The Bible is clear that resurrection is a reality and this life is not all that there is. While death is the end of physical life, it is not the end of human existence. Many erroneously believe that there is one general resurrection at the end of the age, but the Bible teaches that there will be not one resurrection, but a series of resurrections, some to eternal life in heaven and some to eternal damnation (Daniel 12:2; John 5:28-29).

The first great resurrection was the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is documented in each of the four Gospels (Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20), cited several times in Acts (Acts 1:22; 2:31; 4:2, 33; 26:23), and mentioned repeatedly in the letters to the churches (Romans 1:4; Philippians 3:10; 1 Peter 1:3).

Much is made of the importance of Christ’s resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15:12-34, which records that over five hundred people saw Him at one of His post-resurrection appearances. Christ’s resurrection is the “first fruits” or guarantee to every Christian that he will also be resurrected. Christ’s resurrection is also the basis of the Christian’s certainty that all people who have died will one day be raised to face fair and even-handed judgment by Jesus Christ (Acts 17:30-31). The resurrection to eternal life is described as “the first resurrection” (Revelation 20:5-6); the resurrection to judgment and torment is described as “the second death” (Revelation 20:6, 13-15).

The first great resurrection of the Church will occur at the time of the rapture. All those who have placed their trust in Jesus Christ during the Church Age, and have died before Jesus returns, will be resurrected at the rapture. The Church Age began on the Day of Pentecost and will end when Christ returns to take believers back to heaven with Him (John 14:1-3; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). The Apostle Paul explained that not all Christians will die, but all will be changed, i.e., given resurrection-type bodies (1 Corinthians 15:50-58), some without having to die! Christians who are alive, and those who have already died, will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and be with Him always!

Another great resurrection will occur when Christ returns to earth (His Second Coming) at the end of the Tribulation period. After the rapture, the Tribulation is the next event after the Church Age in God’s chronology. This will be a time of terrible judgment upon the world, described in great detail in Revelation chapters 6-18. Though all Church Age believers will be gone, millions of people left behind on earth will come to their senses during this time and will trust in Jesus as their Savior. Tragically, most of them will pay for their faith in Jesus by losing their lives (Revelation 6:9-11; 7:9-17; 13:7, 15-17; 17:6; 19:1-2).

These believers in Jesus who die during the Tribulation will be resurrected at Christ’s return and will reign with Him for a thousand years during the Millennium (Revelation 20:4, 6). Old Testament believers such as Job, Noah, Abraham, David and even John the Baptist (who was assassinated before the Church began) will be resurrected at this time also.

Several passages in the Old Testament mention this event (Job 19:25-27; Isaiah 26:19; Daniel 12:1-2; Hosea 13:14). Ezekiel 37:1-14 describes primarily the regathering of the Nation of Israel using the symbolism of dead corpses returning to life, indicating a physical resurrection of their dead in the passage.

All believers in God during the Old Testament era, and all believers in Jesus in the New Testament will participate in the first resurrection, a resurrection to life (Revelation 20:4, 6).

Another resurrection at the end of the Millennium, is implied, but never explicitly stated in Scripture... some believers will die a physical death during the Millennium. Through the prophet Isaiah, God said, "No longer will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days; for the youth will die at the age of one hundred and the one who does not reach the age of one hundred will be thought accursed” (Isaiah 65:20).

It is also possible that death in the Millennium will only come to the disobedient. In either event, transformation will be required to fit believers in their natural bodies in the Millennium for pristine existence throughout eternity. Each believer will require a “resurrected” type of body.

Scripture teaches that God will destroy the entire universe, including the earth, with fire (2 Peter 3:7-12). This will be necessary to purge God’s creation of its endemic evil and decay brought upon it by man’s sin. In its place God will create a new heaven and a new earth (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-4).

What will happen to those believers who survived the Tribulation and entered the Millennium in their natural bodies?

What will happen to those who were born during the Millennium, trusted in Jesus, and continued to live in their natural bodies?

Paul made it clear that flesh and blood, which is mortal and able to decay, cannot inherit the kingdom of God. It is inhabitable only by those with resurrected, glorified bodies that are no longer mortal and are not able to decay (1 Corinthians 15:35-49). These believers will be given resurrection bodies without having to die. Theologically, this must happen in the transition from the old earth and universe to the new earth and new heaven (2 Peter 3:13; Revelation 21:1-4).

There is a final resurrection, apparently of all the unbelieving dead of all ages. Jesus Christ will raise them from the dead (John 5:25-29) after the Millennium, the thousand-year reign of Christ (Revelation 20:5), and after the destruction of the present earth and universe (2 Peter 3:7-12; Revelation 20:11). This is the resurrection described by Daniel as an awakening “from the dust of the ground ... to disgrace and everlasting contempt” (Daniel 12:2). It is described by Jesus as a “resurrection of judgment” (John 5:28-29).

The Apostle John saw something that would happen in the future. He saw a “great white throne” (Revelation 20:11). Heaven and earth “fled away” from the One sitting on it. This is evidently a description of the dissolution by fire of all matter, including the entire universe and earth itself (2 Peter 3:7-12). All the (godless) dead will stand before the throne. This means they have been resurrected after the thousand years (Revelation 20:5).

They will possess bodies that can feel pain but will never cease to exist (Mark 9:43-48). They will be judged, and their punishment will be commensurate with their works. But there is another book opened—the Lamb’s book of life (Revelation 21:27). Those whose names are not written in the book of life are cast into the “lake of fire,” which amounts to “the second death” (Revelation 20:11-15).

No indication is given of any who appear at this judgment that their names are found in the book of life. Rather, those whose names appear in the book of life were among those who are blessed, for they received forgiveness and partook of the first resurrection, the resurrection to life (Revelation 20:6).


Got Questions.org
Heaven by Randy Alcorn

What the hell are you talking about? Damn near every country on the planet has business in the ME.

Iran, among others, has made good on its threats against America and Israel. Sounds like serious business to me.

Over the years, the United States has built a formidable intelligence network in the ME - CIA field offices and agents, military intelligence assets, indigenous operatives (Muslims), and cooperation with foreign intelligence agencies. These dedicated people have been keeping their fingers on the pulse of affairs in the ME. They are keeping president Trump, the DOD, and military commanders well informed about what's going on over there.

If the United States pulls our military forces out of the ME, particularly Iraq and Syria, and brings the troops home - all of them, air, land and sea - then our intelligence networks in the region will be seriously hamstrung. Intelligence stations will shut down, field agents will be pulled out or sent to embassies for wh**ever protections they might provide, indigenous operatives will be cut loose and on their own, and we will be blind, we won't have a clue what's going on over there.

Iranian Islamists have been chanting "Death to America" and k*****g Americans for four decades, seems prudent to keep a close eye on those bastards and to maintain a military presence capable of smoking them immediately if they finally decide to walk the walk.

In 2003, a 25 year veteran CIA case officer wrote a book called "See No Evil". He operated in every middle eastern s**thole imaginable. He wrote the book to document how the Clinton administration did exactly what I just described. Clinton despised the idea of exposing CIA agents and their operatives to constant danger, he and his advisors felt that technological surveillance such as satellite imagery and electronic intercepts with analyses by the map reading brainiacs at Langley was far superior to boots on the ground. When this happened, actionable intelligence dwindled to a drip. CIA stations were closed, agents withdrawn, operatives cut loose - some to pay the price. He describes how the CIA steadily degenerated from a potent human-intelligence resource that often saved or spared lives, to a people-shy, satellite-obsessed, and politically oriented branch of a centralized government.

He discussed the extent to which the Iranian Revolutionary Guard has been involved in anti-American terrorist activity, most publicly in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing, but also in a far more diverse range of terrorist operations.

From The Preface
This book is a memoir of one foot soldier’s career in the other cold war, the one against terrorist networks. It’s a story about places most Americans will never travel to, about people many Americans would prefer to think we don’t need to do business with.

This memoir, I hope, will show the reader how spying is supposed to work, where the CIA lost its way, and how we can bring it back again. But I hope this book will accomplish one more purpose as well: I hope it will show why I am angry about what happened to the CIA. And I want to show why every American and everyone who cares about the preservation of this country should be angry and alarmed, too.

The CIA was systematically destroyed by political correctness, by petty Beltway wars, by careerism, and much more. At a time when terrorist threats were compounding globally, the agency that should have been monitoring them was being scrubbed clean instead. Americans were making too much money to bother. Life was good. The White House and the National Security Council became cathedrals of commerce where the interests of big business outweighed the interests of protecting American citizens at home and abroad. Defanged and dispirited, the CIA went along for the ride. And then on September 11, 2001, the reckoning for such vast carelessness was presented for all the world to see.

So, when is the 1st Resurrection?

Revelation 20:4-5
King James Version
4 And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and 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.

5 But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection.

Before the creation of the church, i.e., the Body of Christ, Lazarus, was the first resurrection from the dead, but because Jesus had not yet paid the penalty for sin at that point, Lazarus could not yet technically rise to new eternal life in Him.

In all actuality, to make possible the founding of the Christian church at Pentecost, Jesus Christ was the first resurrection!

Revelation 20 speaks of those martyrs who came to believe in Christ during the Tribulation, after the close of the church age with the church already removed from the earth by being raptured.

All others are subsequential.

In order to know what the phrase "in Christ" means, one must examine context (where it is used).

"For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first," (1st Thessalonians 4:16).

This is the only place in Scripture where it occurs. What does "dead in Christ" mean? It refers to the Christians who have died after believing upon Him, during the church age, but before the return of Christ to the earth. They will rise first and return with Him (2nd Cor. 5:8). They are "in Christ," i.e., they are saved. "In Christ" designates being saved, as does redemption, eternal life, no condemnation, etc.

1st Thessalonians continues ...

"Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord.
Therefore comfort one another with these words," (1st Thess. 4:17-18).

There are two resurrections in this context. The dead "rise first," resurrected to their glorified bodies immediately before those still alive who are then raptured before the Tribulation ensues.

First: maybe you don't know that the rules the democrats are using for impeachment were the rules the Republicans changed in 2014 -the republicans made the rules that are governing this impeachment. The House basically work as your "police detectives" in cases like this and gather the evidence -which is why there is no cross examination -all that comes when the Senate holds the actual impeachment trial. However, contrary to what you have read, democrats invited Trump and his lawyers to participate, but Trump refused....just so he could claim the democrats are being unfair.
You wrote: The Senate can run the proceedings any way they want...we'll run it to our advantage...where is the reality and sense of fairness in that? What is the point of having a Senate trial IF the senate has already made up its mind to NOT call witnesses (even though they claim they will run impeachment similar to Clinton's -which had witnesses), and McConnell has said he "will work in lock-step with the WH on impeachment?" Republicans continue to show that the law means nothing to them...unless of course it backs up their narrative. Apparently, this current group does not fear the b****t box.....but they should....they really should.

First: maybe you don't know that the rules the democrats are using for impeachment were the rules the Republicans changed in 2014 -the republicans made the rules that are governing this impeachment. The House basically work as your "police detectives" in cases like this and gather the evidence -which is why there is no cross examination -all that comes when the Senate holds the actual impeachment trial. However, contrary to what you have read, democrats invited Trump and his lawyers to participate, but Trump refused....just so he could claim the democrats are being unfair.
You wrote: The Senate can run the proceedings any way they want...we'll run it to our advantage...where is the reality and sense of fairness in that? What is the point of having a Senate trial IF the senate has already made up its mind to NOT call witnesses (even though they claim they will run impeachment similar to Clinton's -which had witnesses), and McConnell has said he "will work in lock-step with the WH on impeachment?" Republicans continue to show that the law means nothing to them...unless of course it backs up their narrative. Apparently, this current group does not fear the b****t box.....but they should....they really should.