WHAT IS THE RESURRECTION?

MF Blume
September 2002
The issue of the resurrection comes up many times in the discussions concerning 70 AD fulfillment of much of prophecy.  It may be more correct to say that Preterists believe that all prophecy regarding the end times was fulfilled in 70 AD.  I disagree, porposing Kingdom Eschatology, and contend that a definite part of prophecy was then fulfilled.

Full Preterists propose that even the resurrection of the dead, according to 1 Thessalonians 4, occurred in 70 AD.  It is believed that all the dead believers resurrected at one simultaneous moment in 70 AD, and received spiritual bodies.  And ever since that time, whenever a believer is buried, at the moment of their burial they are "changed" and receive new bodies.  In other words, they contend that there is no future time when the trumpet shall sound and all deceased believers will be changed, along with all living believers.

Kingdom Eschatology strongly opposes this viewpoint.

The following is the result of a discussion I personally had with a man who believes that there is no future resurrection for the dead and the living. This response I gave to him shows, in my opinion, why total Preterism is incorrect and that there is going to be future resurrection and a future blast of God's trumpet, and shows why through the words of 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
One has to read the entire chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 in order to properly understand what the latter half of the chapter is actually referring to.  You propose the latter half of the chapter is talking about a change that occurs when we are buried.  I contend that the first half of the chapter lays just the sort of foundation so that once we get to the latter half, we realize your proposal cannot be true at all.

You say the body you will have is going to be physical and yet spiritual. But you do actually not believe anything is "changed."   Paul spoke of us being "changed".  You do not believe the body you have now will be changed into another one. You believe your present body will be laid in a grave and left there, after you have a new spiritual body. I think that is the point of your error.
1 Corinthians 15:37  And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain:
The seed that goes into the ground changes into another body.   It is not left there as a seed. It becomes another body, which is the stalk of the plant.

When I dig up a plant, I do not see a seed that did not change, and then see roots all around it from another body of the stalk, as through the roots and stalk are not the "changed" seed. The seed has been transformed into the stalk and plant. That is what Paul said in 1 Cor 15:37.
1 Corinthians 15:42-46 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: (43) It is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: (44) It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. (45) And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. (46) Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
Notice the "IT". The IT is the body. And IT is changed. You have no change occurring in your doctrine. Nothing is changed. Where is the change that Paul talks about in your doctrine?

The above scriptures say that we cannot dig up a grave of a resurrected saint and see any bones, dust or anything else from the earthly body they had. It will be changed and gone. That has not occurred yet, so the dust is still there.

To "change" the body requires the body being made into another form, having other characteristics. But you are saying the present earthly body is not changed at all, but left in the ground to rot away, while our spiritual bodies are gone somewhere else. But Paul did not say that.

You noted to me that the body Jesus was raised with was only temporary and was actually the earthly body.  And since Paul said flesh and blood shall inherit the kingdom of God, you insist that Jesus' resurrected body of flesh cannot be the body He now possesses.  However, you agree that Jesus' body was changed in the tomb into a resurrected body, but insist it is still earthly. And you believe He gets His spiritual body in the clouds after He ascended into Heaven, and not in the tomb.   But then you say we get our spiritual bodies in the tomb. That is inconsistent.

BEGIN AT THE START OF THE CHAPTER

I propose that your idea disagrees with everything Paul said in 1 Cor 15. When we read form the start of the chapter, we find that Paul said that the bodies we will have will be like the body Jesus had when He resurrected from the tomb. Paul repeatedly makes reference to the body Jesus had that He left the tomb with in his introductory words that lead up to that section we are concerned with at the end of the chapter.
1 Corinthians 15:1-4  Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand;  (2)  By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain.  (3)  For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;  (4)  And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:
Notice the Gospel includes death, burial and resurrection.

Not death, burial, resurrection and change in the clouds.

What happened in the clouds is not part of the Gospel.

(Isn't it interesting that clouds do play a part in our resurrections, only after we are changed, just as after Jesus rose from the dead, he went up in clouds? Clouds are not the places we are changed. We are changed in the graves.)

Now, you did say we are changed and get spiritual bodies in the graves. But you insist the earthly body is not changed and stays there. However, if we are changed in the grave, then Jesus must have been changed in the grave as well!   Paul is basing our resurrection on Jesus' resurrection.  And Jesus' resurrection involved a body that was raised up from the tomb.  Therefore, any change that occurs in resurrection had to occur with Jesus' body in the tomb.  But you insist he was changed in the clouds.

The word of Paul insist that there is change first, and then the experience in the clouds.... both for Jesus and ourselves!

And after Paul makes this statement, He compares that to our resurrections when our bodies will be changed.

We cannot just read part of the chapter. We have to read the entire chapter to get the whole picture from start of the issue to the end.

Then Paul spoke of those who saw Jesus in His resurrected Body.
1 Corinthians 15:5-8 And that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: (6) After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep. (7) After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. (8) And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
This is significant, because this is the body Paul says that our bodies will be changed into.

Then we read some personal notes about Paul, followed by this:
1 Corinthians 15:12 Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?
Jesus was resurrected since people saw Him after the resurrection. Keep this in mind. And what they saw was what you are calling an earthly body. But I propose that is incorrect. Anyway, they saw a body resurrected and alive. Many many witnesses saw it.

Then we read:
1 Corinthians 15:13-14 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen: (14) And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain.
If Christ did not resurrect, then the Gospel is foolishness, because it involves resurrection of Jesus.

We read:
1 Corinthians 15:17-19 And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins. (18) Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished. (19) If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
Paul said that It affects us, too, if Christ did not actually resurrect. Now why is Paul saying all of this? It is because of this verse:
1 Corinthians 15:13 But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen:
People in Paul's day were saying there was not going to be a resurrection of the church. But Paul said if that be the case, then why did Christ resurrect? Paul was implying that the very manner in which Christ resurrected is the manner and proof that we will resurrect.

You seem to be saying that if I was laid in a grave and you saw my body come back out of the grave, changed -- the same body changed into an immortal body -- I did not actually "resurrect".   You propose my "resurrection" is going to be when I am laid in the grave and nobody sees anything come out of the grave. An invisible spiritual body comes out, while the earthly one is not changed and lays there.

But Paul said my resurrection is going to be like Jesus'. His body that went in the grave was "changed" and came out again for all to see. And on that basis, there is going to be a resurrection of my body, too.

Something that is resurrected has to have been dead first.   What is "resurrected" in your doctrine?  If the body is not changed in the grave, and stays there, then what is resurrected?  "Resurrected" means "brought to life again".  My earthly body will die and it will be brought to life again. The same body! Otherwise nothing resurrected.

Where does the Bible say that Jesus got another spiritual body in the clouds when He ascended?
2 Kings 2:16 And they said unto him, Behold now, there be with thy servants fifty strong men; let them go, we pray thee, and seek thy master: lest peradventure the Spirit of the LORD hath taken him up, and cast him upon some mountain, or into some valley. And he said, Ye shall not send.
It sounds as though Jesus' body experienced what the sons of the prophets thought happened to Elijah's body, if Jesus was changed in the clouds, and the body was not the part that changed, though, but is left behind. Since it was not changed into another body, because our bodies are not changed into anything else, then it only stands to reason that it fell to the ground somewhere when He got His spiritual body in the clouds.

If our bodies are left in the graves when we get spiritual bodies, then Jesus' body fell from the clouds when He got His spiritual body.

If it did not fall to the ground, did it vanish?

Since you propose that the earthly body is not "changed" into a spiritual body, then what happened to the body Jesus ascended with into the clouds?

If we are "changed" (with no change at all) in the grave, then why was the only change Jesus had in the grave a change of His earthly body so that it could walk and live again with no blood and nailprints and riven side? Why does Paul base our change upon Jesus' "raised" body in verse 37?

His body was dead and was changed so that it could live again. That is resurrection. And Paul is arguing that in the same way He resurrected, we are going to resurrect. In other words, our dead bodies will change so that they live again. But the change will also make those dead bodies spiritual and no longer earthly.

Paul said that we have no hope if Christ was not raised (resurrected). Why? Because our hope is the resurrection. So this is telling us that the raising of Jesus is our hope, also. But you are telling me that the changing of our bodies will not occur as the resurrection of Jesus occurred. You are telling me that our changed bodies will be as Jesus ascended body changed in the clouds. But Paul does not base our resurrection on that part of it at all. He bases it upon the part of Jesus' experience where Jesus raised out of the grave and was seen by so many people. That is the link to our resurrection. That is the manner our resurrection will be!
1 Corinthians 15:23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming.
And based upon comparing Christ's raising from the tomb to be seen of all, we then read the above verse. And since He is firstfruits, there will be others to follow. First always means there are more to come (Sort of like first resurrection!). What part of His experience is called firstfruits? What part of His experience will we experience to follow?  You will find the answer if you read verses 1 through to 8 -- the experience of Jesus that occurred first, which we will also experience, is the raised body from the tomb. That is the pattern for our resurrection. Not His ascension into the clouds where you claim He was changed.

And based upon all of that, Paul then says:
1 Corinthians 15:35-36 But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? (36) Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die:
He asks us what Body does the dead have when they are "raised" up. he says that they will have a body that they will come with at that raising. The answer is to find the answer to the question of when was Christ raised up? Christ was raised on the third day... not the forty-third day. You claim Christ was changed the forty-third day after His burial, because He ascended forty days after He arose from the tomb, and you claim His ascension into the clouds was when He first got a spiritual body. That means the forty-third day He was "changed".

However, verse 35 says the spiritual bodies we will have are like the body Jesus had when He was raised up.  When He was resurrected!  And that speaks of the body in which He was seen as Paul speaks about from verse 1 to 8 in this chapter.

One has to chop off all the verses before verse 35, and forget the note about what was raised in verse 35, in order to say the bodies we shall have were not like the body Jesus was raised from the tomb with. But verse 35 speaks of the body Jesus was "raised" with. And that is what our bodies will be like.

These verse says the bodies of those who are presently dead shall remain in the grave until the trumpet sounds: 1 Cor 15:51-52; 1 Thess 4:16-17.

Paul taught that the terrestrial body is changed into the spiritual body. Verse 40 is not talking about our bodies. When it says celestial, it is speaking of what we read in the next verse.
1 Corinthians 15:40-41 There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. (41) There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory.
It is speaking of the sun, moon and stars. These are celestial bodies. They are in outer space.

Paul did not say our new bodies will be celestial. He is simply differentiating the various bodies in the universe. Earthly (terrestrial) and non-earthly (celestial), just as he differentiated between the body of a seed and the body of a plant. The point he was making about the body of a plant and a seed, is that the body of the seed is changed and transformed into the body of the plant.

Jesus was not raised up a terrestrial body. His body was changed in the resurrection into a spiritual one, just like a seed is changed into a stalk.

Furthermore, Jesus was never said to have an earthly body!  You are contending that Jesus' resurrected body is "earthly" because it was an earthly body that was buried.  And since the Bible says earthly bodies will not enter heaven, then the earthly body He resurrected with can not be what Paul is saying the spiritual body we shall all have is what Jesus had at that time.  But you are actually mixing up the entire thought of Paul.  he never said anything about an earthly body of Jesus.  When he was talking about an "earthy" element, he was not speaking of the body.
1 Corinthians 15:47 The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven.
Adam, himself, was earthy. Not just his body.  Jesus is not earthy, nor ever was earthy.  This is not talking about Jesus' body when it says earthy. Why do you speak of an earthy body of Jesus when "earthy" is not used here to refer to anybody's body at all? Earthy is only used in this entire chapter to refer to origins of the person of Adam, as opposed to origin of the person of Jesus.

Adam was from the earth. Jesus was from heaven. Jesus was heavenly.

The corruptible is the earthly body. But it shall put on incorruption. Our bodies stay like Adam's, originating from him, until the trumpet sounds. That means it will not stay in the grave. It will be changed. But some earthly bodies will be changed outside the grave while they still live and walk around.
1 Corinthians 15:51-54 Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (52) In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. (53) For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. (54) So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.

1 Thessalonians 4:13-18  (13)  But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.  (14)  For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.  (15)  For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep.  (16)  For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:  (17)  Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.  (18)  Wherefore comfort one another with these words.

Also, Mary was told by Jesus the day He resurrected to not touch Jesus' body.  And the reaosn this is noted was because Jesus was high priest and He was going to enter the Most Holy Place of Heaven.  Leviticus 16 sheds some insight to this event.
Leviticus 16:17  And there shall be no man in the tabernacle of the congregation when he goeth in to make an atonement in the holy place, until he come out, and have made an atonement for himself, and for his household, and for all the congregation of Israel
Why would she not be allowed to touch Him, if the body would not enter the Holiest?  Heaven is the most holy place.
Hebrews 9:11-12  But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building;  Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

Hebrews 9:24  For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
This proves His resurrected Body was the spiritual Body Paul spoke about in 1 Corinthians 15.  If His resurrected body was not the spiritual body of 1 Cor 15, then Mary would not have to be told to refrain from touching it.  

So Jesus certainly did raise up a spiritual body from the tomb. That is the entire basis for Paul's reasoning that we shall likewise be changed. To read through the entire chapter is to learn that our resurrection will involve a change in our bodies, and that is based upon the Body that Jesus was raised with, according to 1 Cor 15:37.

Jesus was indeed clothed with immortality. His mortal earth-suit was changed to an immortal one, bearing wounds that cannot exist in a mortal body, since they would cause death.

His resurrection was not at all like Lazarus' resurrection, because Lazarus did not put on immortality.

Also note this statement of Jesus.
John 12:23 -24 And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
The only way a seed can bring forth much fruit is if it is changed into a plant. The seed does not remain in the ground when you plant it. It changes in there and comes forth again, and bears much fruit!

All these points prove that the natural body is changed into the spiritual body in the resurrection yet to come.

Our spirits are already resurrected. We must not forget that we are tripartite... spirit, soul and body. (1 Thess 5:23). Only the spirit is born again and resurrected, and that is what Romans 6 is talking about. Paul had that experience already. But the experience Paul did not have was the resurrection of 1 Cor 15. That was yet to come. And that was the resurrection of his body.