The Physical Resurrection: One Event or Two?

The predominant eschatology among American evangelicals is premillennialism (which has different forms, but that isn't the issue here). One particular way in which premillennialism differs from other schools is in making literal the description of two resurrections (Revelation 20:5-6). According to the premillennial interpretation, the godly dead will be resurrected, then a period of a thousand years will elapse, at the end of which the wicked dead will be raised. Then the premillennialist denies the literal interpretation of other passages that point to a single resurrection.

As I describe here, comparing scripture to scripture gives us good grounds for taking the First Resurrection in a non-literal sense, to refer to regeneration of believers.

So, what of the references to a single, general resurrection?

We can start with Job 14:11-12: "As waters fail from a lake and a river wastes away and dries up, so a man lies down and rises not again; till the heavens are no more he will not awake or be roused out of his sleep." Without distinguishing between the types of people, he places resurrection at the end of this physical creation, not a thousand years before the end.

And what of the words of Jesus in John 6:40: "This is the will of My Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in Him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day." Not only does Jesus place the resurrection at the end of history, not a thousand years before the end, but He explicitly tells us that this is the resurrection of the godly, whom the premillennialist claims will have been resurrected for a thousand years by that time.

The premillennialist view in general, and specifically regarding the resurrection, depends on a literal interpretation of a highly-figurative passage, and then forces that interpretation on other, clearer, not-at-all figurative passages in order to maintain its peculiar doctrine. That is just bad hermeneutics, which depends on the clearer passage to interpret the more obscure.

The General Revelation of God and Romans 1:18

I frequently refer to Romans 1:18:  "The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who, by their unrighteousness, suppress the truth." The significance of this verse is that it is a denial of the assertion of some Arminians and most unbelievers, especially the Mormons, that God is unjust to condemn to Hell those who have never heard the Gospel. Those people are supposedly never given a chance to convert, and, therefore, should not be punished for something that they did not know. That assertion is false. As Paul explains (see Romans 1:16-23 for context), no one is ignorant of the existence of God and our accountability to Him; rather, the unbeliever suppresses that knowledge. Should a person not be accountable for what he knows, even if he avoids that knowledge? Thus, the justice of God is vindicated.

Paul's explanation here is not something out of the blue, as if it originated with him. In fact, it is a concept that he brought forward from the Old Testament.

For example, we see Psalm 97:6 (compare Psalm 19:1-4): "The heavens proclaim His righteousness, and all the peoples see His glory." This is what theologians call "general revelation," God's revealing Himself in the creation, exactly what Paul also mentions in Romans 1:20. And notice that the Psalmist explicitly tells us that the revelation is visible to all cultures, refuting the assertion of the critics mentioned above. 

Consider also Psalm 98:2-3: "The Lord has made known His salvation; He has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." Here the Psalmist repeats, in even stronger terms, his belief that God has revealed, not just His Person, but also that He is the Savior available to all who believe. This is a poetic version of John 3:16, showing in what way God loves the world and then His plan for believers. 

The Scriptures preclude any rational accusation of injustice against God.. He reveals Himself, His goodness, and His plans. If men refuse to see that revelation, because it would deprive them of their pet sins, then He can only be said to be just in His consequential judgment upon them.

The Bible and Sacrifice by Abortion

I recently heard about the person described in this news story. He claims to be a Christian abortionist who is doing God's work. However, according to the words of that God, the man is an apostate under judgment for pagan sacrifice. I am sad to say that the reason that the Bible addresses his remarks is that he is not the first to do so. His particular form of apostasy is an ancient one.

"They [i. e., Israel] served their idols,
     which became a snare to them.
They sacrificed their sons
     and their daughters to the demons;
they poured out innocent blood,
     the blood of their sons and daughters,
whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan,
     and the land was polluted with blood.
Thus they became unclean by their acts, 
     and played the whore in their deeds." 
- Psalm 106:36-39

In times of low spiritual condition, the ancient Israelites adopted the practice of their pagan neighbors of sacrificing their own children to pagan gods in order to gain prosperity for themselves. Instead of having children who would be a financial burden, they turned them into a supposed resource for purchasing economic advancement. is that not essentially what most supporters of abortion claim now?

Abortion Is Not Avoiding Pregnancy

When people talk about why some mothers abort their preborn children, the main reasons given are rape and incest, the most-horrific cases. In reality, those are only about 1% of abortions. They are used as a smokescreen to prevent a real discussion of the justifications for abortion. Rather, the main reason is convenience: the pregnancy will result in a financial burden, or interfere with the mother's career. Or worse still, the abortion is justified because the baby tests as having a defect or the wrong sex.

All of these real reasons boil down to convenience. A baby will crimp the lifestyle of one or both parents (you do remember that a pregnancy requires two parents, don't you?). While these supposedly-important considerations didn't prevent the act that created the pregnancy, they do supposedly justify avoiding the consequences of that act. Why do they get ignored in the lesser situation, but are paramount in the greater? If that were the real consideration, wouldn't a dollar for a condom be a priority expenditure, rather than waiting for the expenditure of a medical procedure that can cost as much as three-thousand dollars (barring complications)?

Let me put this in basic English: If an unplanned child will negatively affect a person's life, then there are far cheaper and safer methods of avoiding that circumstance!

Love God, Love His Commandments

In general, people understand that Hebrew poetry is different from English poetry. For example, there is no rhyme in Hebrew poetry. And an element it has that English does not is the use of parallelism. Different lines can be parallel in saying the same thing in different ways. We see such a parallelism in this verse:

"Praise the Lord!
Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, 
     who greatly delights in His commandments!"
- Psalm 112:1 

The parallelism is between the second and third lines, which describe the blessed man. He fears the Lord and delights in His commandments. In English, those appear as two different things in succession. However, in Hebrew, they are parallels, different ways of saying the same thing. In other words, this verse equates fearing the Lord with delighting in His commandments. 

This hermeneutical principle is important because it demonstrates the erroneous hermeneutic of the dispensationalist, who claims that there is a contrast, an opposition, between loving God and loving the commandments. Rather, they are necessarily complementary.

The Bible as Our Apologetic

I have a real problem with classical apologetics. That is for two main reasons. One is that they lead to a generic deity, not necessarily the God of the Bible. Arguing, for example, from a supposed "first cause" could as easily be fulfilled by Allah or Zeus. The other reason is that they concede, as a starting point, that God does not necessarily exist. That concession is supposedly to establish a common ground with the unbeliever. Common ground with unbelief? What does that Bible say about that? "What portion does a believer share with an unbeliever?" (II Corinthians 6:15). The starting point of the Christian apologist is with something that Scripture denies! And I have even seen R. C. Sproul, a man whom I otherwise respect, go though his apologetics system in order to determine, not that God is necessarily who the Bible says He is, but rather that God probably exists. "Probably exists" means "maybe doesn't exist." How is that a God-honoring apologetic? I don't believe that it is. And that is probably why you never see the Apostles use such an approach. 

What is the biblical apologetic? "I shall have an answer for him who taunts me, for I trust in Your word" (Psalm 119:42). Do you recall the answers that Jesus made to Satan during His temptation (Matthew 4, Mark 1, Luke 4)? Did He try to find common ground with Satan? Of course not! Rather, He rebuked the Devil with Scripture! 

In apologetics, we must remember one thing: the unbeliever, regardless of his claims, does not really believe that God does not exist. On the contrary, he knows perfectly well that God exists, but is suppressing that knowledge (Romans 1:18-22). Thus, there is no need to establish a common ground. The believer and the unbeliever share a common belief in God. The difference is that one is living according to that belief, while the other is living contrary to it. That is why unbelief is inherently irrational and unstable. And exposing that irrationality was Paul's methodology when he preached at the Areopagus (Acts 17:16-34).

In His word, God has given us the most-powerful weapon possible for our spiritual conflict: "For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart" (Hebrews 4:12; see also Revelation 1:16 and 2:16). And He guarantees its success: "So shall My word be that goes out from My mouth; it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11).

The Fellowship of the Dead Precludes "Soul Sleep"

There the wicked cease from troubling,
     and there the weary are at rest.
There the prisoners are at ease together;
     they hear not the voice of the taskmaster.
The small and the great are there,
     and the slave is free from his master.
- Job 3:17-10 

Regarding the spirits of the deceased, the Seventh-Day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses teach distinct, though related, doctrines. SDA's claim that the spirit is unconscious, remaining with the body until the resurrection and judgment. Witnesses, on the other hand, teach the annihilation of the spirit at death, to be recreated at the judgment. This is in contrast to the historic Christian doctrine, which is that the spirit passes to the place of its eternal repose, whether Heaven or Hell, conscious in bliss or torment, until the judgment, when the spirit is rejoined to the body in the resurrection, its eternal state confirmed, and both body and spirit return to its place. 

Both groups argue from Bible verses, often from the more-obscure portions, that address the state of the bodies of the dead, and then commit a bait-and-switch, assuming that those verses also describe the state of the spirit. That is a simple logical fallacy, and is erroneous. 

The verses above are an example. As verse 17 says, the weary are at rest in death, and verse 18 adds that they are at ease. That immediately precludes the Witness doctrine; non-existence is not resting or being at ease. However, what of the SDA's "soul sleep"? 

Notice that the spirits of the dead are at ease together. Being unconscious in their graves would not be being together. Notice also what the weary dead enjoy: freedom from their taskmasters and slavemasters. How does a person enjoy freedom when he is unconscious? The Adventist intermediate state is not that described here (or in the rest of Scripture).