Spiritual Resurrection: Purpose and Power - Evangelical Caucus/Devotional

“‘Those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself’” (John 5:25–26).

Those who experience spiritual resurrection will receive abundant (10:10), everlasting life. But the only ones who “will live” are “those who hear” in the sense of true faith and obedience to the gospel. “My sheep hear My voice,” Jesus declared, “and I know them, and they follow Me” (10:27). Believers are those who have both the spiritual faculty and duty to respond to divine revelation. In contrast, the lost do not hear Christ’s voice; they are not saved and thus do not understand or obey it (8:43, 47; 12:47; 14:24), and hence will not live spiritually.

The Son can give life (v. 21) because, like the Father, He “has life in Himself.” No one can give to others what he himself lacks; thus no sinful human being can generate for himself eternal life. God alone possesses it, and He grants it through His Son to whomever He wills.

Those who deny His deity twist Jesus’ statement about the Father giving life to the Son into a claim that He was created and thus inferior to the Father. Such is not the case, however. John has already stated in the prologue to his gospel that the Son possessed life in Himself from all eternity (1:4). When He became a man, our Lord voluntarily gave up the independent use of His divine attributes (Phil. 2:6–7). But the Father granted Him the authority to give life (both physical and spiritual) even during the self-limiting condescension of His earthly ministry.

What would you say to those who claim that doctrines like these are unimportant and nonessential?

TWO RESURRECTIONS

By Charles S. Meek

The Bible speaks of two types of death—spiritual death and bodily death. It follows that there are two types of resurrections—a spiritual one and a bodily one. Spiritual “resurrection” (in quotes) is what happens to the LIVING. Bodily resurrection is what happens to physically DEAD people. Jesus spoke of both types of death in Matthew 8:22 when He said, “Let the dead bury the dead.”

This dual reality should not be surprising as we find it elsewhere. For example, there are spiritual battles (Ephesians 6:12) and battles of physical war (Luke 21:20-24).

Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:35 asks the question: “But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised. With what kind of body do they come?’” The nature of after-life bodies is referred to as the “soul” (Revelation 20:4), “spirit” (1 Peter 3:19-21), or “spiritual bodies” (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). Jesus said we will be like angels in heaven (Luke 20:36). The appearance of Moses and Elijah at the Transfiguration in recognizable bodily form (Matthew 17:3) gives us a glimpse of the nature of our afterlife bodies. We can conclude that we will have actual bodies in heaven, though different from our old flesh-and-bone bodies. I call this the “Personhood View” of the resurrection, otherwise referred to as the Individual Body View (IBV).

The timing, according to the New Testament, of the general resurrection of the dead was a one-time event immediately ahead of the writers, thus AD 70:

“An hour is coming when all who are in the tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment.” (John 5:28-29; cf. 6:39-40)

“There is about to be a rising again of the dead, both of the righteous and unrighteous.” (Acts 24:15 YLT)

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is about to judge the living and the dead. . . .” (2 Timothy 4:1 YLT)

“Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done.” (Revelation 22:12)

Thus, everyone who was residing in hades at AD 70 went to their eternal destination—heaven for believers, hell for unbelievers (hell being variously interpreted as either eternal conscious torment or annihilation). In Revelation 22:12 Jesus said He was coming soon to repay EVERYONE (in hades at that time) for what they had done. EVERYONE would be raised on the last day per John 6:39-40, 54.

Spiritual death, on the other hand, is a biblical concept about being separated from God. So, spiritual resurrection is renewed fellowship with God, that is, “justification” or “salvation.” In Ephesians 2:5 and Colossians 2:13-24 (cf. Romans 6:11), Paul said, “we are dead in our trespasses” (but made alive in Christ). This is “spiritual” death and spiritual (or metaphorical) resurrection. In the New Testament, salvation is applied to individuals upon belief:

“Whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life.” Thus, the timing of spiritual “resurrection” is whenever the individual comes to faith―an ongoing process indefinitely into the future.

In Genesis 2:17 we read that God told Adam that on the DAY he ate the forbidden fruit he would surely die. Adam ate the fruit but did not physically die that day. Indeed, he lived to be 930 years old. So, we must conclude that the death Adam experienced on that day was spiritual death. What Adam was missing at the Fall was life-after-death, which was given to believers by Christ.

Today, when believers die, we go directly to heaven in our immortal, glorified bodies (Hebrews 9:27). There is no longer sheol/hades. And there is nothing in Scripture about our bodies being reunited with our souls at the end of time, as some futurists teach.

Spiritual resurrection is an ongoing process of justification/regeneration when people believe. This is different IN NATURE from bodily resurrection. Passages that discuss this include: Luke 15:32; John 11:25; Romans 6:1-14, 23; 7:11; 8:6-11; Ephesians 2:1-7; 5:14; Colossians 2:12-14; 3:1-4; 1 John 3:14. What may confuse even some preterists is that there is a sense in the New Testament of the salvation of living believers being completed in AD 70—at the same time as the General Resurrection of the physically dead (Luke 21:28; Romans 8:18-23; Hebrews 1:14; 9:26-28; etc.). But this is not the same thing as the resurrection of spirits of the physically dead from hades to heaven.

Spiritual “resurrection” and bodily resurrection are clearly different things―in nature, in timing, and to whom it applies. Spiritual resurrection is soteriological. Bodily resurrection is eschatological. Thus, the resurrection of the physically dead was qualitatively different from the spiritual “resurrection” of living persons. This dual resurrection is reflective of what we believers experience today: We get saved while we are alive, and we go to heaven when we die.

Corporate Body View (CBV) preterists see no difference in these two types of resurrection. That defies reason to me. The word raised in 1 Corinthians 15:52 (“For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised imperishable.”) is the same Greek word egeiro (Strongs 1453) used for Jesus’ resurrection in Matthew 28:6.

In the Old Testament, resurrection was applied to national Israel’s restoration to its homeland (Ezekiel 37). But, Jesus personalized everything. I believe that Corporate Body View (CBV) proponents are misapplying old covenant conditions for national Israel to new covenant realities.
Making Sense of Revelation 20:
Revelation 20: 5a – “The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.” This sentence is not found in the oldest and most reliable manuscripts, including a version of the Codex Sinaiticus and a Syriac translation.
About 40% of the 200 available manuscripts of Revelation do not have 5a. 50% of the earliest manuscripts from 4th-13th centuries do not have it. Going back further in time, the earliest manuscript available for Revelation is the Revelation Commentary by Victorinus of Pettau (from 300 AD). And that commentary does not have 5a.

Even in the manuscripts where 5a is found, it is presented in inconsistent forms: In some scripts, it’s there only in the margins and not as part of the text. Some have it starting with a “But” whereas others prefix it with an “And.” Some manuscripts that came much later have the “again” whereas others do not. (The Anchor Bible describes the manuscripts’ evidence against 5a.)
If you take out 5a here’s how the text reads: “. . . They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power.” Now you have a coherent statement, that does not place the first resurrection a “thousand years” into the future. It also makes sense if you understand that the first resurrection was spiritual “You were dead in your sins and made alive in Christ” from Ephesians and Colossians. So those who accepted Christ (are saved) in the “first [spiritual] resurrection” and will not die physically at the second death (physical death) but live on in heaven. Then you can see how 20:13 is the Second Resurrection: soul-spirits out of hades. The confusion disappears.
For more discussion on this, see other articles at this website www.ProphecyQuestions.com, including “The General Resurrection of the Dead” and “Salvation to Heaven after AD 70.”

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