The Bible (KJV) teaches that there has been and will be two different types of resurrections for two different types of people. The highest type of resurrection belongs solely to all humans saved by grace. Three categories of the first type exist: the Old Testament saints, the New Testament saints, and the Tribulation saints. God resurrected the Old Testament saints immediately following Christ's resurrection. Matthew 27:52-53. God will resurrect the New Testament saints at the Rapture of the Church. I Thessalonians 4:13-18. God will resurrect the Tribulation saints at the end of the Tribulation period. Revelation 20:4. All saints saved by grace obtain the righteous life of Christ Himself and a home with Him in heaven forever. But in the second type of resurrection, God will effect a general resurrection of the rest of humanity at the end of the millennial reign of Christ. God will recreate the goodness He put into these humans into a new humanity to live on His recreated earth.
God will divide the general resurrection into two events. In the first event, God will recover all of His created life that He has put into mankind, which at that time will reside within the regions of the dead. Revelation 20:5-6. Only humans saved by grace can be called "...priests of God and of Christ..." This means the first resurrection of verse six can only refer to the resurrection of the Tribulation saints prior to the thousand year reign of Christ. But the first resurrection of verse five can only refer to the first part of the general resurrection when God will recover all the living that He created from their confinement within the realms of the dead. God used the phrase "...the dead lived not again..." Since the dead cannot be alive, then this phrase can only mean that God will recover all lives He created from among the regions of the dead.
God holds the right and the power to dissolve any system he has ever created into its constituent elements for the purpose of recreating those elements into a new system. Each human is one such system. In the first part of the general resurrection, God will dissolve the individualities and personalities of all the dead in order to recover the life and goodness He originally put into each one of them for the purpose of recreating a new, righteous human race to live on His recreated earth. Revelation 2:1-3. Life and goodness are synonymous. God created all life to be good. Genesis 1:31. All good works come from being alive. Deadness comes from the sin that has infected mankind. All humans not saved by grace must go to one of the three regions of the dead; that is, the sea, the death, or hell according to the judgment of Christ. Revelation 20:13; Hebrews 9:27. They must go to one of these three places of the dead because their lives and goodness have not been cleansed from being sullied by sin and death. Isaiah 64:6. God's consuming fire is His power that cleanses and separates the living from the dead. I Corinthians 3:15. God will never dissolve the individualities and basic personalities of all saints saved by grace forever. Mark 8:34-35. All saints saved by grace are cleansed from sin and death by the blood and water that flowed from Jesus on the cross, and they are made alive by Christ's resurrection from the dead. All the rest of humanity will be saved by the descent of the Spirit of Christ into hell where He left behind all of the sin and deadness of mankind. God puts His salvation by grace into effect when a repentant sinner becomes "born again." God puts His salvation and separation of the living from the dead into effect by the use of His consuming fire. God created all life, and since God's Word and His creative powers can never be diminished, then God will recover and recreate all human lives that He ever created. Numbers 23:19; Ecclesiastes 3;14; Luke 20:38; Romans 11:36; Colossians 1:20; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12.
The Devil has counted on destroying all of God's creations by permanently reducing them to the level of sin and death. By this means, the Devil seeks to diminish God's Word and power and thus kill God. God has fully met the Devil's challenge on the cross, by His descent into hell, and by His resurrection from the dead. God has and will cleanse and separate all that He has ever created from sin and death and will recreate it all. Love can never fail. I Corinthians 13:8; Revelation 21:5.
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