Home Topics Index Download
Transcript 029E — What is the "First Resurrection" [Rev 20:5]
HC: Good evening. Welcome to Open Forum.
CALLER: When it says in Revelation 20:5 that the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed, and this is the first resurrection, if this is the first resurrection, what actually is that, and what is the second resurrection? I don't understand that.
HC: Well, put a period after "and the rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were completed." You see, in verse 4 it's saying that when the believers are martyred, they actually do not die. Their bodies went into the grave, that is true. But in their essential being, in their inner essence, they went to live and reign with Christ in Heaven.
But the rest of the dead, the unsaved, when they die, they die. Their bodies go into the grave, and their souls go down into Hades to await judgment. And they will be resurrected on the Last Day, along with the bodies of the believers. But they don't have this privilege of going into God's presence when they die.
Then it starts out and explains what the first resurrection is. Now the reason for this is that these martyrs have experienced the first resurrection. Now in Ephesians 2:1 it says. "And you who were dead He made alive." And this is repeated in a number of places in the Bible. Now if we were dead and have been made alive, then in some way we must have experienced the resurrection.
In fact, in Ephesians 2:6 it says, "We have been raised with Christ," talking about born again believers. Now actually, Christ rose from the grave. He was resurrected. And if we have been raised with Him, then we have experienced the resurrection in some fashion.
And when we read Revelation 20, it says that those who have experienced the first resurrection are blessed. Well, that's the born again believers. They are holy. Well, we are the only holy people. We are the saints. It says that we are priests of God. That's what the Bible says of us, that we are a holy priesthood. It says? "Over them the second death has no power." That's hell. And only over the born again believers can it be said that hell has no power. So all of these statements all fit together.
Now actually, we experience the first resurrection at the moment we are saved. In our soul, that real part of us, that is, our inner spiritual essence that leaves the body at death, we, as it were, instantaneously died and were resurrected a brand new soul. That's why the Bible says we're new creatures, or we're born again. That's why at the moment of death, in our soul we can instantaneously go into the presence of Christ without any further change, because we've already experienced the resurrection. In our bodies we can't go to Heaven because our bodies first have to experience the resurrection. And they'll go to be with Christ when they have been raised.
And so these martyrs were able to go into the presence of Christ because they had experienced the first resurrection when they were saved.