Resurrection(s)

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Hi D____,

Thank you for sharing your insights with me. I am grateful when anyone takes the time to do that.
I would only add to your words here that in order for “death to be destroyed” and for there to be “no more sea”, meaning no more flesh, that there of necessity has to be a first and second resurrection, divided by a “thousand years” which is no doubt a symbol for the time God has appointed to rule with a rod of iron instead of a shepherd’s staff.
It is true that we live through our own time of being ruled with a rod of iron while being fed with carnal manna instead of “the true bread from heaven.”

Joh 6:32  Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

During this time we pay tithes and submit to the law, even as we rebel against that law and are crushed for doing so. Israel’s forty years in the wilderness and their “ten rebellions” foreshadow the “thousand years” of mankind’s submission to the rod of iron in the hand of God’s elect, who are part of that “blessed and holy first resurrection”.

Rev 20:6  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.

But this symbolic thousand years has a consummation which is followed by “a little season” in which Satan is released from his prison within us which is called, in the Greek the abussos, and in the King James the bottomless pit.

Rev 20:1  And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand.
Rev 20:2  And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,
Rev 20:3  And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.
Rev 20:4  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.

The only reason any of this is done is because God is “seeking an occasion against the Philistines” as a type of those who are in the promised land without benefit of circumcision.

Jdg 14:4 But his father and his mother knew not that it was of the LORD, that he sought an occasion against the Philistines: for at that time the Philistines had dominion over Israel.

God is working all things after the counsel of His own will (Eph 1:11). Samson’s rebellion and the rebellion of the entire earth after the millennium are no exception to God’s total sovereignty. It is the uncircumcised condition of mankind at the end of this “thousand years” which facilitates their rebellion against God’s elect who have been ruling the kingdoms of this world for a thousand years “with a rod of iron” as “priest of God and Christ”. What happens next?

Rev 20:7  And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison,
Rev 20:8  And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle: the number of whom [ is] as the sand of the sea.

So God now has mankind all in rebellion against “our Lord and His Christ”, and now God has “an occasion” to destroy all flesh, so as to “destroy the last enemy… death”.

1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

That is why there are two resurrections. There must be a first judgment, which is even now on the house of God (1Pe 4:17). That judgment is followed by a first resurrection. I repeat:

Rev 20:6 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.

This first resurrection is then followed by a thousand year reign, and a short season of rebellion, which leads to God’s “occasion” to destroy all flesh which has “compassed the camp of the saints”. This event is immediately followed by a second resurrection and a lake of fire in which is “the second death. It is into this “second death… which is the lake of fire” that death is cast and is destroyed. God’s elect are that small lake, which God uses as His agency to destroy all flesh, in order to “destroy death”. “The last enemy to be destroyed is death”. As long as flesh exists, little baby “first Adams” will continue being born, and death will never be destroyed. But God has revealed to us His plan to save all men by the destruction of all flesh.

Rev 20:9 And they went up on the breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and the beloved city: and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.
Rev 20:10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet [ are], and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.
Rev 20:11 And 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.
Rev 20:12 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.
Rev 20:13 And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works.
Rev 20:14 And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

Everything God has promised us – death, “resurrection from the dead and newness of life” (Rom 6:1-4) – are all ours now in “earnest”, meaning in down- payment form, “until the redemption of the purchased possession”, which is until the resurrection from among the dead.

Eph 1:13  In whom [ Christ] ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
Eph 1:14  Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory.

Without a first resurrection, those who are asleep in Christ, all His apostles and saints, are perished.

1Co 15:16  For if the dead rise not, then is not Christ raised:
1Co 15:17  And if Christ be not raised, your faith is vain; ye are yet in your sins.
1Co 15:18  Then they also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished.

But there is both a first and a second resurrection, and God’s work is both ongoing, and it is also coming to a consummation.
I hope this all demonstrates for you what God is doing to bring about the all in all at “the end”.

Exo 23:16  And the feast of harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field
1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.
1Co 15:24  Then cometh the end [ of the year harvest], when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.
1Co 15:25  For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
1Co 15:26  The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.
1Co 15:27  For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under [ him, it is] manifest that he is excepted, which did put all things under him.
1Co 15:28  And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God may be all in all.
Eph 1:9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:
Eph 1:10  That in the dispensation of the fulness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:
Eph 1:17  That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him:
Eph 1:18  The eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints,
Eph 1:19  And what [ is] the exceeding greatness of his power to us- ward who believe, according to the working of his mighty power,
Eph 1:20  Which he wrought in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and set [ him] at his own right hand in the heavenly [ places],
Eph 1:21  Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
Eph 1:22  And hath put all [ things] under his feet, and gave him [ to be] the head over all [ things] to the church,
Eph 1:23  Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all.

We as Christ’s body, fill Him that fills all in all. In other words when we fill Christ, He in turn fills His Father, and neither are completely filled until God the Father fills all in all.

Your brother in Christ,
Mike

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