortality shall be swallowed up of life" (2 Corinthians 5:4). Let the words of the Lord Jesus remain in the heart, "I am the Resurrection and the Life; he that believeth in Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die" (John 11:25-26). Thus He sets forth the power that resides in Himself. He will presently put it forth on behalf of all His own.
In view of our blessed portion and prospect, may all our steps be quickened; in view of the awful future awaiting the ungodly, may our zeal be deepened to win souls for Christ while we may.