This general resurrection of the dead that Jesus prophesied about in John 5:28-29 must be the same resurrection recorded in Revelation 20:11-15 through Revelation 21:1-8. In both resurrections, the dead are judged according to their good and bad works. Only the dead stand before God because He will not yet have recreated their good works into new humans at that time. The book of life will be opened where God has recorded His new names for all His future humans whom He will recreate to live on His recreated earth. Other books will be opened which will have recorded all of the good and evil works of the dead. At that judgment, God will recover all of His good works that He put into man and collect them into a general pool from which He will create righteous men to live on His righteous, recreated earth. All of the evil dead will be cast into the lake of fire. Thus, in this general resurrection, God will absolutely and completely separate all that is totally righteous from all that is totally evil.
The main difference between those saved by grace and the recreated humans will be that those saved by grace will already be enjoying a new life with God in heaven while the recreated humans can only reside on the new earth. In addition, humans saved by grace will retain most of their former identities and personalities that they had on the old earth while the recreated humans will lose their former identities and personalities because God will have recreated them from a pool of recovered good works as He sees fit to recreate them. Matthew 16:24-27; Mark 8:34-38; Luke 9:23-26.
Revelation 20:13 reveals that God will raise the dead from three different places called the sea, death, and hell. If unrepentant sinners go only to hell when they die, then the Bible could only state that. Revelation 20:14 teaches that both death and hell will be cast into the lake of fire to be destroyed. God promised in I Corinthians 15:26 that He would destroy death. God will also destroy hell because the lake of fire is called the second death. In addition, God will have emptied hell of all its dead which will show that hell has already served its purpose. All of this shows that the second death must eliminate the first death. Revelation 21:1 reveals that the sea from which some of the dead were raised will also be eliminated by a manner not specified. Revelation 21:5 provides God's assurance that He will make all things new. Since God created all things in the first place, then this promise can only mean that God will recover every good element He has ever created as Colossians 1:20 and Romans 11:36 relate. Since God recovers and cleanses all of His good elements that have been temporarily subject to being sullied by sin and uses them to recreate a new earth and mankind, then this can only mean that the dead whom God casts into the lake of fire must be totally evil as Revelation 21:8 describes them as being.
Whether lost souls after death go into the sea, death, or hell depends solely upon the judgment of Christ. Christ is the sole and final judge in all matters as John 5:21-22 and 27 clearly teach. God allows believers to recognize sin when they see it, but Christ never allows believers to make final judgments about any person. Matthew 7:1-2; Matthew 7:20. Christians must recognize that God has appointed Christ alone to be the final judge and leave it at that. This means that whenever believers make such final judgments, they must put themselves in the place of Christ, and that can only be a sin. Hebrews 9:27.
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