26. Death and Resurrection

26. Death and Resurrection
The wages of sin is death. But God, who alone is immortal, will grant eternal life to His redeemed. Until that day death is an unconscious state for all people. When Christ, who is our life, appears, the resurrected righteous and the living righteous will be glorified and caught up to meet their Lord. The second resurrection, the resurrection of the unrighteous, will take place a thousand years later. (Rom. 6:23; 1 Tim. 6:15, 16; Eccl. 9:5, 6; Ps. 146:3, 4; John 11:11-14; Col. 3:4; 1 Cor. 15:51-54; 1 Thess. 4:13-17; John 5:28, 29; Rev. 20:1-10.)

Commentary -
The apostle Paul said to a group of Jews who also entertained the hope of a resurrection that “there is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”—Ac 24:15. The Bible makes it plain who are “the righteous.” First of all, those who are to receive a heavenly resurrection are declared righteous.—Ro 8:28-30. Then the Bible calls faithful men of old such as Abraham righteous. (Ge 15:6; Jas 2:21) Many of these men are listed at Hebrews chapter 11, and of them the writer says: “And yet all these, although they had witness borne to them through their faith, did not get the fulfillment of the promise, as God foresaw something better for us [spirit-begotten, anointed Christians like Paul], in order that they might not be made perfect apart from us.” (Heb 11:39, 40) So, the perfecting of them will take place after that of the ones having part in “the first resurrection.”

Then there is the “great crowd” described in Revelation chapter 7, who are not members of the 144,000 “sealed” ones, and who consequently do not have “the token” of the spirit as being spirit-begotten. (Eph 1:13, 14; 2Co 5:5) They are described as coming “out of the great tribulation” as survivors of it; this would seem to locate the gathering of this group in the last days shortly before that tribulation. These are righteous through faith, being clothed in white robes washed in the blood of the Lamb. (Re 7:1, 9-17) As a class, they will not need to be resurrected, but faithful ones of that group who die before the great tribulation will be resurrected in God’s due time.

Also, there are many “unrighteous” persons buried in Sheol (Hades), mankind’s common grave, or in “the sea,” watery graves. The judgment of these along with “the righteous” resurrected on earth is described in Revelation 20:12, 13: “And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and scrolls were opened. But another scroll was opened; it is the scroll of life. And the dead were judged out of those things written in the scrolls according to their deeds. And the sea gave up those dead in it, and death and Hades gave up those dead in them, and they were judged individually according to their deeds.”

Time of the earthly resurrection. We note that this judgment is placed in the Bible in the account of events occurring during Christ’s Thousand Year Reign with his associate kings and priests. These, the apostle Paul said, “will judge the world.” (1Co 6:2) “The great and the small,” persons from all walks of life, will be there, to be judged impartially. They are “judged out of those things written in the scrolls” that will be opened then. This could not mean the record of their past lives nor a set of rules that judges them on the basis of their past lives. For since “the wages sin pays is death,” these by their death have received the wages of their sin in the past. (Ro 6:7, 23) Now they are resurrected that they might demonstrate their attitude toward God and whether they wish to take hold of the ransom sacrifice of Jesus Christ that was given for all. (Mt 20:28; Joh 3:16) Though their past sins are not accounted to them, they need the ransom to lift them up to perfection. They must make their minds over from their former way of life and thought in harmony with God’s will and regulations for the earth and its population. Accordingly, “the scrolls” evidently set forth the will and law of God for them during that Judgment Day, their faith and their obedience to these things being the basis for judgment and for writing their names indelibly, at last, into “the scroll of life.”

Resurrection to Life and to Judgment. Jesus gave the comforting assurance to mankind: “The hour is coming, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who have given heed will live. . . . Do not marvel at this, because the hour is coming in which all those in the memorial tombs will hear his voice and come out, those who did good things to a resurrection of life, those who practiced vile things to a resurrection of judgment.”—John 5:25-29. Now if Jesus, in speaking of judgment, meant a trial the result of which might be life, then there would be no contrast between this and the “resurrection of life.” Therefore, the context indicates that Jesus meant by “judgment” a condemnatory judgment. John 5:29 refers to end of judgment period. But a very important thing to notice, something that helps to determine the time feature of Jesus’ words concerning the ‘resurrection of life and the resurrection of judgment,’ is what he said earlier in the same context, in speaking of those living then who were spiritually dead (as explained under the subheading ‘Passing Over From Death to Life’): “The hour is coming, and it is now, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God and those who have given heed [literally, word for word, “the (ones) having heard”] will live.” (John 5:25, Int) This indicates that he was not speaking merely of someone audibly hearing his voice but, rather, of the ones “having heard,” namely, those who, after hearing, accept as true what they hear. The terms “hear” and “listen” are used very frequently in the Bible with the meaning of “give heed” or “obey.” Those who prove to be obedient will live. (Compare the use of the same Greek term [a·kou′o], “hear or listen,” at John 6:60; 8:43, 47; 10:3, 27.) Therefore, they are judged, not on what they did before hearing his voice, but on what they do after hearing it.

Jesus was therefore evidently taking a similar position in time in speaking of “those who did good things” and “those who practiced vile things,” namely, a position at the end of the period of judgment, as looking back in retrospect or in review of the actions of these resurrected persons after they had opportunity to obey or disobey the “things written in the scrolls.” Only at the end of the judgment period would it be demonstrated who had done good or bad. The outcome to “those who did good things” (according to “those things written in the scrolls”) would be the reward of life; to “those who practiced vile things,” a judgment of condemnation. The resurrection would have turned out to be either to life or to condemnation.

Consequently the viewpoint taken at John 5:29 is not identical with that at Acts 24:15 in which Paul speaks of the resurrection of “the righteous and the unrighteous.” Paul is plainly referring to those who have had a righteous or unrighteous standing before God during this life, and who will be resurrected. They are “those in the memorial tombs.” (John 5:28;) At John 5:29, Jesus views such persons after their coming out of the memorial tombs and after they, by their course of action during the reign of Jesus Christ and his associate kings and priests, have proved themselves either obedient, with eternal “life” as their reward, or disobedient, and so deserving “judgment or condemnation” from God.

More information exists on the soul that is recovered from Sheol or the common grave of mankind. But in brief: Throughout the Scriptures it is evident that there is no “immaterial soul” separate and distinct from the body. The soul dies when the body dies. Even of Jesus Christ it is written that “he poured out his soul to the very death.” His soul was in Sheol. He had no existence as a soul or person during that time. (Isa 53:12; Ac 2:27; compare Eze 18:4;) Consequently, in the resurrection there is no joining again of soul and body. However, whether spiritual or earthly, the individual must have a body or organism, for all persons, heavenly or earthly, possess bodies. To be again a person, one who has died would have to have a body, either a physical or a spiritual body. The Bible says: “If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual one.”—1Co 15:44. The remainder of this commentary on the "Soul" can be reserved for another time in another setting.