Children of the Resurrection

“For All Live Unto Him”

Jesus’ Answer to the Sadducees and the Passage From Death Unto Life

Luke 20:33–38:

“Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she?”

“They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”

“He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.”

A Note on Scripture Quotations and Ancient Texts

Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations in this book are taken from the King James Version (KJV). The KJV has been chosen as the principal English text because of its historical influence, broad recognition among English-speaking readers, and usefulness as a common point of reference across different Christian traditions.

The use of the KJV does not mean that its wording will be treated as decisive wherever questions of translation or textual history arise. When the precise wording of a passage is important to the discussion, other English translations may be compared, including the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition (NRSVue), New American Standard Bible 2020 (NASB 2020), NET Bible, and New World Translation (NWT).

Where a question cannot adequately be resolved through English translations, the underlying Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek text will be examined. Important differences between the Greek textual tradition underlying the KJV and modern critical editions of the Greek New Testament will also be identified when they materially affect the discussion.

At certain points, ancient translations and textual witnesses—including the Septuagint, Syriac versions, Old Latin, and Latin Vulgate—may be considered where they preserve evidence relevant to the meaning or early transmission of a passage.

Historical Jewish sources, including Josephus, the Mishnah, and other relevant Second Temple or early Jewish writings, will occasionally be consulted to illuminate the legal, cultural, and religious setting in which particular biblical statements were heard. Such sources will be used as historical witnesses, not as authorities over the biblical text.

Throughout this study, an effort will be made to distinguish between what the text explicitly states, what its language and historical setting support, and what remains an interpretation or possibility being considered.

No conclusion in this book is intended to depend merely upon choosing the translation whose wording best supports it. Where the wording matters, we will attempt to look beneath the translation and ask a more fundamental question:

What did the biblical writer actually say?

Introduction

Whose Wife Shall She Be?

Few conversations recorded in the Gospels have produced conclusions as far-reaching as Jesus’ exchange with the Sadducees concerning the resurrection. The question placed before him was memorable: seven brothers, one woman, seven successive marriages, and no children. If all of them were raised from the dead, the Sadducees asked, “whose wife shall she be of the seven?” Jesus answered that in the resurrection they “neither marry, nor are given in marriage,” but are like the angels. For many readers, the meaning seems settled before the remainder of Jesus’ answer is even considered: marriage does not exist after the resurrection.

But was that actually the question Jesus was answering?

The Gospel writers tell us something important before presenting the discussion. The men approaching Jesus were Sadducees, “which say that there is no resurrection” (Matthew 22:23). They were not asking Jesus for instruction about married life in the future world. They were challenging the very possibility of resurrection. Their marriage question was the instrument by which they intended to expose what they regarded as a contradiction in the resurrection hope.

Their argument was based upon the Law of Moses. If a married man died without children, his brother was to take the widow and “raise up seed unto his brother” (Deuteronomy 25:5–6). The purpose was explicitly connected with the deceased man's name: the firstborn was to succeed in his name “that his name be not put out of Israel.” Thus the Sadducees constructed a case in which death occurred repeatedly but the purpose of the arrangement was never accomplished. The first brother died without seed. The second died without seed. The same happened through all seven brothers. Finally the woman herself died. Then came their challenge: if resurrection is real and all seven return, whose wife is she?

Mark makes the repeated absence of seed particularly noticeable: “the first took a wife, and dying left no seed”; the second “neither left he any seed”; finally, “the seven had her, and left no seed” (Mark 12:20–22). The problem therefore involves considerably more than seven men who happened to love the same woman. It begins with death and childlessness and with a Mosaic arrangement designed to preserve what death threatened to remove.

This becomes even more significant when the levirate provision is placed within the larger structure of Israel. A man's name was connected with his household, his descendants, and his inheritance. The land had been distributed among tribes, clans, and families, and the Law contained provisions intended to prevent ancestral possession from disappearing permanently from a family. The Jubilee carried this principle still further: “In the year of this jubile ye shall return every man unto his possession” (Leviticus 25:13). Loss did not necessarily have to become permanent. Redemption could recover what had been alienated, and Jubilee could bring release and return.

The book of Ruth brings these ideas together in an especially striking expression. Boaz speaks of Ruth, the dead man's family and the redeemed property as part of one purpose: “to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance” (Ruth 4:10). Here name, seed, inheritance and redemption meet in a single narrative.

Nor is Ruth an isolated case. Long before the Law of Moses, Tamar's story concerned a dead husband, the absence of offspring, and the obligation to “raise up seed” to the deceased. Through Tamar came Perez. Ruth herself later entered the line descending from Perez, and through Ruth came Obed, Jesse and David. Matthew's genealogy eventually carries that same line to Jesus Christ. Thus the biblical history of the promised Seed itself passes through stories involving threatened family lines, death, offspring, redemption and inheritance.

Against that background, Jesus' answer to the Sadducees deserves to be heard again.

Matthew records him saying: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” Luke preserves the fullest form of his answer: “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” — Luke 20:35–36

One expression in that answer deserves particular attention: “Neither can they die any more.” Death was the mechanism that generated the Sadducees' entire problem. A husband died. Because he died without offspring, another brother took his wife. Then that brother died. Another followed. Seven deaths produced the apparent contradiction. Jesus describes those attaining the resurrection as people for whom that fundamental condition no longer exists: they “cannot die any more.”

This does not by itself answer every question about marriage in the resurrection. Nor should we begin by deciding what Jesus must have meant. Instead, this study will ask a more basic question: What did Jesus actually say, and what problem was he answering?

There is another reason for returning to the question carefully. Jesus had previously shown how he approached Mosaic legislation concerning marriage. When the Pharisees appealed to Moses' provision for divorce, Jesus did not begin with the later regulation. He went behind it: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?” He then quoted Genesis concerning a man and his wife becoming “one flesh” and explained that Moses permitted divorce because of the hardness of their hearts, “but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:4–8).

That expression—“from the beginning”—provides an important reference point. Marriage, male and female, companionship, one flesh, and the command to “be fruitful, and multiply” all appear in Genesis before human death. Levirate marriage, by contrast, addresses circumstances created by death and childlessness. One belongs to the creation account; the other regulates a problem arising in a world subject to death.

We therefore should be cautious about using a death-generated Mosaic arrangement to define what God's original creation arrangement was—or what necessarily remains when death itself is finally removed.

But Jesus takes the conversation still further. After answering the Sadducees' hypothetical, he does not finish by discussing marriage. He turns to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. These men had physically died, yet God continued to identify himself to Moses as their God. Jesus therefore concludes: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.” — Luke 20:38. This statement should not simply be assumed to mean that the patriarchs were already living consciously in heaven. Elsewhere Jesus says, “no man hath ascended up to heaven” (John 3:13), and the Scriptures continue to speak of the faithful dead as awaiting resurrection. What, then, does Jesus mean when he says that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, though dead, nevertheless “live unto” God? That question will become central to this investigation.

Here the investigation becomes much larger.

What does it mean to be alive to God while awaiting resurrection? Why does Jesus elsewhere say that a person who hears his word “is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24)? Why does Paul describe physically living Christians as having been dead, then “quickened” and “raised up together” with Christ? What does Revelation mean by having a “part in the first resurrection,” upon whom “the second death hath no power”? And why does Luke connect resurrection not merely with returning to life, but with becoming “children of God” and “children of the resurrection”?

The same questions eventually lead into another biblical vocabulary: inheritance, redemption and release. The spirit is called “the earnest of our inheritance” (Ephesians 1:14). Paul speaks of “the firstfruits of the Spirit” while God's children await the redemption still ahead. Creation itself waits to be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21). Daniel is told that he will rest and afterward “stand in thy lot.” And Paul describes the ultimate enemy that Christ's Kingdom must destroy: “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26).

These passages should not be connected merely because their language sounds similar. Each must first be understood within its own context. Some connections will be explicit. Others may remain possibilities that must be tested. Ancient Jewish sources, the Greek and Hebrew texts, early translations, and textual variants will be consulted where they genuinely help. No ancient source or preferred English translation will be allowed to carry more weight than the evidence permits.

The purpose of this book, therefore, is not to begin with a new doctrine about marriage after resurrection and then search for verses to support it. It is to return to the question as Jesus received it, reconstruct the scriptural world from which it arose, and follow his answer wherever it leads.

The Sadducees began with a dead man who had left no seed. Moses provided a means by which his name could continue. Israel's inheritance laws protected his family's place. Redemption could recover lost possession. Jubilee could return a man to his inheritance. Yet all of these arrangements faced the same limitation: they operated in a world where people continued to die.

Jesus pointed beyond that limitation. He spoke of those who “cannot die any more.” He called them “children of God.”

He called them “children of the resurrection.” And finally, instead of speaking merely about preserving the names of dead men, he pointed to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and declared: “For all live unto him.”

Perhaps, then, the deepest question in this conversation is ultimately not, Whose wife will she be? It is: What does it mean to become alive to God—and to become a child of the resurrection?

The Gospel Accounts — The Conversation in Matthew, Mark, and Luke

Read side by side, the three accounts tell the same story, but they do not emphasize every detail in exactly the same way. Mark repeatedly draws attention to the absence of seed; Matthew records Jesus' warning that the Sadducees did not know “the scriptures, nor the power of God”; and Luke preserves the fullest explanation of what it means to attain the resurrection: “neither can they die any more,” they are “children of God,” “children of the resurrection,” and “all live unto him.” These differences will become important as the investigation proceeds.

The following passages are from the King James Version. Verse numbers have been omitted so that each account may be read as a continuous conversation.

Matthew 22:23–33: "The same day came to him the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection, and asked him, saying, Master, Moses said, If a man die, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were with us seven brethren: and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and, having no issue, left his wife unto his brother: likewise the second also, and the third, unto the seventh. And last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife shall she be of the seven? for they all had her.

Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven. But as touching the resurrection of the dead, have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

And when the multitude heard this, they were astonished at his doctrine."

Mark 12:18–27: "Then come unto him the Sadducees, which say there is no resurrection; and they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If a man's brother die, and leave his wife behind him, and leave no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. Now there were seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and dying left no seed. And the second took her, and died, neither left he any seed: and the third likewise. And the seven had her, and left no seed: last of all the woman died also. In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them? for the seven had her to wife.

And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God? For when they shall rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage; but are as the angels which are in heaven. And as touching the dead, that they rise: have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err."

Luke 20:27–40: "Then came to him certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection; and they asked him, saying, Master, Moses wrote unto us, If any man's brother die, having a wife, and he die without children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up seed unto his brother. There were therefore seven brethren: and the first took a wife, and died without children. And the second took her to wife, and he died childless. And the third took her; and in like manner the seven also: and they left no children, and died. Last of all the woman died also. Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife.

And Jesus answering said unto them, The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.

Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.

Then certain of the scribes answering said, Master, thou hast well said. And after that they durst not ask him any question at all."

Three Accounts, One Question

Read side by side, the three accounts establish the same basic controversy: the Sadducees deny resurrection, appeal to Moses, construct a case involving seven brothers and a childless woman, and ask Jesus to explain what happens when the dead rise. Jesus answers their challenge by correcting their understanding of both Scripture and God's power.

Yet the differences in emphasis are worth noticing.

Mark repeatedly draws attention to the absence of offspring: the first brother “left no seed,” the second “neither left he any seed,” and finally “the seven had her, and left no seed.” This becomes particularly important when the question is placed beside the Mosaic command to “raise up seed unto his brother.”

Matthew preserves Jesus' striking diagnosis of the underlying problem: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” The Sadducees' mistake therefore concerns more than their understanding of marriage. Something in their reading of Scripture—and in their conception of what God is able to do—has led them to the wrong conclusion about resurrection.

Luke gives the fullest description of Jesus' answer. Those who are “accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead” are described as people who “cannot die any more.” They are “equal unto the angels,” “children of God,” and “children of the resurrection.” Luke also preserves the remarkable conclusion concerning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him.”

These differences should not be flattened into a single reconstructed quotation. Each Gospel deserves to be heard in its own voice. At the same time, when the three accounts are allowed to illuminate one another, the contours of the controversy become clearer. There is death. There is no seed. There is a Mosaic provision intended to raise up seed to a dead brother. There is the question of what happens when the dead rise. And in Jesus' answer there is a condition in which they “cannot die any more.” That is where our investigation begins.

Part I

The Question Behind the Question

Chapter 1

“Which Deny That There Is Any Resurrection”

The Gospel writers do not leave us to guess why the Sadducees approached Jesus. Before giving us their question, they tell us what these men believed.

Matthew introduces them as “the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection.” Mark says the same. Luke is even more direct: they were “certain of the Sadducees, which deny that there is any resurrection.” Their story about seven brothers and one woman therefore was not primarily a request for information about marriage. It was a challenge to resurrection itself.

This distinction matters. If we begin with the question, “Will people be married after resurrection?” we may already be reading the conversation differently from those who actually participated in it. The Sadducees were asking something closer to this: If resurrection is real, how can it possibly work without creating contradictions with the Law of Moses?

Their example was designed to make resurrection appear unreasonable.

Who Were the Sadducees?

The New Testament presents the Sadducees as an influential Jewish group associated especially with the priestly and governing establishment in Jerusalem. They appear alongside the Pharisees but differed sharply from them on important theological questions.

The book of Acts gives us an unusually useful summary. When Paul appeared before the Sanhedrin, he recognized that the assembly contained both Sadducees and Pharisees and declared that he was being judged “of the hope and resurrection of the dead.” The result was immediate disagreement: “For the Sadducees say that there is no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit: but the Pharisees confess both.” — Acts 23:8

Whatever further distinctions may have existed between these groups, the point relevant to Jesus' conversation is unmistakable: resurrection was one of their major disagreements. The controversy therefore did not begin when the Sadducees invented their story about seven brothers. They brought an existing theological position to Jesus and attempted to defend it through Moses. That makes their opening words especially important: “Master, Moses wrote unto us…” They were not rejecting Scripture. They believed Scripture supported their conclusion. And that is precisely what makes Jesus' response so striking: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.” — Matthew 22:29

The problem, according to Jesus, was not that they had failed to quote Moses. The problem was that they had failed to understand what they were reading.

Why Moses?

The Sadducees could have invented almost any difficulty concerning resurrection. Instead, they selected a case rooted in a specific Mosaic provision. A man marries. He dies without children. His brother takes the widow. That brother also dies without children. Another brother takes her. The process continues until seven brothers have died, all having been married to the same woman, and none has produced offspring. Then the woman dies. Only after establishing all of this do the Sadducees ask: “In the resurrection therefore, when they shall rise, whose wife shall she be of them?” Their argument has a certain logic. If all seven marriages were legitimate under Moses, and if resurrection simply restores all eight individuals to their previous situation, then seven legitimate claims apparently exist simultaneously. The resurrection seems to create a problem that did not exist before the resurrection. Therefore, they imply, resurrection cannot be true—or at least cannot be reconciled with Moses. But notice what their argument quietly assumes. It assumes that whatever legal condition existed because of death must continue unchanged when the dead are raised. That assumption deserves examination.

The Detail That Keeps Repeating

Mark’s account is particularly valuable because of the way he tells the story. The first brother, he says, “dying left no seed.” The second “neither left he any seed,” and finally “the seven had her, and left no seed” (Mark 12:20–22). This repeated emphasis raises an important question: Why does the absence of seed matter?

Without the absence of seed, the Sadducees’ particular story does not work. The Mosaic provision they invoke is activated by the death of a married man who leaves no offspring. If the first husband had produced the required offspring, the situation would have been fundamentally different. The sequence of brothers depends upon the repeated failure to accomplish the purpose for which the brother takes the widow. Death, childlessness, marriage, and seed are therefore inseparable elements of their argument.

The first man does not simply lose his wife; he dies without offspring. The next brother does not merely marry a woman who happened to have been married previously; he takes his dead brother’s widow because the brother died childless. Then he too dies without seed. The same situation is repeated until all seven brothers are dead. The Sadducees have therefore selected a very particular kind of marriage problem, one that exists because death has interrupted the continuation of a family line.

To understand their question, we consequently need to understand the law that produced the situation they describe. Why did Moses require the brother to take the widow? Why was offspring necessary? What did it mean to “raise up seed unto his brother”? Why could the offspring produced by a living man be associated with a brother who had already died? What exactly was being protected from disappearing?

A Name That Must Not Disappear

Deuteronomy gives a remarkably direct answer. The firstborn produced through this arrangement was to succeed in the name of the deceased brother “that his name be not put out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:6). This means that the provision was not concerned merely with finding another husband for a widow. It addressed the threatened disappearance of the dead man’s name and family continuity.

This becomes even more significant when Deuteronomy 25 is placed within the larger structure of Israel. A man’s name was connected with his household, his descendants, and his inheritance. Israel’s land had been assigned among tribes, clans, and families, and the Law contained provisions intended to protect those inherited possessions from permanently disappearing from the family line. We will examine those connections later in detail, particularly in the accounts of Tamar and Ruth and in the laws concerning redemption and Jubilee. For now, it is enough to recognize that when the Sadducees spoke about raising seed to a dead brother, they were entering a much larger biblical world involving seed, name, family continuity, and inheritance.

This makes their choice of argument especially interesting. They approached Jesus with a Mosaic arrangement designed to deal with something death had taken away, and then used that arrangement as an argument against God’s ability to reverse death itself. Moses had provided a way for a dead man’s name and line to continue through someone living. The Sadducees asked what would happen if the dead man himself returned.

The Question Behind the Question

Seen from this perspective, “Whose wife shall she be?” is only the surface question. Underneath it lies a much deeper problem. What happens to arrangements created because people die when death itself is overcome? Does resurrection simply reconstruct every legal relationship that existed at the moment of death, or does resurrection change the very condition that made some of those arrangements necessary?

Jesus will answer the Sadducees by taking them back to Moses, but interestingly, not to the passage they chose. They appeal to Moses’ law concerning a dead brother, his widow, and the raising up of seed. Jesus eventually directs them to another part of Moses’ writings, to the account of the burning bush. There God identifies himself as “the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died long before Moses stood before the bush, yet Jesus concludes from God’s words that “he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38).

The Sadducees begin with a law intended to preserve something belonging to a dead man. Jesus ends by pointing to a God for whom the dead man himself is not lost.

Before we can fully appreciate why that answers their challenge, however, we need to examine precisely what Moses had written about the dead brother, his widow, his seed, and his name. That is where the question the Sadducees brought to Jesus actually begins.

Chapter 2 “Moses Wrote Unto Us”

When the Sadducees approached Jesus, they did not begin by stating their conclusion about resurrection. They began with an appeal to authority: “Master, Moses wrote unto us.” Their argument depended upon a provision found in Deuteronomy 25:5–10, commonly known as levirate marriage. To understand why they believed this law created a difficulty for resurrection, we need to read the provision according to its own stated purpose.

The King James Version reads: “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a stranger: her husband’s brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of an husband’s brother unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:5–6).

Several elements of this law immediately deserve attention. A brother has died. He has left a wife, but no child. His widow is not simply free, under these circumstances, to marry outside the family. The surviving brother is called upon to take her as wife and perform what the KJV calls “the duty of an husband’s brother.” Most importantly for our investigation, the firstborn resulting from that union is connected not simply with the biological father but with “his brother which is dead.” Moses then states the purpose: “that his name be not put out of Israel.”

The Problem Begins With Death

The first condition that activates the provision is death. If the husband remains alive, there is no levirate obligation. The second condition is the absence of a child. Death alone is therefore not enough. The problem addressed by the law is the death of a man whose family line has been left without the offspring necessary to continue it.

This distinction is essential when we return to the Sadducees. Their hypothetical does not concern seven ordinary marriages that happen to involve the same woman. Every subsequent marriage arises because a previous husband has died without producing the offspring required to resolve the situation. Mark makes this especially clear by repeatedly saying that the brothers “left no seed.”

The law therefore operates within a particular sequence. A man has a wife but dies without a child. His death threatens the continuation of his name. His surviving brother takes the widow, and a firstborn son is to succeed in the name of the deceased. The living brother thus performs an obligation directed toward someone who is no longer alive.

This helps explain the expression used by the Gospel writers when they summarize the law: “raise up seed unto his brother.” The brother is dead, yet seed is to be raised up to him.

“Raise Up Seed Unto His Brother”

The expression “seed” is particularly important because it will eventually extend far beyond the immediate levirate provision. In biblical language, seed can refer to offspring or descendants, and here its meaning is concrete. A child is to be produced whose existence preserves the continuity threatened by the death of the first husband.

The unusual feature is that the child is biologically produced by the surviving brother but legally serves the continuity of the deceased brother. This explains why the arrangement cannot be understood simply as an ordinary second marriage after widowhood. The surviving brother is not acting only for himself. He is performing a family duty on behalf of the dead.

Genesis 38 gives us an earlier example of this principle before its later formulation in the Law of Moses. After the death of Judah’s son Er, Judah tells Onan concerning Tamar, “Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother” (Genesis 38:8). The next verse makes the issue unmistakable: “And Onan knew that the seed should not be his.”

We will return to Tamar in detail later because the line preserved through that extraordinary account eventually leads through Perez to David and ultimately to Christ. For the moment, Genesis 38 helps us understand what the Sadducees meant when they spoke of raising seed to a dead brother.

The language is not merely about producing another generation. It concerns whose line that generation continues.

“That His Name Be Not Put Out of Israel”

Deuteronomy itself tells us why the seed matters: “that his name be not put out of Israel.” This statement brings us closer to the real concern underlying the law. Death without offspring threatened more than the biological continuation of a family. It threatened the deceased man’s recognized continuity within Israel.

A biblical name can represent much more than a word by which someone is called. It can stand for the person’s identity, reputation, household, and continuing place among his people. In this particular law, the connection is concrete. The deceased brother cannot father a child because he is dead. The law therefore provides a means through which his name will not simply disappear with him.

This concern becomes strikingly visible elsewhere in Scripture. Absalom, for example, erected a pillar because, according to the account, he said, “I have no son to keep my name in remembrance” (2 Samuel 18:18). His solution was a monument bearing his name. Deuteronomy 25 provides a different form of continuity: offspring associated with the deceased brother. Later, the book of Ruth will bring the preservation of the dead man’s name into direct connection with his inheritance.

These examples should not all be treated as identical legal situations. They are not. But they reveal how deeply the continuation of a person’s name and household mattered within the biblical world.

The Right to Refuse

Deuteronomy also tells us what happened if the surviving brother refused the obligation. The widow was to go to the elders at the gate and declare, “My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will not perform the duty of my husband’s brother” (Deuteronomy 25:7).

The wording is significant. The complaint is not merely that the man refuses to marry her. She says that he refuses “to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel.” Once again, the law itself identifies its objective.

The elders were then to call the brother and speak to him. If he continued to refuse, the widow was to remove his shoe, spit before his face, and declare, “So shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house.” His own household would thereafter be known as “The house of him that hath his shoe loosed” (Deuteronomy 25:9–10).

Here another expression appears alongside the preservation of the name: “build up his brother’s house.” The dead man has no child through whom his household can continue, and the brother is expected to participate in building it up. The provision therefore contains several related ideas: raising seed, preserving a name, and building the dead brother’s house.

This becomes important because the Sadducees’ question reduces the situation to “Whose wife shall she be?” Moses’ own law, however, shows that the arrangement was concerned with more than possession of a wife. It concerned what was to happen to the household of a man who had died without offspring.

Name, House, and Inheritance

At this stage we should make an important distinction. Deuteronomy 25 explicitly speaks of the dead man’s seed, name, and house. We should not make the passage say more than it actually says. The text does not explicitly state in these verses that the purpose of levirate marriage is to preserve a particular parcel of ancestral land.

Nevertheless, the law did not operate in isolation from Israel’s larger inheritance system. Families existed within tribes and clans that had received hereditary possessions in the land. Other Mosaic laws were specifically designed to prevent inherited property from permanently passing away from the family or tribe to which it had been assigned. Consequently, the preservation of a dead man’s household naturally existed within a larger world of family inheritance.

The book of Ruth will make this connection explicit in narrative form. There the redemption of family property and the preservation of the dead man’s name become intertwined. Boaz declares that he has acquired Ruth “to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his brethren” (Ruth 4:10). That statement will become especially important later because it joins in one sentence several themes that will run throughout this study: death, name, offspring, inheritance, and redemption.

For now, however, we should remain with Deuteronomy. The Sadducees said, “Moses wrote unto us,” and Moses indeed had written that when a man died childless, his brother could assume an obligation toward the deceased man’s unfinished household. The provision existed precisely because death had interrupted something.

What the Law Could and Could Not Do

There is a limitation within the levirate arrangement that is easy to overlook. The law can preserve the dead man’s name, but it cannot bring the dead man back. It can provide seed associated with him, but he himself remains dead. It can build up his house through surviving family members, but he does not personally return to occupy it.

This does not diminish the importance of the provision. On the contrary, it helps us understand its purpose. The law provides continuity within a world in which death continues to operate. One generation dies, another generation takes its place, and the family line continues through offspring.

This is precisely the world in which the Sadducees construct their argument. The first brother dies, so the second acts. The second dies, so the third acts. Then the third dies, and the process continues. The law responds each time to death, yet death repeatedly defeats the intended result because every brother leaves no seed.

The Sadducees then take this death-dependent arrangement and project it into resurrection. If all seven brothers return, they ask, which of the seven possesses the marital relationship that existed successively because the others had died?

Their question sounds powerful only if the conditions governing the present world are assumed to remain unchanged in the resurrection.

Jesus will challenge that assumption.

Luke records him saying that “the children of this world marry, and are given in marriage,” but those accounted worthy to obtain “that world, and the resurrection from the dead” are described differently. Whatever else his statement about marrying and being given in marriage ultimately means, Jesus immediately supplies a fact that cannot be ignored: “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:34–36).

That statement reaches directly into the mechanism behind the Sadducees’ hypothetical. Moses’ provision begins when a husband dies. The next brother becomes involved because the first brother died without seed. The sequence continues because each succeeding brother dies. Jesus describes the resurrection condition as one in which they cannot die anymore.

Before we draw conclusions from that contrast, however, another question needs to be answered. Was this levirate arrangement simply an unusual law found in Deuteronomy, or was it part of a larger Jewish understanding of seed, family continuity, name, and inheritance? To understand what the Sadducees and Jesus’ original listeners would have recognized in the question, we need to look beyond the wording of Deuteronomy 25 and into the historical world in which this law was understood.

Chapter 3 Seven Brothers and No Seed

Having appealed to Moses, the Sadducees construct their case. There are seven brothers. The first marries and dies without children. His brother takes the widow but also dies childless. The same thing happens to the third, and eventually to all seven. Finally, the woman herself dies. Then comes the question: “In the resurrection therefore, whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife” (Luke 20:33).

At first glance, the difficulty appears to concern marriage. If all seven men are resurrected, which marriage is restored? But Mark’s account draws attention to another feature of the story. The first brother, “dying left no seed.” The second “neither left he any seed,” and finally “the seven had her, and left no seed” (Mark 12:20–22). The repeated absence of seed is essential because it is what keeps the Mosaic provision operating from one brother to the next.

If the first brother had left the required offspring, the Sadducees’ chain would have ended there. Instead, he dies without seed, so the second brother takes the widow. The second also dies without seed, so the situation continues. Each new marriage is produced by the same combination of circumstances: a husband dies and leaves no offspring. Seven marriages are possible only because death occurs seven times and the intended seed never appears.

This helps us identify an assumption hidden inside the Sadducees’ question. They imagine the resurrection and then carry all seven marital relationships into it as though the circumstances that produced those relationships still existed. But those relationships did not arise independently of death. The second brother became involved because the first died. The third became involved because the second died. The same pattern continued through all seven brothers.

The question therefore contains its own tension. If resurrection restores all seven men to life, the very condition that repeatedly activated the Mosaic arrangement has changed. The dead brothers are no longer dead.

This does not yet tell us everything Jesus meant when he said that those attaining that age “neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” We should not solve the question before allowing Jesus to explain it himself. But it does tell us why the next part of his answer deserves more attention than it often receives. Luke records Jesus saying, “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:36).

That statement addresses the condition responsible for the entire hypothetical. The Sadducees construct their problem through repeated death; Jesus describes a resurrection in which death no longer has that power.

There is another reason, however, not to treat the Sadducees’ particular marriage arrangement as the definition of marriage itself. Jesus had already been confronted with another question in which his opponents appealed to a Mosaic regulation concerning marriage. On that occasion they asked him about divorce and pointed to what Moses had commanded. Jesus’ response provides an important example of how he distinguished between a Mosaic provision addressing conditions within fallen human society and the arrangement established by God “from the beginning.”

Before deciding what the Sadducees’ appeal to Moses tells us about marriage after resurrection, it is therefore worth seeing what Jesus himself did when another group asked him to define marriage by appealing to Moses.

Chapter 4 “From the Beginning It Was Not So”

When the Pharisees questioned Jesus about divorce, they appealed to Moses: “Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?” (Matthew 19:7). Jesus did not deny that such a provision existed. Instead, he explained why it existed and then directed them to an earlier point of reference: “Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8).

Those words reveal something important about the way Jesus approached the Law. A Mosaic regulation could address circumstances that had developed within human life without defining what God had established originally. When Jesus wanted to identify the foundation of marriage, he therefore went behind the later regulation to creation itself: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female?” He then quoted Genesis concerning the man who would “cleave to his wife” so that “they twain shall be one flesh” (Matthew 19:4–5).

This provides a useful point of reference for the Sadducees’ question. They too approached Jesus with a Mosaic regulation concerning marriage. Their provision, however, begins with circumstances very different from those described in Genesis: “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child” (Deuteronomy 25:5). Levirate marriage therefore addresses something that has gone wrong through death. A husband has died without offspring, and the Law provides a way for his name and house to continue.

Genesis begins before that problem exists. God creates humanity “male and female” and blesses them: “Be fruitful, and multiply” (Genesis 1:27–28). Genesis 2 then explains that “it is not good that the man should be alone,” describes the woman being brought to the man, and concludes that a man will “cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh” (Genesis 2:18, 24).

The order is significant. Male and female existed before human death. Marriage existed before human death. One flesh existed before human death. Fruitfulness was commanded before human death. These things therefore cannot originally have been created merely as solutions to mortality or as mechanisms for replacing generations that would die.

Levirate marriage is different. It becomes necessary precisely because a husband has died without offspring. It belongs to a world in which death can interrupt a family line.

This distinction does not by itself tell us what marriage will be like after resurrection. Genesis describes humanity at the beginning, while Jesus is speaking about those who attain “that world, and the resurrection from the dead.” We should not make Genesis answer a question it does not explicitly answer.

But neither should we make Deuteronomy 25 answer more than it does.

The Sadducees took a marriage provision created by death and projected its consequences into a condition in which, according to Jesus, people “cannot die any more” (Luke 20:36). Before concluding from Jesus’ response that the original creation arrangement of male and female and one flesh has therefore been abolished, we should notice that Jesus does not explicitly say this.

His own approach in Matthew 19 gives us reason to keep the categories distinct. A later Mosaic regulation should be understood according to the problem it addresses; it should not automatically become the definition of what existed “from the beginning.”

The Sadducees’ question arose from death. The arrangement they cited arose because of death. Jesus’ answer points toward a condition in which death itself no longer operates.

With that distinction established, we are ready to return directly to Jesus’ words and ask what he actually said.

Chapter 5 “Counted Worthy to Obtain That World”

Having constructed their case from seven brothers who repeatedly died without leaving offspring, the Sadducees finally ask Jesus, “Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife” (Luke 20:33). Luke then gives us the fullest version of Jesus’ response: “The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: but they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage: neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” — Luke 20:34–36

Before deciding what Jesus means by marriage, it is worth noticing how much more he says. His answer speaks about two ages, attaining resurrection, being counted worthy, no longer being able to die, being like the angels, and becoming children of God and children of the resurrection. If our attention stops at “neither marry, nor are given in marriage,” we may miss the larger answer in which those words occur.

“This World” and “That World”

The KJV translates Jesus’ contrast as “this world” and “that world.” The Greek word in both places is aiōn, which commonly refers to an age or period rather than to the physical earth itself. Jesus is therefore contrasting the present age with “that age”—the order of life associated with the resurrection.

This distinction matters because Jesus does not say that the earth disappears or that resurrected people necessarily leave physical existence behind. His contrast is between the present age, in which death operates, and an age associated with resurrection in which, as he immediately explains, those being described “cannot die any more.”

The expression “that world” in the KJV can easily lead a modern reader to imagine another physical location. But the underlying Greek does not require that conclusion. “That age” expresses the contrast more clearly. Jesus is speaking about belonging to a different order of life.

“Accounted Worthy to Obtain”

Luke also preserves a qualification absent from the shorter wording in Matthew and Mark: “they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.”

The Greek wording is significant. The verb translated “accounted worthy” carries the sense of being considered or counted worthy, while the following verb translated “obtain” can mean to attain or gain something. Jesus therefore does not describe resurrection merely as an automatic reversal of biological death. He speaks of people who are counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection from the dead.

This should make us cautious about reducing resurrection to the moment when a dead body returns to life. Elsewhere in Scripture people are physically raised and yet remain mortal. Lazarus is the obvious example. Jesus called him from the tomb, and Lazarus genuinely returned to physical life, but the account never suggests that from that moment he had become incapable of dying.

Luke 20 describes something greater. Those of whom Jesus speaks “cannot die any more.”

This raises an important question that we will need to examine later: Is resurrection, in its fullest biblical sense, always identical with the act of being physically brought back from the dead, or can Scripture speak of resurrection as a condition of life that must ultimately be attained?

We should not answer that question from one Greek verb alone. But Jesus’ wording gives us reason to ask it.

The Question Jesus Was Answering

The sequence of Jesus’ answer is especially important. The Sadducees have described seven successive marriages created by repeated death. Jesus contrasts the children of the present age with those counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection. He says that they neither marry nor are given in marriage, and then immediately adds, “Neither can they die any more.”

That explanation should remain attached to the problem that produced it.

In the Sadducees’ story, the first husband dies, creating the circumstances for the second marriage. The second dies, creating the circumstances for the third. The entire chain continues because death repeatedly dissolves the previous relationship and activates the Mosaic provision. Jesus describes a condition in which that mechanism cannot continue because those attaining it cannot die anymore.

This does not mean that the words “neither marry, nor are given in marriage” should simply be translated as “there will be no levirate marriage.” The Greek verbs are ordinary words for marrying and being given in marriage. The language itself is broader than the technical levirate obligation. We should therefore resist changing Jesus’ words merely to make them fit a preferred interpretation.

At the same time, words are spoken within contexts. Jesus is not delivering an independent lecture on every possible aspect of male-female relationships in the future. He is answering a particular challenge involving seven successive marriages produced by death and childlessness. Both facts must remain in view: the marriage language is general, while the question that produced it is highly specific.

A Different Kind of Life

The most striking feature of Jesus’ answer may therefore not be what those attaining that age cease to do, but what they become. They “cannot die any more.” They are “equal unto the angels.” They are “the children of God.” They are “the children of the resurrection.”

The Sadducees asked Jesus to identify the woman’s husband. Jesus begins moving the discussion toward an entirely different identity. Whose wife is she? Jesus eventually answers with another category: children of God. This change in emphasis will become increasingly important. The Mosaic provision sought to raise up seed to a dead man so that his name would not disappear. Jesus speaks instead of people who themselves become children of the resurrection and who cannot die anymore.

But before following that larger theme, one expression in his answer requires careful examination. It is the statement from which the traditional conclusion about resurrection and marriage is usually drawn: “Neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” What exactly do those words say—and what do they not say?

Chapter 6 “Neither Marry, Nor Are Given in Marriage”

Of all the words Jesus spoke in his answer to the Sadducees, these are probably the most familiar: “They which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Luke 20:35). For many readers, the conclusion seems immediate: marriage itself will not exist in the resurrection. Yet because so much rests upon this statement, it deserves to be read carefully before that conclusion is assumed.

The Greek expressions themselves are not obscure. Luke uses forms of gameō, “to marry,” and gamizō, “to give in marriage.” Matthew and Mark use corresponding marriage language. There is no sound lexical basis for translating Jesus’ words as though he had literally said, “they do not perform levirate marriage.” His vocabulary is broader than that. Any interpretation of the passage should acknowledge this from the beginning.

At the same time, ordinary words take their meaning within the question being answered. Jesus was not asked a general question such as, “Will male and female continue to exist?” or “Will the one-flesh arrangement established in Genesis continue after resurrection?” The Sadducees asked about a woman who had successively been given in marriage to seven brothers because each preceding husband died without leaving offspring. Their question was, “In the resurrection therefore whose wife of them is she?”

Jesus’ statement about marrying and being given in marriage must therefore be allowed its ordinary meaning without being detached from that very unusual context.

What Jesus Does Not Say

One useful way to read a familiar passage again is to distinguish what it actually states from conclusions that may have become attached to it. Jesus says that those counted worthy to attain that age and the resurrection neither marry nor are given in marriage. He does not say that humans cease to be male and female. He does not say that they become angels. He does not say that human bodies cease to exist. He does not say that the creation account of Genesis has been abolished. Nor does he explicitly say that the “one flesh” relationship described there has ceased to have meaning.

None of those silences proves the opposite. We cannot reason that because Jesus does not say male and female cease, therefore every feature of marriage must continue exactly as before. Silence cannot establish that conclusion either. The point is more limited: we should distinguish Jesus’ actual words from additional propositions that must be established from other Scriptures if they are to be accepted.

This is particularly important after considering Jesus’ words in Matthew 19. When asked about a Mosaic marriage regulation, Jesus himself treated “the beginning” as foundational. Male and female, companionship, one flesh, and fruitfulness all appear before human death. If Luke 20 is understood to mean that this entire creation arrangement is abolished, that conclusion requires more than simply repeating the words “neither marry, nor are given in marriage.” We must determine whether that is actually what Jesus is explaining.

The Seven Marriages Cannot Simply Continue

There is, however, one conclusion that follows directly from Jesus’ answer: the Sadducees cannot simply carry their seven successive marriages into the resurrection and demand that Jesus select one of them. Their hypothetical assumes that the relationships created through repeated death will continue under the same conditions after the dead rise. Jesus rejects that framework.

This becomes especially clear from what he says next: “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:36). In the Sadducees’ story, death repeatedly creates the next marriage. In the condition Jesus describes, that process can no longer occur. There can be no eighth repetition of their scenario because the fundamental event that kept producing it—death—has been removed. This may help explain why Jesus does not answer, “She will be the wife of the first brother,” or “She will be the wife of the last,” or even “God will decide which marriage is valid.” He does not accept the premise that resurrection simply reconstructs the chain of relationships generated by seven deaths. His answer moves beyond their categories.

An Early Textual Curiosity

There is an interesting ancient textual detail that deserves mention, though it should not be given more weight than it can bear. Some early witnesses to Luke preserve an expanded form of Jesus’ description of “the children of this world,” adding language about being born and begetting before the words about marrying and being given in marriage. This reading is not found in the standard modern critical text and should not simply be inserted into Luke as though its originality were certain.

Its importance is more modest. It shows that at an early stage in the transmission of this passage, some readers or textual traditions associated Jesus’ contrast not only with marriage but also with the cycle of birth and generation. That is understandable in a passage where marriage, offspring, resurrection, and the inability to die stand so close together. The variant cannot prove how Jesus’ original words should be interpreted. It can only remind us that the relationship between marriage and the mortal cycle of generations was noticed very early.

The Explanation Jesus Gives

Rather than trying to determine Jesus’ meaning by what later readers assumed, the safest course is to continue reading his own sentence. After saying that those attaining that age neither marry nor are given in marriage, Luke records the explanation: “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36). The emphasis is moving steadily toward life beyond the authority of death. This is particularly striking because the Sadducees began with a dead man who had left no seed. Moses provided a way for another man to raise up seed to him so that his name would not disappear. The Sadducees multiplied the problem through seven deaths. Jesus answers by describing people for whom death can no longer repeat the process at all.

The next words therefore deserve to be considered on their own terms: “Neither can they die any more.” That may be the point in Jesus’ answer where the Sadducees’ carefully constructed problem begins to collapse.

Chapter 7

“Neither Can They Die Any More”

The Sadducees’ hypothetical begins with death and depends upon death at every stage. The first brother dies without leaving offspring. The second takes the widow and also dies. The same happens to the third and eventually to all seven. Finally, the woman dies. Only then do the Sadducees introduce resurrection and ask whose wife she will be.

Jesus answers by describing those who attain that age and the resurrection from the dead with a statement that reaches directly into the foundation of their argument: “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:36).

This deserves more attention than it often receives. If the discussion is reduced to the phrase “neither marry, nor are given in marriage,” the removal of death can appear almost secondary. Within the Sadducees’ hypothetical, however, death is not secondary at all. It is what produces the entire problem.

When the Cause Disappears

The levirate provision cited by the Sadducees begins with a specific condition: “If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child” (Deuteronomy 25:5). The brother’s obligation arises because another brother has died without offspring. If that death does not occur, the provision is never activated.

The Sadducees repeat this condition seven times. Their supposed contradiction therefore depends upon taking an arrangement activated by death and carrying all of its accumulated consequences into a condition where, according to Jesus, death can no longer occur.

This does not mean that every question about Jesus’ marriage language has now been answered. But it does mean that “neither can they die any more” belongs at the center of the discussion rather than at its edge.

Jesus is describing more than people who have returned from a grave. He is describing people over whom death has lost its power.

More Than Coming Back to Life

This distinction becomes clearer when we consider people who were raised from the dead elsewhere in Scripture. Lazarus came out of his tomb. Jairus’ daughter was restored to life. The widow’s son at Nain was raised. These were genuine acts of resurrection in the ordinary sense of returning from death to physical life. Yet nothing in the accounts indicates that these individuals had thereby become incapable of dying again.

Luke 20:36 describes something beyond temporary restoration to mortal life. Those of whom Jesus speaks “cannot die any more.”

This helps explain why Luke’s earlier wording is significant. Jesus speaks of those “accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.” Whatever the complete meaning of that expression proves to be, the condition he describes reaches its fullness when death no longer has authority over the person.

The question of resurrection therefore begins to become larger than the question, “Can God bring a dead person back?” The Sadducees apparently denied even that possibility. Jesus’ answer points toward something greater: Can God bring a person into a condition in which death can never take him away again?

Why the Angels Enter the Answer

Jesus immediately continues: “for they are equal unto the angels” (Luke 20:36). This statement has often been understood to mean that resurrected humans become like angels in many respects, perhaps becoming nonphysical or losing the distinction between male and female. But Jesus does not say any of those things here.

Luke gives us a much more immediate connection. “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels.”

The comparison is introduced directly after the statement about deathlessness. At minimum, therefore, the angelic comparison concerns the fact that those being described are no longer subject to death.

Jesus says they are like or equal unto the angels; he does not say that they become angels. The distinction matters. A comparison does not erase the identity of the things being compared. Scripture can compare humans with sheep, children, stars, trees, or angels without saying that they literally become those things.

The safest reading is therefore to begin with the comparison Jesus himself makes explicit. Those attaining the resurrection are like the angels in that they cannot die anymore. Whether other similarities are intended must be established from additional evidence rather than assumed.

The Real Power of God

Matthew preserves another part of Jesus’ answer that now takes on greater significance: “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God” (Matthew 22:29).

The Sadducees believed they had discovered a logical impossibility within resurrection. Moses had created legitimate obligations involving a dead brother, his widow, and the continuation of his name. Multiply those obligations through seven deaths, restore everyone to life, and resurrection appears to create confusion.

But their reasoning measures resurrection by the conditions of mortality.

They know what happens when one brother dies, and then another. They know what Moses prescribed in response. What they have not allowed for is “the power of God” to produce a condition in which the cycle itself ends.

God’s answer to death is ultimately greater than arranging continuity around it.

This distinction will become increasingly important as our investigation develops. The Law could preserve a dead man’s name through offspring. A monument could preserve a person’s memory. An inheritance could preserve his family’s place. A redeemer could recover property that had been lost. Jubilee could return a man to his possession. All of these are meaningful forms of preservation and restoration within the biblical story. Resurrection goes further. God can restore the person. And Jesus describes the ultimate result as a life from which death can no longer remove him.

From Deathlessness to Sonship

Yet Jesus still has not reached the end of his answer. After saying that they cannot die anymore and are like the angels, he adds something remarkable: they “are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”

The Sadducees began with the question of whose wife the woman would be. Jesus is now speaking about whose children those attaining the resurrection are.

That change of language may be one of the most important movements in the entire conversation. The Mosaic law they cited was concerned with producing seed for a dead man. Jesus now speaks of another identity—people who themselves are “children of God” because they are “children of the resurrection.”

To understand where his answer is leading, we therefore need to examine what it means to be “equal unto the angels” and why Jesus connects that condition with becoming children of God.

Chapter 8

“Equal Unto the Angels”

After saying that those who attain that age and the resurrection “cannot die any more,” Jesus explains, “for they are equal unto the angels” (Luke 20:36). Because this comparison occurs immediately after his statement about deathlessness, the first question should not be what angels look like or where they live, but what Jesus himself is using the comparison to explain.

The wording is important. Jesus does not say that resurrected humans become angels. Luke uses a word that conveys being like or equal to angels. The people Jesus describes remain “children of God” and “children of the resurrection.” Angelic likeness is a comparison, not necessarily a change of identity.

Like the Angels in What Sense?

The immediate context gives us the clearest answer. Jesus says, “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels.” The comparison therefore concerns, at minimum, freedom from death. The Sadducees have constructed a story in which death occurs repeatedly. Jesus answers by describing a condition in which those who attain resurrection can no longer die.

It is easy to add more to the comparison than Jesus actually says. One might reason that because angels are heavenly beings, resurrected humans must therefore become nonphysical heavenly beings. Another might conclude that because Scripture does not describe angels marrying, resurrected humans must cease to be male and female. But those conclusions are not stated in Jesus’ words. They require additional arguments from other passages.

This does not mean that such questions are illegitimate. It means only that “equal unto the angels” should not be made to prove more than the context allows. Jesus gives us one unmistakable point of comparison: they cannot die anymore.

Matthew and Mark express the comparison somewhat differently. Matthew says they “are as the angels of God in heaven,” while Mark says they “are as the angels which are in heaven” (Matthew 22:30; Mark 12:25). Luke gives the additional explanation concerning their inability to die. Reading the three accounts together therefore gives us a fuller picture without requiring us to turn a comparison into an identification.

Angels and the Will of God

There may also be a broader biblical dimension to the comparison. Angels are repeatedly portrayed as servants who carry out God’s will. The Psalmist says, “Bless the LORD, ye his angels, that excel in strength, that do his commandments, hearkening unto the voice of his word” (Psalm 103:20). Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

This does not prove that such obedience is the specific meaning of “equal unto the angels” in Luke 20. The immediate explanation remains deathlessness. Nevertheless, it reminds us that becoming like the angels need not mean abandoning humanity. The biblical picture can also point toward a condition in which God’s will is carried out without the corruption and rebellion characteristic of the present age.

That possibility becomes particularly interesting because Jesus does not stop with the angels. He immediately describes the resurrected ones in terms of their relationship with God.

“The Children of God”

Luke alone preserves the next statement in this form: “and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36).

This language moves the discussion beyond the Sadducees’ original categories. Their question concerns which man can claim the woman as his wife. Jesus speaks about people whose defining relationship is with God.

The wording also brings the theme of offspring back into the conversation in an unexpected way. The Sadducees began with seven brothers who repeatedly failed to leave seed. Their Mosaic quotation concerned raising seed to a dead brother. Yet Jesus’ answer eventually identifies those who attain resurrection themselves as children—“children of God” and “children of the resurrection.”

We should not assume that Jesus is deliberately making a wordplay between the levirate seed and the children of resurrection; Luke does not explicitly say that. But the movement is nevertheless striking. The question begins with human offspring needed because a man has died. It ends with children of God who cannot die anymore.

The first arrangement preserves continuity through another generation. The condition Jesus describes removes the necessity created by death itself.

Not Merely a Question of Location

This also cautions us against reducing resurrection to a question of where people go. Jesus’ answer in Luke is primarily expressed in terms of condition and relationship. They attain “that age.” They cannot die anymore. They are like the angels. They are children of God. They are children of the resurrection.

Those statements do not, by themselves, tell us everything about the physical location or nature of resurrected life. Jesus’ emphasis here is on what these people have become in relation to death and to God.

That distinction will become increasingly important when we later examine passages concerning heavenly places, the spiritual temple, and meeting the Lord “in the air.” For now, there is no need to import those later questions into Luke 20. We can simply allow Jesus’ answer to develop in its own order.

The Sadducees asked about a woman and seven husbands. Jesus has brought the conversation to deathlessness, angelic likeness, and divine sonship.

And then he does something even more surprising. To prove that the dead rise, he does not point to a future prophecy of resurrection. He points backward to Moses and to three men who had already died: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

The Sadducees began by saying, “Moses wrote unto us.” Jesus is about to answer them from Moses himself.

Chapter 9

“I Am the God of Abraham”

After answering the Sadducees’ question about the seven brothers, Jesus does not end the conversation. He turns to the issue that had motivated their question from the beginning: whether the dead really rise. Luke records: “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Luke 20:37).

The choice of passage is remarkable. The Sadducees had begun by saying, “Moses wrote unto us,” and had quoted a law dealing with a man who dies without offspring. Jesus answers them from Moses as well, but he takes them to the account of the burning bush.

There Jehovah had said to Moses, “I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Exodus 3:6). By the time Moses heard those words, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had long been dead. Yet God continued to identify himself in relation to them.

Jesus then draws his conclusion: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38).

Dead, Yet Living Unto God

Jesus does not deny that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died. His entire argument concerns “the dead” being raised. If the patriarchs were not truly dead, they would hardly serve as his proof concerning resurrection from the dead.

At the same time, Jesus says that they “live unto” God.

These two facts must be allowed to stand together. Abraham can be physically dead and yet, from God’s standpoint, be living unto Him. The statement therefore raises an important question: In what sense can someone who has died still be described as living to God?

One possible answer is to assume that Abraham was already consciously alive as a spirit in heaven. But Jesus does not say that here. In fact, elsewhere he says, “No man hath ascended up to heaven” (John 3:13). Peter later says concerning David, another faithful servant of God who had died, “David is not ascended into the heavens” (Acts 2:34). Hebrews likewise speaks of faithful men and women who “died in faith, not having received the promises” (Hebrews 11:13).

Whatever “all live unto him” means, therefore, we should not simply insert into Jesus’ statement the assumption that the patriarchs were already consciously living in heaven. Jesus’ argument is about God’s relationship to people who have died and the certainty of their resurrection.

A Relationship Death Did Not Erase

There is something especially significant about the words Jehovah chose at the bush. He did not merely tell Moses that Abraham once worshipped him or that he had formerly been Abraham’s God. He said, “I am the God of Abraham.”

Abraham’s physical death had not erased that relationship.

The same was true of Isaac and Jacob. Each had lived, come to know God, received promises, and died. Yet centuries later Jehovah still attached his own name to theirs: the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.

This begins to reveal another dimension of resurrection. The relationship upon which resurrection rests is established before the person dies. Abraham did not first become God’s friend after his death. Scripture says that “Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23). His relationship with God was formed during his earthly life. Death did not erase what had already been established.

This may help us understand why Jesus can speak of Abraham as living unto God while still presenting him as someone who must be raised. From the human standpoint, Abraham is dead. From God’s standpoint, the relationship has not disappeared, and the promise has not failed.

The Name and the Person

This brings us back unexpectedly to the question with which the Sadducees began. The law they quoted was designed so that the name of a dead brother would “not be put out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:6). Through offspring, something belonging to the deceased man could continue after his death.

But Abraham presents a greater possibility.

God does not merely preserve Abraham’s name through Isaac, or Isaac’s through Jacob. He continues to identify himself with Abraham personally: “I am the God of Abraham.”

This distinction should not be exaggerated into a contrast Moses himself intended in Deuteronomy. Jesus does not explicitly compare the levirate law with Abraham’s name. Nevertheless, within the conversation the movement is striking. The Sadducees begin with a Mosaic mechanism for preserving the continuity of a dead man. Jesus ends with the God whose relationship with Abraham survives Abraham’s death and guarantees that death will not have the final word.

The Law could arrange for a dead man’s name to continue. Resurrection restores the person whose name it is.

Why Resurrection Follows

Jesus’ reasoning may initially seem unusual. How does the statement “I am the God of Abraham” prove that Abraham will rise? Jesus supplies the connecting principle: God “is not a God of the dead, but of the living.”

If Jehovah has entered into a continuing relationship with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, then death cannot be the final condition of those men. God’s faithfulness to them requires more than preserving a memory of people who have permanently ceased to exist. The relationship points forward to life.

Paul later expresses something similar when describing the God whom Abraham believed as the one “who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were” (Romans 4:17). What is future or invisible to humans can be so certain in God’s purpose that he speaks of it as reality.

Jesus’ argument therefore rests not merely on grammar but on the character and power of God. This is the same conversation in which he told the Sadducees that they did not know “the scriptures, nor the power of God.” The God who calls himself Abraham’s God is capable of making his relationship with Abraham triumph over death.

The Most Important Preparation for Resurrection

This leads to a thought with profound personal implications. If Abraham’s relationship with God was established before his death and remained meaningful after his death, then the most important preparation for resurrection takes place while a person is still alive.

Resurrection is future, but the relationship upon which that hope rests can exist now.

This may explain why Scripture places such importance on a person’s name before God. Ecclesiastes says, “A good name is better than precious ointment; and the day of death than the day of one’s birth” (Ecclesiastes 7:1). Malachi speaks of “a book of remembrance” written before Jehovah for those who feared him and thought upon his name (Malachi 3:16). The imagery differs from passage to passage, but the underlying idea is consistent: what a person becomes before God during life is not rendered meaningless by physical death.

Abraham died, but Abraham was not lost to God.

That brings us to perhaps the most important expression in Jesus’ entire answer: “For all live unto him.”

To understand what resurrection means, we therefore need to ask a question even more fundamental than what happens when the grave opens: What does it mean to become alive to God before physical resurrection occurs?

Chapter 10 “For All Live Unto Him”

Jesus concludes his answer to the Sadducees with a statement that reaches beyond their original question: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38). Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died, yet Jesus could speak of them as living unto God. This suggests that Scripture recognizes a distinction between physical life and a person’s standing before God.

That distinction appears elsewhere in Jesus’ teaching. A person may be physically alive and nevertheless be described as dead. Conversely, someone who comes into a relationship with God may be described as having passed into life even while still living in a mortal body. If so, Jesus’ statement about Abraham is not an isolated expression. It belongs to a larger biblical language of death and life.

“Passed From Death Unto Life”

In John 5 Jesus says: “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.” — John 5:24

The people hearing these words were physically alive. Yet Jesus describes a transition that can occur during their present life: they can pass “from death unto life.”

The next verse makes the language even more striking: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (John 5:25).

Jesus says that this hour “now is.” He therefore cannot be speaking only about a future moment when physical graves are opened. Something was already happening among people listening to his voice. Those who heard in the required sense could live.

Only a few verses later Jesus speaks unmistakably about physical resurrection: “The hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth” (John 5:28–29).

The two statements stand remarkably close together. In one, the hour “now is,” and the dead hear and live. In the other, an hour “is coming,” and those in the graves come forth. At minimum, John 5 shows that Jesus can use the language of death and life in more than one sense within the same discussion.

Alive Physically, Yet Dead

Paul uses similar language when writing to Christians at Ephesus. He tells people who were obviously physically alive that they had once been “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). He then says that God “hath quickened us together with Christ” and “hath raised us up together” (Ephesians 2:5–6).

These people had not first physically died and then returned from graves. Their transition occurred while they continued their earthly lives. Yet Paul describes it with the vocabulary of being made alive and raised.

The letter to the Colossians uses the same pattern. Paul speaks to believers as those who had been “risen with him” and later says, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above” (Colossians 2:12; 3:1).

We should not immediately identify every use of this language with the resurrection of Luke 20. Context must determine how each writer is using the terms. But these passages establish an important fact: Scripture can describe a real passage from death to life before physical death and physical resurrection.

“Though He Were Dead, Yet Shall He Live”

Jesus’ words to Martha bring the two dimensions together in an especially powerful way. Standing before the tomb of Lazarus, he says: “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” — John 11:25–26

Lazarus was physically dead. Jesus was about to restore him to life. Yet Jesus’ statement reaches beyond the miracle he was about to perform. Lazarus would return to mortal human life; nothing in the account says that after leaving the tomb he had become incapable of dying again.

Jesus, however, speaks of something greater: “whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.”

That language begins to approach what we encountered in Luke 20: “Neither can they die any more.”

The full relationship between these statements still needs to be examined carefully. Nevertheless, the direction is becoming clearer. Biblical resurrection cannot be understood merely as restarting biological existence. Jesus repeatedly connects genuine life with relationship to himself and to God.

Abraham Was Already Abraham

This helps us return to Abraham. When Jehovah spoke from the bush, Abraham did not need to be physically conscious somewhere in order for God’s statement to remain meaningful. Abraham had already become a man of faith. He had already responded to God. He had already received the promises. His relationship with God had already been established. Physical death did not undo that history.

This gives greater depth to Jesus’ words “all live unto him.” God does not need to reconstruct Abraham’s identity from nothing. The Abraham whom God will raise is the Abraham who already walked with Him, believed Him, and became His friend. In that sense, resurrection has a history before the grave. The person who will stand again is being formed before death.

Life Before Immortality

This also helps us distinguish two ideas that are easily confused. A person may have entered into life with God and yet remain physically mortal. Jesus’ disciples could pass “from death unto life,” while still eventually dying. Christians could be “quickened” and “raised” with Christ while their bodies remained subject to death.

Luke 20 describes the completion of something greater: those attaining that age “cannot die any more.”

We may therefore be seeing a progression rather than two unrelated ideas. A person can become alive to God while still mortal, and that life can ultimately reach a condition in which death has no further authority over him.

This possibility should be tested rather than assumed. But it gives us an important question to carry forward. If Scripture already speaks of physically living people passing from death to life, being made alive with Christ, and even being raised with him, could this help us understand what Revelation later calls “the first resurrection”?

Before turning to Revelation, however, John 5 deserves a closer look. Jesus himself places two extraordinary statements almost beside each other: “the hour… now is,” when the dead hear and live, and “the hour is coming,” when those in the graves hear his voice and come forth.

That distinction may provide one of the clearest keys to understanding the relationship between becoming alive to God now and being physically raised later.

Chapter 11 “The Hour Is Coming, and Now Is”

John 5 contains one of Jesus’ clearest discussions of life and resurrection. What makes the passage particularly important is that Jesus speaks of the dead hearing his voice in two closely related statements, but he does not describe the timing in exactly the same way.

First he says: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). He then continues: “The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (John 5:25).

A few verses later Jesus says: “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth” (John 5:28–29).

The difference deserves attention. In verse 25 the hour “is coming, and now is.” In verses 28–29 the hour “is coming.” In the first statement the dead hear and live; in the second, those in the graves hear and come forth.

An Hour That Had Already Begun

When Jesus said that the hour “now is,” he was speaking while physically living people were hearing his voice. Just before this, he had said that the person hearing his word and believing the One who sent him “is passed from death unto life.” The movement from death to life therefore could already occur.

This makes it difficult to restrict every reference to “the dead” in John 5 to physically deceased people. Jesus describes people who can hear him now and, through that hearing, live. Their death is not necessarily the absence of biological life. It describes a condition from which they can pass into life through faith.

Paul later uses remarkably similar language: “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). Physical people can therefore be dead in one sense while still walking, thinking, choosing, and hearing. They can then be made alive to God without first entering a literal grave.

John 5 places this transition directly in the ministry of Jesus. The voice that will one day call people from the graves was already calling living people out of another kind of death.

Another Hour Still Coming

Jesus then deliberately directs attention to the graves: “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice.”

Here the language becomes unmistakably physical. People are in graves, they hear his voice, and they “come forth.” Jesus continues by speaking of “the resurrection of life” and “the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:29).

We therefore do not need to choose between a present spiritual passage from death to life and a future resurrection from physical death. Jesus speaks about both. The first can occur “now.” The second remains “coming.”

This distinction helps prevent two opposite errors. We should not spiritualize resurrection so completely that physical resurrection disappears. Jesus plainly speaks of people coming from graves. But neither should we limit all resurrection language to physical reanimation, because Jesus just as plainly speaks of a transition from death to life that was already taking place among the living. Both belong to his teaching.

Which Comes First?

This raises an interesting possibility concerning the order of events. For a believer, the movement may not simply be physical life, followed by physical death, followed by resurrection, followed finally by life with God. Jesus allows another sequence.

A person who is physically alive hears his voice and passes from death to life. That person remains mortal and may eventually die physically. Yet physical death does not necessarily reverse the relationship already established with God. Abraham illustrates precisely this point: he died, yet Jesus says that he lives unto God. Finally, the person can hear the Son’s voice from the grave and come forth.

The spiritual passage from death to life can therefore precede physical death and physical resurrection.

This does not mean that the person has already reached the condition described in Luke 20:36. Christians who have passed from death to life still die physically. The final condition Jesus describes there is stronger: “Neither can they die any more.”

There appears, then, to be a difference between entering life and reaching the full condition in which death has no further power.

“Resurrection of Life”

John 5:29 adds another important expression. Those coming from the graves do not merely experience resurrection in an undifferentiated sense. Jesus speaks of “the resurrection of life” and “the resurrection of damnation.”

Whatever precise judgment is involved in these expressions, physical emergence from a grave is therefore not the entire question. Jesus distinguishes resurrection according to its relation to life and judgment.

This should make us cautious about defining resurrection only as the biological event of a dead person becoming physically alive again. Lazarus experienced such an event, yet Jesus’ teaching reaches beyond it. The greater question is what kind of life ultimately results and whether death retains any authority over the person.

Luke 20 describes those who attain the resurrection as unable to die anymore. John 5 speaks of people passing from death to life now and later coming from the graves. The two passages begin to form a coherent picture without requiring us to make them identical.

Raised Before the Grave Opens

Paul will take this language another step. Writing to people who had not physically died, he says that God had already “quickened us together with Christ” and “raised us up together” (Ephesians 2:5–6). To the Colossians he similarly writes, “If ye then be risen with Christ” (Colossians 3:1).

Those statements are difficult to dismiss as mere figures of speech with no real significance. Paul is describing a genuine change in the believers’ relationship to sin, the present world, Christ, and God. Yet they remain physically embodied and mortal.

This gives us another piece of the developing picture. The New Testament can speak of people as dead while physically alive, made alive while physically mortal, and raised with Christ before their literal graves have ever been occupied.

The question now becomes whether this language has any relationship to what Revelation calls “the first resurrection.” That expression is often assumed to refer only to the chronological first group physically restored from death. But before accepting that definition, we should examine what Revelation itself says about those who have a part in it—especially the remarkable promise that “on such the second death hath no power.”

Chapter 12

“Quickened Together With Christ”

John records Jesus saying that a person can pass “from death unto life” while still physically alive. Paul uses even stronger resurrection language when describing the experience of Christians who had responded to Christ. In his letter to the Ephesians, he speaks of people who had been dead, had been made alive, and had already been raised.

He begins: “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1). A few verses later he continues that God, “even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ,” and “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5–6).

Paul is writing to physically living people. Their former death was therefore not physical death, and their being made alive did not require a physical resurrection from a grave. Nevertheless, Paul considers the transition real enough to describe it with the language of life and resurrection.

Dead While Living

The expression “dead in trespasses and sins” helps explain Jesus’ words in John 5. A person can possess biological life and still be dead in relation to God. Such a person walks, thinks, desires, and makes choices, yet remains under the power of sin and death.

Paul describes what that condition looked like. The Ephesians had once walked “according to the course of this world,” following the desires of the flesh and mind (Ephesians 2:2–3). Their death was therefore not inactivity. It was a kind of life governed by a power that ultimately leads to death.

God’s intervention changes that condition. Paul does not merely say that they received better information or adopted improved conduct. He says that God “quickened us together with Christ.” They were made alive. This closely resembles Jesus’ statement that the person who hears his word and believes “is passed from death unto life.”

Raised With Christ

Paul then goes further: God “hath raised us up together.” The language is already resurrection language. Yet the believers in Ephesus had not literally emerged from their graves. Their resurrection with Christ describes a new condition and relationship that had already begun within their present physical lives.

The same idea appears in Colossians. Paul tells believers that they were “buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God” (Colossians 2:12). He later writes, “If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above” (Colossians 3:1). Again, physical resurrection remains future, but another kind of rising has already occurred. This distinction is important for our investigation because it shows that the New Testament does not reserve the vocabulary of resurrection exclusively for the moment when a physical body leaves a grave. There is a genuine participation in Christ’s life that can be described as being raised with him while the believer remains mortal.

Not Yet Beyond Death

At the same time, Paul does not teach that these Christians had already reached the complete condition described in Luke 20. They had been made alive and raised with Christ, yet they could still die physically.

This prevents us from collapsing every biblical use of resurrection language into a single event. There appears to be a process or progression. A person can be made alive to God and raised with Christ while still subject to physical death. Physical resurrection may later restore the person from the grave. And Jesus speaks of a condition beyond both in which those attaining resurrection “cannot die any more.” The beginning and the completion should not be confused. Paul himself preserves this tension. Christians already possess life in Christ, yet they still await something. In Romans he describes those who have “the firstfruits of the Spirit” as still “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). Something real has begun, but something greater remains ahead.

A Resurrection That Begins Now?

This raises an important possibility. Perhaps resurrection in the fullest Christian sense should not always be imagined as a single instant occurring only after physical death. There may be a movement that begins when a person passes from death to life in relationship with God, continues through physical death without that relationship being erased, and reaches completion when death finally loses all authority over the person.

This would fit the sequence we have already observed. Jesus says that a believer has “passed from death unto life.” Paul says believers have been “quickened” and “raised” with Christ. Abraham physically dies but remains living unto God. Jesus promises a resurrection in which those attaining it “cannot die any more.”

This is not yet proof that all of these expressions refer to one formally defined resurrection process. Each passage must retain its own context. But the recurring pattern is substantial enough that the question should no longer be avoided.

Raised Into What?

Ephesians adds one more surprising element. Paul says that God not only made believers alive and raised them with Christ but also “made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6). These people remained physically on earth. Yet Paul could describe them as already occupying a heavenly position in Christ. That observation will become important later when we examine what Scripture means by heavenly places, the spiritual temple, and meeting the Lord “in the air.” For the moment, it establishes a simpler point: biblical language about being raised and entering a heavenly standing does not necessarily require that a person first abandon physical existence.

The believers were still mortal humans, but something fundamental about their relationship to God had already changed. The question is how far this transformation ultimately goes.

Revelation gives us an expression that may help. It speaks of those who have “part in the first resurrection” and immediately says something about their relationship to death: “on such the second death hath no power” (Revelation 20:6). That statement sounds remarkably close to the direction in which Jesus’ words have been leading us. The next question is whether the “first resurrection” might involve more than simply being the first group chronologically to leave their graves.

Chapter 13 “The First Resurrection”

The expression “the first resurrection” appears explicitly in Revelation 20. John describes those who lived and reigned with Christ and then says: “This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection: on such the second death hath no power” (Revelation 20:5–6). At first reading, “first resurrection” naturally sounds chronological: one resurrection happens first and another follows later. That possibility should not be dismissed. The surrounding vision speaks of people who had been killed for their faithfulness and who “lived and reigned with Christ.” A physical resurrection reading therefore arises naturally from the passage. Yet Revelation itself places another feature beside the word “first” that deserves equal attention. Those who have part in this resurrection are not merely alive again. “The second death hath no power” over them. That statement brings us back to Jesus’ words: “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:36).

More Than Returning From the Dead

Scripture records people who returned from physical death but remained mortal. Lazarus is the clearest example. His resurrection was real, yet nothing indicates that the second he walked out of the tomb he had entered a condition in which death could never touch him again.

Revelation 20 describes something different. Those having part in the first resurrection are beyond the authority of the second death. This suggests that the defining feature of the resurrection described here may involve more than the act of returning to physical life. It concerns the person’s ultimate relationship to death.

Revelation has already introduced this idea much earlier. Jesus promises the congregation in Smyrna: “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second death” (Revelation 2:11). The promise is given to living Christians who are being called to faithfulness. Their present choices therefore have a direct relationship to whether the second death will ultimately have authority over them.

“Hath Part”

The wording of Revelation 20:6 is also worth noticing. John says, “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.” The expression emphasizes participation. The verse does not simply say, “Blessed is everyone whom God physically raises first.” It speaks of having a share or part in this resurrection and then identifies the result: the second death has no power over such persons.

This alone does not prove that the first resurrection begins during a believer’s present life. But when placed beside the passages we have already examined, the possibility deserves consideration.

Jesus says that a believer “is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24). He says an hour “now is” when the dead hear his voice and live (John 5:25). Paul says Christians who were dead in sins have been made alive and “raised up together” with Christ (Ephesians 2:5–6). Colossians addresses believers as those who have already been “risen with Christ” (Colossians 3:1). Revelation promises living conquerors that the second death will not harm them. Finally, Revelation 20 says that those having part in the first resurrection are precisely those over whom the second death has no power. The connection is suggestive.

A Working Possibility

At this stage, however, we should distinguish observation from conclusion. Revelation 20 by itself can naturally be read as describing the resurrection of faithful people who had physically died. We should not redefine “first resurrection” merely because another interpretation fits a larger pattern we are exploring.

A more cautious possibility is that Revelation 20 shows the completion of a resurrection reality that begins earlier in a believer’s relationship with Christ. A person hears the Son’s voice and passes from death to life. He is made alive and raised with Christ. He remains physically mortal and may die. Yet, like Abraham, physical death does not erase his relationship with God. Physical resurrection restores him, and the process reaches its fullness when death—especially the “second death”—has no authority over him.

If that pattern proves correct, “first resurrection” would involve more than chronological priority. It would describe participation in the kind of life that ultimately triumphs over death. But this remains a working interpretation to be tested against the rest of Scripture.

Physical Resurrection Is Still Necessary

Nothing in this possibility removes the need for physical resurrection. Abraham still must rise. Those in the memorial tombs must still hear Christ’s voice and come forth. Paul’s statement that believers have already been raised with Christ does not mean that their future resurrection has become unnecessary.

Rather, it suggests that physical resurrection and spiritual life should not be placed in competition with each other. A person can become alive to God before physical death. He can remain alive to God while physically dead. He can then be physically raised. The final objective is not simply restoration to mortality but life over which death has no further authority.

This gives greater meaning to Jesus’ statement concerning Abraham. Abraham is not yet physically raised when Jesus speaks about him, yet “all live unto” God. His resurrection is future, but his relationship with God is already established.

What About Those Raised in the Future?

This raises another question. If physical resurrection does not automatically equal the complete condition in which death has no power, what about people who will be raised without previously having developed the kind of relationship with God that Abraham possessed?

Jesus speaks in John 5 of people coming from the graves, but he also distinguishes outcomes associated with life and judgment. Revelation itself eventually describes people standing before God and being judged. Physical resurrection therefore may restore the opportunity for life without automatically guaranteeing the final condition of deathlessness.

This possibility would mean that someone physically raised in the future may still need to undergo the fundamental transition Jesus described as passing “from death unto life.” Conversely, someone who has already made that transition during the present life may physically die while remaining alive to God, awaiting the restoration of the body.

Again, this must be tested carefully. But it allows the different biblical statements about resurrection to stand together rather than forcing all of them into one moment.

The First and the Final Victory

The emerging picture is therefore not simply resurrection versus death. Scripture appears to describe stages in the victory of life over death. There is being made alive to God. There is being raised with Christ. There is physical resurrection from the grave. And there is the final condition in which death has no authority.

Jesus describes that final condition simply and powerfully: “Neither can they die any more.”

Revelation expresses something closely related: “On such the second death hath no power.”

If these statements belong to the same larger reality, then the first resurrection may ultimately be defined not merely by when someone rises, but by what kind of life he attains.

This brings us back to Luke’s unusual wording. Jesus did not merely speak of people who happen to be resurrected. He spoke of those “accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.”

The next question is therefore unavoidable: What does it mean to attain the resurrection, and can a person begin participating in the life of “that age” before its fullness has arrived?

Chapter 14 “The Powers of the World to Come”

Jesus speaks in Luke 20 of those “accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.” The KJV expression “that world” translates the Greek idea of “that age.” It appears to belong to the future, in contrast with “this world” or the present age. Yet another New Testament passage shows that something belonging to the coming age can already be experienced before that age arrives in its fullness.

Hebrews speaks of people who “have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come” (Hebrews 6:5). Once again, the KJV uses “world,” while the underlying expression refers to the coming age. These people had not physically left the present world. Nevertheless, they had already “tasted” powers belonging to the age to come.

This provides an important qualification to the way we think about the two ages. The present age and the coming age are distinct, but they are not necessarily separated by a barrier that prevents anyone living now from experiencing anything belonging to the future. Something of the coming age can already operate within the present.

A Taste Is Not the Fullness

The word “tasted” is particularly appropriate. To taste something is genuinely to experience it, but tasting does not necessarily mean possessing it in its complete measure. Hebrews does not say that these Christians had already entered every aspect of the coming age. It says that they had tasted its powers.

This resembles the pattern we have been observing. Jesus says that a believer has already “passed from death unto life,” yet believers remain mortal. Paul says that Christians have been made alive and raised with Christ, yet they still await the redemption of the body. They possess something real, while something remains incomplete. The life of the coming age can therefore begin before the complete removal of mortality.

This may help us understand Luke 20 without forcing everything Jesus describes into a single instant. Those who ultimately attain that age “cannot die any more.” That is the completed condition. But Scripture also allows people living in the present age to experience beforehand the power associated with the age to come.

The Spirit and What Is Still Ahead

What gives believers this present participation in something still future? Paul repeatedly points to the holy spirit.

In Romans he speaks of Christians who “have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” yet who still groan within themselves while waiting for “the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). Firstfruits are real, but they anticipate something more.

Paul uses another expression in his second letter to the Corinthians. God “hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:22). Later he says that God “hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” in a context where mortality is to be “swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 5:4–5). The word translated “earnest” refers to a pledge or first installment. Something has already been given, and what has been given points toward a greater completion still to come. This makes the relationship between present and future increasingly clear. Christian life is not merely waiting for God to do something after death. Something has already begun.

Life Has Entered Before Death Has Left

This may be one of the most important patterns emerging from the passages we have considered. Death is still present, but life has already begun operating. The believer remains mortal, yet has passed from death to life. The body remains subject to corruption, yet the spirit is given as firstfruits. The coming age has not arrived in its fullness, yet its powers can already be tasted.

The final victory comes when mortality itself is overcome. Paul describes the objective as “that mortality might be swallowed up of life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). Jesus describes those attaining resurrection as people who “cannot die any more.”

The movement is therefore not simply from one location to another. It is from mortality toward life, from corruption toward freedom, and from death’s authority toward a condition in which death no longer possesses any claim.

This also helps explain why being “accounted worthy to obtain that world” may involve something more than waiting passively for a future resurrection. The life of that age can begin influencing a person now.

The Pledge of Something Greater

The idea of the spirit as a pledge deserves particular attention because Paul connects it directly with inheritance. In Ephesians he says that believers were “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Ephesians 1:13–14).

Here several themes that have already appeared in our investigation unexpectedly come together: the spirit, a pledge, inheritance, and redemption.

Those words take us back toward an earlier biblical world. Israel received inheritance. What was lost could be redeemed. Jubilee could return a person to his possession. Ruth connects redemption with the name of the dead “upon his inheritance.” Now Paul speaks of the spirit as the pledge of an inheritance awaiting redemption.

We should not assume that these passages are all describing exactly the same institution under different names. The connection must be developed carefully. But the vocabulary is too significant to ignore.

The Sadducees began with a dead man whose seed, name, and continuity needed to be preserved. Jesus answered by speaking of children of God who cannot die anymore. Paul now speaks of those children receiving the spirit as the pledge of an inheritance still awaiting its full redemption.

The next step, therefore, is to examine what Paul means when he calls the holy spirit “the earnest of our inheritance.”

Chapter 15

“The Earnest of Our Inheritance”

Paul writes that those who believed were “sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession” (Ephesians 1:13–14). The language is important because it brings together something already possessed and something still awaited. The spirit has been given, but the inheritance has not yet reached its complete realization.

The word “earnest” is no longer commonly used in this sense. The NWT renders it “a token in advance of our inheritance,” while modern translations commonly use such expressions as “pledge,” “down payment,” or “guarantee.” Behind these translations stands the Greek word arrabōn, referring to something given now as a pledge of what is still to be received. The Greek word translated “earnest” in the KJV is arrabōn. It refers to a pledge, deposit, or first installment that guarantees what is still to come. Paul uses the same word when he says that God has “given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1:22), and again when speaking about mortality being swallowed up by life: “Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 5:5).

The spirit is therefore not presented merely as evidence concerning a future promise. It is itself a present participation in what God intends to complete.

Already Received, Still Awaiting

This helps us understand a pattern that might otherwise appear contradictory. Christians can already be described as children of God, yet still await the fullness of their adoption. They can already possess life, yet remain mortal. They can already be raised with Christ, yet still await resurrection from physical death. They can taste the powers of the coming age while continuing to live in the present one.

The pledge explains how both can be true. Something genuine has begun, but it has not yet reached completion.

Romans 8 presents the same tension. Paul says, “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). Yet only a few verses later these same people, having “the firstfruits of the Spirit,” are “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). Sonship therefore has a present reality and a future completion.

This is particularly interesting beside Luke 20, where Jesus describes those attaining the resurrection as “the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” The language does not require us to conclude that every aspect of that condition is already possessed by believers now. Luke explicitly describes people who “cannot die any more,” whereas Christians possessing the spirit remain mortal. Nevertheless, the same identity—children of God—can begin before mortality has disappeared.

The Spirit and the Coming Age

This gives greater significance to Hebrews’ statement that believers can taste “the powers of the world to come” (Hebrews 6:5). The coming age is future in its fullness, yet its power can already enter the present life. The spirit is one way Scripture describes that present participation.

Paul does not portray the spirit as something merely stamped upon a person without affecting him. Those led by the spirit become increasingly oriented toward God. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14). The pledge therefore anticipates not only a future inheritance but a present transformation.

This helps explain why David, after his sin, prayed, “Take not thy holy spirit from me” (Psalm 51:11). The presence and activity of God’s spirit were precious because they represented God’s continuing relationship and direction. In the Christian writings, that relationship becomes directly connected with sonship and inheritance.

Inheritance Returns to the Story

The word “inheritance” also brings us back to themes encountered much earlier in our investigation. Under the Mosaic arrangement, inheritance was associated with family continuity. The land was distributed among tribes and families. Redemption could recover a possession that had been lost. Ruth brings the dead man’s name and his inheritance together when Boaz speaks of raising “the name of the dead upon his inheritance” (Ruth 4:10).

Paul now uses the language of inheritance on a much larger scale. Those led by God’s spirit are “children,” and “if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17). The movement from child to heir is natural. An inheritance belongs to children because of their relationship to the one from whom they inherit.

This gives new depth to Jesus’ expression “children of God.” He is not merely giving resurrected people an affectionate title. Elsewhere in the New Testament, divine sonship is associated with inheritance, spirit, and ultimately liberation from corruption.

The Redemption Still Ahead

Ephesians connects the pledge with “the redemption” still to come. Romans likewise connects the firstfruits of the spirit with “the redemption of our body.”

The believer therefore stands between beginning and completion. The spirit has been given. Sonship has begun. The inheritance is promised. But mortality has not yet been swallowed up by life.

This fits remarkably well with the distinction we have been developing. A person may become alive to God while still mortal. The powers of the coming age can begin operating before the present age has ended. The spirit can function as a pledge of an inheritance that has not yet been fully received.

The final condition remains the one Jesus described: “Neither can they die any more.” This suggests that the spirit is not the end of the process but the beginning and guarantee of something greater. It is a present pledge of future life in its fullness.

Paul’s language in Romans 8 now becomes especially important because he expands this process beyond individual believers. He speaks not only about children of God awaiting redemption but about the entire creation waiting for something to happen to those children. Creation itself, he says, will be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

The language of bondage, release, inheritance, and children brings us unexpectedly close to another great biblical institution: Jubilee. The connection must be made carefully, but it deserves investigation.

Chapter 16 “Delivered From the Bondage of Corruption”

Paul’s discussion in Romans 8 takes the themes of spirit, sonship, inheritance, and redemption and expands them beyond the individual believer. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God,” he writes, “and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:16–17, KJV). But Paul does not stop with the children themselves. He immediately turns our attention toward the rest of creation.

“For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19, KJV). Here the older English can obscure the thought slightly. The NRSVue speaks of “the creation” waiting “with eager longing,” while the NASB similarly says that “the eagerly awaiting creation waits for the revealing of the sons and daughters of God.” The Greek word ktisis can refer to creation, and in this context Paul’s thought reaches far beyond one congregation of Christians. Something involving the children of God has significance for creation itself.

Creation Under Corruption

Paul continues: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” (Romans 8:20, KJV). The following verse identifies the hope: “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21, KJV).

The NWT renders the expression “enslavement to corruption,” while the NRSVue has “bondage to decay.” Both help expose the force of Paul’s language. The Greek word phthora can carry the idea of corruption, decay, or destruction. Creation exists under a condition in which things deteriorate and die. That takes us directly back to the problem underlying the Sadducees’ question. Their seven brothers belong to a world governed by corruption. One brother dies. Another takes his wife. He dies. Another follows him. The legal mechanism continues because death continues. Everything about their hypothetical case assumes humanity’s bondage to mortality. Jesus answers by describing people who “cannot die any more.” Paul describes creation awaiting liberation from “the bondage of corruption.” These are not identical statements made in identical contexts, and we should not simply equate them. Yet they point toward the same great biblical problem: creation is presently subjected to a power from which God intends to set it free.

The Liberty of the Children of God

The destination of that liberation is particularly striking. Paul does not merely say that creation will cease decaying. He says that creation will enter “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

The NET renders the thought as “the glorious freedom of God’s children.” The NWT similarly speaks of “the glorious freedom of the children of God.” This wording makes the relationship clearer. The freedom experienced by God’s children becomes the freedom toward which creation itself is moving.

That brings us again to Luke 20:36: “For they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” The correspondence deserves attention. In Luke, children of God are associated with resurrection and freedom from death. In Romans, children of God are associated with freedom from corruption, and creation itself waits for that freedom to be revealed. Perhaps, then, resurrection should be considered not merely as God retrieving individuals from graves but as part of a much larger liberation from the entire condition that produces graves.

Creation Is Waiting for Children

Paul says something even more remarkable. Creation is waiting for “the manifestation”—or, as modern translations commonly express it, the revealing—of the children of God. This suggests that their sonship has already begun but has not yet been fully revealed. That fits what Paul has just said. “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14, KJV). They are already children. Yet they possess only “the firstfruits of the Spirit” and continue waiting for “the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23).

Again we encounter the same pattern: already, but not yet complete. They are children, but their condition has not been fully revealed. They possess the spirit, but only as firstfruits. They have been made alive with Christ, but their bodies remain mortal. They have tasted the powers of the coming age, but the coming age has not yet arrived in its fullness. Luke 20 appears to show us the destination: children of God who “cannot die any more.”

Groaning for Redemption

Paul then describes the present condition with unusually physical imagery: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22, KJV). The NASB speaks of creation “suffering the pains of childbirth together until now.”

This image is important. Creation’s suffering is not described merely as the agony of something dying. Paul compares it with labor pains—suffering directed toward a birth. The next verse brings the same tension inside the believers themselves. Even those possessing the firstfruits of the spirit “groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23, KJV).

The NRSVue expresses the final phrase simply as “the redemption of our bodies.” Thus the hope is not escape from embodiment. Paul actually describes redemption reaching the body. This is especially significant for our investigation. Earlier we noticed that believers can already be “raised” and seated “in heavenly places” with Christ while remaining physical humans. Now Paul says that the completion they await includes the redemption of their bodies. The spiritual and the physical are therefore not enemies in Paul’s argument. The spirit is the firstfruits; bodily redemption is still ahead.

From Slavery to Freedom

The language of Romans 8 begins to resemble another biblical pattern: bondage followed by release. Under the Law, Israel knew institutions concerned with lost inheritance, debt, servitude, redemption, and restoration. The Jubilee brought these themes together dramatically. “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (Leviticus 25:10, KJV).

The Hebrew word translated “liberty” there, deror, describes release. Israelites who had lost their freedom or hereditary possession could experience restoration according to the provisions of the Jubilee.

We should be careful here. Paul does not explicitly say in Romans 8, “I am explaining the Jubilee.” It would therefore go beyond the text to claim that “bondage of corruption” is simply a technical reference to Leviticus 25. But the conceptual resemblance is difficult to miss. In Leviticus, bondage gives way to release and lost possession can be restored. In Romans, creation is enslaved to corruption and awaits liberation. Believers possess the firstfruits of the spirit while awaiting bodily redemption. In Ephesians, the spirit is the pledge of an inheritance awaiting redemption. The vocabulary begins to converge around a common movement: bondage toward freedom, loss toward inheritance, corruption toward redemption, and death toward life.

A Greater Jubilee?

This raises a possibility worth investigating rather than immediately declaring as a conclusion. Could the Jubilee have provided Israel with a small-scale pattern of a much greater restoration? The land itself ultimately belonged to God. “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine” (Leviticus 25:23, KJV). Families could lose possession temporarily, Israelites could fall into servitude, but the Jubilee proclaimed release and return.

Humanity faces a deeper loss. The inheritance is not merely a field. The bondage is not merely economic. The great enslaving power is corruption itself. And the liberation Paul anticipates is correspondingly greater: “the glorious freedom of the children of God.” This brings us surprisingly close to where our investigation began. The Sadducees presented Jesus with a law designed to preserve a dead man’s continuity in a world where death repeatedly takes away husbands, offspring, names, and inheritance. Jesus answered by pointing beyond that world of death toward children of resurrection who cannot die anymore. Perhaps the ancient laws of seed, name, inheritance, redemption, and Jubilee were never the final answer to the problem of death. They preserved and restored what could be preserved and restored within mortality. Resurrection addresses the problem at its root.

The next chapter should therefore return to the Jubilee itself and ask what exactly happened when the trumpet sounded and liberty was proclaimed throughout the land—and why the biblical language of redemption, inheritance, and return may matter for understanding the larger restoration promised through Christ.

Chapter 17 “Proclaim Liberty Throughout All the Land”

The Jubilee legislation appears in Leviticus 25. Israel was instructed to count seven cycles of seven years—forty-nine years—and then to sound the trumpet in connection with the Day of Atonement. “Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month” (Leviticus 25:9, KJV). The following verse announces what the trumpet meant: “And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

The NRSVue renders the command, “proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” The NASB 2020 similarly says, “proclaim a release throughout the land to all its inhabitants.” The difference between “liberty” and “release” is useful because the Hebrew word deror carries the idea of release from restraint or servitude. Jubilee was not merely a celebration of freedom as an abstract principle. Something that had become bound was to be released. The verse continues: “It shall be a jubile unto you; and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man unto his family” (Leviticus 25:10, KJV). Two movements therefore stand together: release and return.

Return to the Possession

The Jubilee concerned Israel’s inheritance in the land. When Jehovah distributed the land among the tribes and families of Israel, it was not intended simply to become ordinary property that could permanently disappear from the family. Leviticus explains the reason: “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is mine” (Leviticus 25:23, KJV). The NWT makes the temporary character especially clear: “The land should not be sold in perpetuity, because the land is mine.”

An Israelite might become poor and sell some of his hereditary possession. A near relative could redeem it. If it was not redeemed earlier, Jubilee provided for its return. “In the jubile it shall go out, and he shall return unto his possession” (Leviticus 25:28, KJV). Thus redemption and Jubilee belong to the same system of restoration. Redemption could restore the possession before Jubilee; Jubilee ensured that loss would not necessarily become permanent.

This gives greater meaning to the language Paul later uses concerning “the redemption” and “our inheritance.” Those expressions have their own Christian context and should not simply be treated as technical references to Leviticus. Nevertheless, Israel already possessed a powerful scriptural vocabulary in which inheritance could be lost, redeemed, and restored.

Return to the Family

But Jubilee concerned more than land. Leviticus also considers an Israelite who became poor enough to sell himself into service. Such a person was not to be regarded as permanently owned by another Israelite. “And then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return” (Leviticus 25:41, KJV). Again we encounter the same word: return. The person returns to his family and returns to his ancestral possession.

This is significant for our study because inheritance in Scripture is not detached from identity. Possession belongs within a network of family, name, descent, and relationship. Jubilee restores more than property. It restores a person to his place.

That brings us back to the levirate arrangement. Deuteronomy 25 sought to prevent a dead brother’s name from disappearing from Israel. Ruth brings name and inheritance together even more explicitly when Boaz declares his purpose “to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance” (Ruth 4:10, KJV). Name, family, and inheritance belonged together.

What Jubilee Could Not Restore

Yet Jubilee had an obvious limitation. It could return a living man to his family. It could restore his ancestral possession. It could release him from servitude. It could prevent permanent economic loss. But Jubilee could not bring a dead man back. If the owner of the inheritance had died, other provisions became necessary. His descendants could continue his line. A brother could raise up seed in his name. A kinsman-redeemer could act in relation to the family property. These arrangements could preserve the dead man’s name, house, and inheritance. But none of them restored the dead man himself. That distinction is fundamental.

The Mosaic Law contained remarkable mechanisms for resisting the consequences of loss. A possession could be redeemed. A servant could be released. A family line could be preserved. A dead man’s name could continue through offspring. Resurrection goes further than all of them. Resurrection does not merely return the inheritance. It returns the heir.

“The Land Is Mine”

There is another important principle behind Jubilee. Israel did not possess the land independently of God. Jehovah says simply, “the land is mine.” That means Israel’s inheritance was ultimately a gift held under God’s sovereignty. The family’s right to return did not originate merely in human property law. It rested upon God’s ownership and his arrangement.

This gives us a useful perspective when we later encounter Christian language about becoming “heirs of God” (Romans 8:17). The ultimate inheritance does not exist independently of the Giver. To inherit from God is first to stand in a relationship with God.

This again helps explain why Jesus’ statement concerning Abraham is so important. Abraham’s future does not depend merely upon biological descendants remembering him. Jehovah identifies himself personally as “the God of Abraham.” Abraham’s relationship with God remains the foundation of his future. His inheritance can therefore be restored because, from God’s standpoint, the heir himself has not been forgotten.

The Trumpet of Jubilee

The timing of the Jubilee proclamation is also striking. The trumpet was sounded “in the day of atonement” (Leviticus 25:9, KJV). Release, return, and restoration were therefore announced on a day already deeply associated with reconciliation before God. We should resist the temptation to make every feature of the Jubilee into a direct prophecy of later Christian events. Scripture itself must establish such connections. Yet the combination is remarkable: atonement, trumpet, liberty, return, family, possession, and restoration all converge in one institution.

Later biblical writings repeatedly use some of these same categories in connection with salvation. Paul speaks of redemption. He speaks of inheritance. He speaks of release from corruption. He speaks of children and heirs. And resurrection itself is famously associated with a trumpet: “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible” (1 Corinthians 15:52, KJV).

At this point we should note the correspondence without yet declaring that Paul’s “last trump” is the Jubilee trumpet. The text of 1 Corinthians does not explicitly make that identification. But once the biblical background of Jubilee is understood, the combination of trumpet, release, restoration, inheritance, and freedom from corruption deserves careful comparison.

From Possession to Person

We can now see why the Sadducees’ appeal to Moses may have contained more than they realized. They chose a law concerned with what happens when death threatens family continuity. The dead brother cannot produce offspring. His name is in danger of disappearing. His house must be built up through another. His continuity must be maintained through seed. Jesus does not reject Moses. He goes deeper into Moses. At the burning bush, Moses himself heard God say, “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Jesus then draws the conclusion: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38, KJV).

The Law could preserve what belonged to a dead person. God can preserve the person. The Law could restore an inheritance. God can restore the heir. Jubilee could proclaim liberty to those still living in the land. Resurrection can ultimately answer the deeper bondage from which no ordinary Jubilee could release humanity—the “bondage of corruption” itself. And this may help us understand why the New Testament’s language of redemption eventually reaches all the way to the body. The final restoration is not merely about recovering something humanity lost. It is about recovering humanity itself from the power of death.

That leads naturally to one of the most important biblical developments in this entire theme: how the seed that once preserved a family name and inheritance ultimately becomes connected with Abraham, Christ, and those who are called “children of God.”

Chapter 18 “And to Thy Seed”

The idea of seed has accompanied our investigation from the beginning. The Sadducees built their question upon a law that became necessary when a man died “having no children.” Mark emphasizes the problem repeatedly: one brother “left no seed,” then another died “neither left he any seed,” until finally none of the seven had produced offspring. Deuteronomy explains why this mattered: the firstborn produced through the arrangement was to continue the dead brother’s name so “that his name be not put out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:6, KJV).

But the biblical story of seed is much older than the levirate law. It begins before Moses and eventually develops into something much larger than physical genealogy. Following that development may help us understand why Jesus moves from the Sadducees’ concern about husbands and wives to a very different identity: “the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”

The Seed Before Israel

The first great promise concerning seed appears near the beginning of Genesis. After human rebellion introduces sin and death into the story, God speaks of a future conflict involving the woman’s seed and the serpent: “It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel” (Genesis 3:15, KJV).

Genesis then repeatedly follows lines of descent. Eventually the focus comes to Abraham. Jehovah promises him: “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” (Genesis 22:18, KJV).

Modern translations help us hear the breadth of the promise. The NRSVue reads, “by your offspring shall all the nations of the earth gain blessing for themselves.” The NWT similarly uses “offspring.” The Hebrew word zeraʿ can refer to seed or offspring and can function collectively. Thus the promise naturally concerns Abraham’s descendants, while later Scripture will focus that promise more specifically.

The line continues through Isaac and Jacob, then through Israel, Judah, and eventually the house of David. At this stage physical descent matters enormously. Genealogy identifies the line through which the promise moves. But physical descent is not the end of the story.

Tamar and the Preservation of Seed

This helps explain why the account of Tamar in Genesis 38 deserves more than passing attention. Judah tells Onan concerning his deceased brother: “Go in unto thy brother’s wife, and marry her, and raise up seed to thy brother” (Genesis 38:8, KJV). Onan understands precisely what is at stake: “Onan knew that the seed should not be his” (Genesis 38:9, KJV). Here we encounter the same basic problem that later appears in Deuteronomy 25. A man has died without offspring. His line is in danger of ending. Another man is expected to produce seed associated with the dead brother. Yet the story takes an unexpected direction. Tamar eventually bears Perez through Judah himself. Generations later, when the elders bless Boaz and Ruth, they deliberately recall this history: “Let thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah” (Ruth 4:12, KJV).

Readers who would like to explore Tamar’s remarkable story more closely, including its place within the larger biblical history, are invited to read the separate study “Yod in Shiloh”.

Ruth then traces the genealogy from Perez to Boaz, Obed, Jesse, and David. The preservation of seed has become part of the history leading to Israel’s king. And the Gospel of Matthew continues that same genealogy toward Christ, explicitly naming Tamar near its beginning: “Judas begat Phares and Zara of Thamar” (Matthew 1:3, KJV).

We should not claim that Matthew mentions Tamar specifically in order to explain Jesus’ later answer to the Sadducees. Matthew does not say that. But the canonical connection is nevertheless striking: a story concerned with preserving seed after a man’s death becomes part of the genealogy through which the promised Messiah eventually comes.

“Not…Seeds, as of Many”

Paul makes a remarkable argument from the Abrahamic promise in Galatians. “Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made,” he writes. “He saith not, And to seeds, as of many; but as of one, And to thy seed, which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16, KJV). The NRSVue uses “offspring” and then says, “that is, to one person, who is Christ.” The NASB 2020 similarly identifies the promised “seed” as Christ.

Paul is making a theological reading of the Genesis promise. The Hebrew collective noun can refer to many descendants, and Genesis certainly does speak about Abraham’s numerous offspring. Paul does not deny that. Rather, he sees the promise reaching its decisive fulfillment in one representative descendant: Christ.

This is an important turning point. The story has moved from physical seed preserving a family line toward the promised Seed through whom blessing reaches the nations. But Paul does not stop with Christ alone.

“Then Are Ye Abraham’s Seed”

At the end of Galatians 3, Paul returns to the same word and applies it in an unexpected way to believers. “For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:26, KJV). Then he concludes: “And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29, KJV). Notice how many of our themes suddenly appear together: children, seed, and heirs.

Physical genealogy has not disappeared from biblical history; without it, the Messiah’s historical descent could not have been traced. But after Christ arrives, participation in Abraham’s promised seed is no longer defined simply by physical descent. The NWT renders Galatians 3:29: “Moreover, if you belong to Christ, you are really Abraham’s offspring, heirs with reference to a promise.” The decisive relationship is now belonging to Christ.

Children Not Born Merely of Flesh

John’s Gospel describes the same transformation using the language of birth. Concerning those who received Christ, John writes that he gave them authority “to become the sons of God” (John 1:12, KJV). He immediately explains that these were born “not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13). The NRSVue renders the expression “children of God,” which more directly reflects the Greek tekna theou. Their identity does not arise merely from bloodline, human reproduction, or a man’s decision. They are born of God. This does not make physical birth meaningless. Rather, Scripture has introduced another kind of descent—a relationship with God that physical genealogy by itself cannot produce.

Paul makes the same point concerning Abraham. Abraham becomes father not merely of those physically descended from him but of those sharing his faith. Romans 4 therefore expands Abraham’s fatherhood beyond one biological nation.

Seed has become connected with faith.

From the Dead Man’s Seed to God’s Children

We can now return to the Sadducees. Their question begins with the absence of seed. A man dies childless. Another must take his wife so that the dead man’s continuity can be preserved. The entire mechanism depends upon physical reproduction in the face of death. Jesus answers with an identity that operates on another level: “They are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36, KJV).

This does not mean physical human relationships suddenly become meaningless, nor does it prove that male and female cease to exist. Jesus does not say either of those things. But he does shift the center of identity. The Sadducees ask which man possesses the woman. Jesus speaks about whose children these people are. They are children of God.

Seed and Inheritance Meet Again

Galatians makes the connection explicit: “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” This is precisely where the themes of the previous chapters begin converging. Seed leads to children. Children become heirs. The spirit is given as the pledge of inheritance. Redemption leads toward freedom from corruption. And resurrection brings the person toward the condition in which death has no further authority.

The old levirate arrangement was designed to prevent a dead man’s name from disappearing because he had no seed. The promise through Christ produces something greater: children whose relationship with God is not ultimately dependent upon an unbroken physical genealogy. The name is no longer preserved merely by another person carrying the family line forward. The person himself can live unto God.

From Seed to New Birth

This brings us to another conversation of Jesus in which the question of becoming God’s child takes center stage. Nicodemus was physically alive, a descendant of Abraham, a member of Israel, and a teacher of the Law. Yet Jesus told him that something more was necessary. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, KJV).

The NRSVue exposes an important feature of the Greek by rendering the expression “born from above,” while the NET notes that the Greek word anōthen can carry both ideas—“again” and “from above.” Nicodemus hears the statement in terms of another physical birth and asks how a grown man could enter his mother’s womb a second time. Jesus is speaking about another kind of birth. That conversation may take us directly into the heart of what it means to become a child of God before finally becoming a child of the resurrection.

Chapter 19 “Except a Man Be Born Again”

Nicodemus came to Jesus with an impressive religious inheritance. He belonged to Israel, knew the Law, and was “a ruler of the Jews.” Jesus himself called him “a master of Israel” (John 3:10, KJV). By physical descent, Nicodemus already belonged to Abraham’s offspring. Yet Jesus told him that something more was necessary: “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, KJV).

Comparison with other translations is especially helpful here. The KJV says “born again.” The NWT likewise reads “born again,” while the NRSVue renders the expression “born from above.” Behind both stands the Greek word anōthen, which can mean “again” as well as “from above.” John appears to make use of this double meaning. Nicodemus understands Jesus in terms of another physical birth, while Jesus directs him toward a birth whose source is above.

“Can He Enter the Second Time?”

Nicodemus asks: “How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother’s womb, and be born?” (John 3:4, KJV). His response is understandable. If birth can only mean physical birth, Jesus’ statement seems impossible. But Jesus does not withdraw the statement or say that such a birth is beyond human reach. Instead, he explains what kind of birth he means: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5, KJV). Then he adds: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

This distinction is important. Jesus is speaking to a living human being and telling him that another birth is necessary. Nicodemus is not being told merely to wait until death or resurrection. Something must happen to him while he is capable of hearing Jesus, believing him, and responding. The new birth originates with God, but it takes place in the life of a person who is being invited to enter the Kingdom.

“Authority to Become”

John has actually prepared his reader for this conversation before Nicodemus appears. In the opening chapter of his Gospel he writes concerning Christ: “But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name” (John 1:12, KJV). The wording deserves careful attention. The KJV says “power.” The NWT renders the Greek exousia as “authority,” while the NASB 2020 and NET use “the right.” These translations help us see that something has been granted. Human beings do not possess this authority independently. Christ gives it.

But perhaps the most important words for our present investigation are the simplest ones: “to become.” John does not merely say that Christ gave people a title. He says that those receiving him were given authority to become children of God.

The Greek verb genesthai carries the idea of becoming, coming to be, or entering into a condition. There is movement in the expression. Something has been granted, and something is to become. This fits remarkably well with the pattern we have already encountered: a reality can begin now without having reached its complete form.

Who Causes the Becoming?

The next verse makes the source unmistakable. These children “were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God” (John 1:13, KJV). Physical descent cannot produce this sonship. Human determination cannot manufacture it. Nicodemus could possess Abrahamic ancestry, knowledge of Moses, and religious authority, yet still need the birth Jesus described. The initiative belongs to God.

But John does not therefore make the human being passive. The authority is given to “as many as received him,” and John immediately identifies them as those “that believe on his name.” Both sides remain visible. God gives. The person receives. God makes the new birth possible. The person believes. This distinction protects us from two opposite errors. Sonship is not something humans earn by their works. Yet neither is it something that makes their response irrelevant. The authority is a gift, but a gift can call the recipient into a new way of life.

We might therefore express John’s thought this way: God grants the authority to become; the person is responsible for responding to what God has granted.

“As Many as Are Led”

Paul describes this continuing response when he writes: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14, KJV). The NRSVue says, “all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” The emphasis on being led is significant. God provides the spirit, but the relationship is dynamic. The spirit leads; the child follows.

This helps explain why Christians who possess God’s spirit can still receive warnings concerning their response to it. “Quench not the Spirit,” Paul says (1 Thessalonians 5:19, KJV). Elsewhere he writes, “Grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30, KJV).

The last statement contains our familiar pattern again. They are already sealed, yet there remains a “day of redemption.” Something has happened. Something is still happening. Something remains to be completed.

“Now Are We the Children of God”

John makes this even clearer in his first letter: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2, KJV). The NRSVue and NWT render the Greek more directly as “children of God.” The two expressions in the same sentence are remarkable: Now we are children of God. It has not yet been revealed what we shall be. John does not postpone sonship entirely into the future. Neither does he describe its present form as its final form. The child already exists. The child is still becoming.

Paul presents the same tension in Romans 8. Those led by the spirit are already children of God, yet creation is still waiting for “the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19, KJV), or, as the NRSVue puts it, “the revealing of the children of God.” Those same children possess “the firstfruits of the Spirit” while awaiting “the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23, KJV). The language of sonship therefore contains a powerful already and not yet.

The Responsibility of a Child

John does not leave this as an abstract theological distinction. Immediately after saying that we are already children while still awaiting what we shall be, he writes: “And every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3, KJV). The NRSVue similarly says that “all who have this hope in him purify themselves.” The future hope produces present responsibility. God causes the birth. God gives the spirit. Christ grants the authority. Yet the person who receives these gifts is expected to respond. This does not mean that the person creates himself as a child of God. A child does not cause his own birth. But once life has been given, that life is to be lived.

Paul expresses the thought simply: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:25, KJV). There is life received, and there is life to be lived. This may become very important when we eventually consider what it means to “attain” the resurrection. God provides resurrection life. Human effort cannot conquer death. Yet Jesus still speaks of those “accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead.” Divine power and human responsibility do not have to be enemies.

The God Who Causes to Become

There is another dimension to this language of becoming that deserves careful consideration. When God revealed himself to Moses at the burning bush, the KJV renders Exodus 3:14: “I AM THAT I AM.” The NWT renders the Hebrew expression ʾehyeh ʾasher ʾehyeh as “I Will Become What I Choose to Become.” Other translations render it differently, and the precise relationship between this expression, the Hebrew verb hayah—“to be” or “to become”—and the divine name YHWH has long been discussed. We should therefore not present one English formulation as though it were an undisputed literal definition of Jehovah’s name.

Nevertheless, the association between Jehovah’s name and his ability to become, or cause things to become, in fulfillment of his purpose is especially meaningful in the present discussion. And the connection is not being introduced from an unrelated passage. Jesus himself takes us to the burning bush when discussing resurrection. Luke records: “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Luke 20:37, KJV). Jesus then draws his conclusion: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38). This is remarkable. The very passage associated with the revelation of God’s name becomes Jesus’ scriptural foundation for resurrection. The God who revealed himself to Moses is still the God of Abraham. Abraham has died, but God has not ceased to be his God. The relationship remains, and therefore Abraham’s future does not ultimately depend upon another human being preserving his name. It depends upon God.

“I Will Become” and “To Become”

We should not claim a direct linguistic connection where Scripture does not make one. John’s Greek genesthai, “to become,” is not derived from the Hebrew divine name. Yet conceptually the relationship is striking. John says Christ gives people authority to become children of God. Jesus tells Nicodemus that they must be born from above. Paul says they are led by God’s spirit. John says they are already children, although what they shall be has not yet been fully revealed. And Jesus, when defending resurrection, points to the God who revealed himself at the bush.

The person is becoming something that he could never make himself become. That may be one of the deepest meanings of divine sonship. God does not merely command a mortal descendant of Adam to stop being mortal by his own strength. He begins a work in that person. He gives life. He gives spirit. He gives authority. He leads. He preserves the person’s name and relationship even through physical death. And ultimately he possesses the power to raise the dead.

Human responsibility remains real, but the power that makes the becoming possible belongs to God. Readers who would like to explore more fully the divine name, the idea of becoming, and its relationship to the biblical line leading toward Shiloh may wish to read the separate study, “Yod in Shiloh”.

Becoming a Child of the Resurrection

We can now return once more to Jesus’ unusual expression in Luke 20:36: “They are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.” We should not simply declare that John’s “children of God” and Luke’s “children of the resurrection” are identical expressions. Their contexts differ, and our investigation must respect those differences. But neither should we ignore the progression that Scripture places before us.

A person receives authority to become a child of God.

He is born from above.

He passes from death unto life.

He is made alive and raised with Christ.

He receives the spirit as a pledge.

He is led by that spirit.

He is already a child of God, yet what he shall be has not fully appeared.

He remains mortal and still awaits the redemption of the body.

And Jesus describes the completed condition of children of resurrection with these words: “Neither can they die any more.”

This gives the idea of becoming extraordinary significance. Perhaps resurrection should not be understood only as something God does to a dead body at one future instant. Physical resurrection remains necessary, but Scripture appears to describe a work of God that can begin while the person is still alive—a movement from death toward life, from flesh-governed existence toward spirit-led sonship, from corruption toward freedom, from promise toward inheritance. The person does not cause this transformation by his own power. But neither is he merely a spectator. He receives. He believes. He follows. He purifies himself. He continues walking in the spirit. God gives the authority to become. And the God who can cause his purpose to become reality is able to finish what mortal man could never finish for himself: to bring his children into the freedom of resurrection life, where at last it can be said, “Neither can they die any more.”

Chapter 20 “A New Creation”

The language of becoming a child of God naturally leads to another expression Paul uses for the transformation that begins in Christ. The KJV reads: “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The NRSVue renders the expression more literally and more broadly: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.” The NASB 2020 similarly says, “this person is a new creation,” while the NWT reads, “he is a new creation.” The Greek expression is kainē ktisis—“new creation.” Paul is not merely describing improved behavior. He reaches for the language of creation itself. That choice of words deserves attention. Our investigation began with a question about what happens after death. But Scripture repeatedly takes us backward, toward creation, and forward, toward new creation. Jesus himself did this when discussing marriage. Faced with a Mosaic regulation, he returned to what God established “from the beginning.” Paul now describes the work occurring in Christ as nothing less than new creation.

“Old Things Are Passed Away”

Paul continues: “old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV). Modern critical editions support a slightly shorter wording reflected in translations such as the NRSVue: “everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” Once again we encounter the language of becoming. Something old is passing away, and something new has come into existence. Yet the Christians Paul addresses remain physically human. Their bodies are still mortal. Indeed, only a few verses earlier Paul has spoken about mortality being “swallowed up of life” and about God giving “the earnest of the Spirit” toward that future objective (2 Corinthians 5:4–5, KJV). That context is important. The person can be a new creation while mortality has not yet been completely removed. The new creation has begun before the old condition has entirely disappeared. Here again is our already-and-not-yet pattern.

What Has Become New?

We should not read more into Paul’s expression than he says. Calling someone a “new creation” does not mean that every aspect of that person has already reached perfection. Christians still struggle with weakness, sin, and mortality. Paul himself speaks elsewhere about transformation as something continuing. But something fundamental has changed. The person’s relationship with God has changed. His relationship with Christ has changed. His governing hope has changed. He has passed from death to life. He has received the spirit. He has been brought into a relationship of sonship.

Paul immediately places new creation in the context of reconciliation: “And all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 5:18, KJV). This again establishes the source. New creation is of God. Just as those becoming children of God are “born…of God,” the new creation originates with God.

Creation and Children

This makes Romans 8 even more interesting. There Paul speaks about the existing creation being subjected to corruption and waiting for liberation into “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

In 2 Corinthians, a person in Christ is already called “new creation.” The old creation remains under corruption. New creation has already begun within it. That does not mean that Paul is necessarily using ktisis in precisely the same technical sense in every passage. Context still matters. But the correspondence is significant. The transformation God intends for creation appears to have begun in people who belong to Christ. They are still living within the world of corruption, yet something belonging to the coming world has already begun in them. This is exactly what Hebrews describes when it speaks of those who have tasted “the powers of the world to come.”

The Image of the Creator

Paul develops this idea elsewhere through the language of putting off the old and putting on the new. Colossians says: “Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; and have put on the new man” (Colossians 3:9–10, KJV). But what happens to this “new man”? Paul says it “is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.” The NRSVue renders it: “the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.”

That phrase “is being renewed” is important. New creation is real, yet renewal continues. Again, God’s work and human responsibility appear together. Paul tells believers to “put off” certain practices and “put on” others. God is creating and renewing, but the person participates through choices and conduct.

This is consistent with what we found in the previous chapter. Christ gives authority to become children of God. Those children are born of God, yet they must be led by the spirit. They possess hope, yet they purify themselves. New creation follows the same pattern. God creates. The person responds to the Creator.

Back Toward the Beginning

The reference to the Creator’s “image” takes us back to Genesis. “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Genesis 1:26, KJV). The following verse says: “Male and female created he them.” This matters because new creation is sometimes imagined primarily as the abandonment of the original human creation. But Paul’s language can point in another direction: the new person is being renewed according to the image of the Creator. Something damaged is being restored. Sin and death have distorted human existence. Corruption has enslaved creation. But God’s answer is not necessarily to declare his original creative purpose a failure and replace humanity with an entirely different kind of being. The language of renewal can instead suggest restoration toward what the Creator intended.

We should remain cautious. Colossians 3:10 by itself does not answer every question about the physical form of resurrected humans. But it certainly gives us no reason to treat God’s original human creation as something inherently defective that must ultimately be discarded. The problem Scripture identifies is not that God created humans. The problem is corruption.

The Image of the Son

Romans 8 takes the thought further. Paul says that those whom God foreknew were “predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son” (Romans 8:29, KJV). The NRSVue says, “to be conformed to the image of his Son.” This adds another dimension to new creation. The Creator’s image is being restored, and Christ becomes the pattern. This does not mean that every child of God becomes Jesus in identity or possesses exactly the same role. But the direction of transformation is Christlike.

That helps us understand why John could say: “Now are we the children of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be,” and then add, “we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him” (1 John 3:2, KJV). Again, now and not yet appear in the same thought. Already children. Already new creation. Already being renewed. Yet still becoming like the Son.

The Firstborn Among Many Brethren

Romans 8:29 then makes a remarkable statement about Christ: he is “the firstborn among many brethren” (KJV). The NRSVue says “the firstborn within a large family.” The language of family returns. Christ is not presented as the only Son in the sense that no others can ever enter a filial relationship with God. Rather, through him a family is being formed. Those led by the spirit become children of God, and Christ stands as firstborn among many brothers and sisters. This gives even greater weight to the movement in Luke 20.

The Sadducees ask about seven brothers whose family relationships repeatedly collapse because of death. Jesus answers by speaking of another family identity—“children of God.” The old question is dominated by brothers dying one after another. The new creation moves toward a family in which death itself finally loses its authority.

The Last Adam

Paul provides another important bridge between creation and resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15. He contrasts Adam and Christ: “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45, KJV). The NRSVue renders the second expression “the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.” The NASB 2020 likewise has “a life-giving spirit.” Paul’s contrast is not between an evil physical creator and a good spiritual creator. Both sides of the comparison belong to God’s purpose. Rather, Adam becomes the head of humanity as we presently know it—humanity subject to death—while Christ becomes the source through whom life overcomes that condition. Paul had already stated the contrast plainly: “For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (1 Corinthians 15:22, KJV). That sentence brings us directly back to our central subject. In Adam: death. In Christ: life. The movement from one to the other is the movement of new creation.

New Creation and Resurrection

We can therefore begin to see resurrection within a larger framework. Physical resurrection is indispensable because death has actually taken human beings into the grave. But God’s purpose appears greater than merely returning people to the same condition in which they can die again. Lazarus experienced physical restoration, but mortality remained. The new creation points beyond restoration to mortality. It points toward transformation. A person can enter that transformation before physical death. He can become alive to God. He can be born from above. He can receive authority to become a child of God. He can receive the spirit. He can be raised with Christ. He can become a new creation and begin being renewed according to the Creator’s image. Yet the process still awaits bodily redemption and complete freedom from corruption. Jesus gives us the destination: “Neither can they die any more.”

What Kind of Body?

At this point, however, an obvious question can no longer be postponed. If new creation begins while a person remains physically human, what happens when physical resurrection finally occurs? Does resurrection restore the same kind of body? Does it replace the body? Does Paul’s contrast between a “natural body” and a “spiritual body” mean that physical humanity is ultimately abandoned?

First Corinthians 15 contains some of the most important—and most frequently assumed—language in the entire resurrection discussion: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44, KJV). The phrase “spiritual body” is often treated as though its meaning were self-evident. But is it? Before deciding what kind of existence belongs to the children of resurrection, we need to ask what Paul actually meant by “a spiritual body.”

Chapter 21 “It Is Raised a Spiritual Body”

After explaining that “in Christ shall all be made alive,” Paul eventually anticipates an obvious question: “But some man will say, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come?” (1 Corinthians 15:35, KJV). That question brings us directly into our investigation. If resurrection restores the person, what happens to the body? Does Paul teach that physical humanity is abandoned and replaced by an immaterial existence? Or is he describing a transformation of human life from corruption and mortality into a condition governed and sustained by God’s spirit?

Paul’s answer is often summarized by one expression: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44, KJV). But before deciding what “spiritual body” means, we should follow Paul’s argument from the beginning rather than allowing our modern understanding of the word “spiritual” to determine his meaning for us.

“God Giveth It a Body”

Paul begins with the illustration of a seed: “That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die” (1 Corinthians 15:36, KJV). A seed is placed into the ground, yet what emerges does not simply reproduce the seed’s outward appearance. Paul explains: “God giveth it a body as it hath pleased him, and to every seed his own body” (verse 38). The illustration contains both continuity and transformation. What emerges is connected with what was sown, yet its resulting form is not identical to the seed placed into the ground.

This is important. Resurrection is not presented merely as repairing a corpse and returning it unchanged to its previous mortal condition. But neither does Paul describe God as discarding the identity of what was sown and creating an unrelated person. The seed illustration preserves continuity through transformation. Most importantly, the decisive action belongs to God: “God giveth it a body.” The person does not design his resurrection existence. The Creator does.

From Corruption to Incorruption

Paul then explains the transformation more directly: “It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” (1 Corinthians 15:42–43, KJV). The NRSVue uses “perishable” and “imperishable” where the KJV uses “corruption” and “incorruption,” while the NWT retains the language of corruption and incorruption.

These contrasts help identify Paul’s central problem. What is corruptible becomes incorruptible; what is dishonorable is raised in glory; what is weak is raised in power. Paul does not formulate his contrast as “physical becomes nonphysical.” His explicit contrast is between the present condition subject to corruption and the future condition beyond corruption. That distinction matters because Romans 8 has already identified creation’s great bondage as “the bondage of corruption.” Resurrection answers that bondage.

“Natural Body” and “Spiritual Body”

Then comes Paul’s famous statement: “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.” The Greek expressions are sōma psychikon and sōma pneumatikon. Significantly, the noun sōma—“body”—appears in both expressions. Paul does not contrast a body with the absence of a body. He contrasts a psychikon body with a pneumatikon body.

The KJV word “natural” can make the first expression somewhat difficult for a modern reader. The Greek adjective psychikos is related to psychē, commonly translated “soul” or “life,” while pneumatikos is related to pneuma, “spirit.” Yet we should be careful not to turn these adjectives automatically into descriptions of material composition. Paul uses essentially the same contrast elsewhere in this very letter.

In 1 Corinthians 2:14, the KJV speaks of “the natural man,” while the NRSVue describes “those who are unspiritual.” Paul then contrasts this person with one who is pneumatikos, “spiritual” (1 Corinthians 2:15). The spiritual person in that passage is still a physically embodied human being. Calling someone pneumatikos does not mean that the person has become immaterial. Likewise, when Paul tells the Galatians, “ye which are spiritual” (Galatians 6:1, KJV), he is obviously addressing living human beings.

Therefore, the adjective “spiritual” does not by itself mean “nonphysical.” That observation does not settle every question concerning the resurrection body, because 1 Corinthians 15 clearly describes a transformation far beyond anything Christians presently experience. But it does mean that we should not simply insert the word “immaterial” into pneumatikos. Paul’s actual expression is not “spirit without a body,” but “spiritual body.”

The First Adam and the Last Adam

Paul explains his contrast through Adam and Christ: “The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit” (1 Corinthians 15:45, KJV). Modern translations render the latter expression more naturally as “a life-giving spirit.” Paul continues: “Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual” (verse 46).

There is an order. Humanity begins with Adamic life, while Christ opens another condition of life. “As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly” (verse 48). Paul then gives the destination: “And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly” (verse 49).

This connects naturally with what we considered in the previous chapter. The new person is being renewed according to the image of the Creator, and Romans says that God’s children are to be conformed to the image of his Son. Resurrection therefore does not suddenly introduce a completely unrelated work of God. It brings toward completion a transformation that has already begun in those who belong to Christ.

Does “Heavenly” Mean Nonphysical?

Paul’s use of “heavenly” is certainly significant, but here again we should resist reaching a conclusion faster than the text allows. “Heavenly” identifies Christ with an order of life different from mortal Adam. Yet Scripture can use heavenly language for realities already experienced by physically embodied believers. Ephesians says that living Christians have been made alive, raised together, and made to “sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5–6, KJV).

Consequently, the word “heavenly” does not by itself answer the question of physical location or material composition. A person may participate in a heavenly reality while remaining physically present on earth. Paul’s unmistakable emphasis in 1 Corinthians 15 is transformation from the condition inherited through Adam toward the condition represented by Christ. The first is characterized by mortality and corruption; the second leads toward incorruption, glory, power, and life.

“Flesh and Blood Cannot Inherit”

Paul then makes the statement often regarded as decisive: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 15:50, KJV). If this sentence is isolated from everything around it, it can easily sound as though Paul is saying that physical human existence itself is incompatible with God’s Kingdom. But Paul does not end his sentence there. He continues: “neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

The parallel deserves careful attention. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.” The NRSVue renders the second part, “nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.” Paul’s immediate explanation therefore points toward corruption and perishability. Flesh and blood in their present Adamic condition—mortal, corruptible, perishable—cannot simply inherit an incorruptible Kingdom unchanged. Something must happen to them.

This also cautions us against turning the expression “flesh and blood” into a technical definition meaning simply “a physical body.” Scripture can use “flesh and blood” as an expression for mortal humanity. When Jesus told Peter that “flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 16:17, KJV), his point was not that muscles, bones, and blood cells were incapable of giving Peter information. “Flesh and blood” referred to the human source and condition in contrast with revelation from God. Paul’s expression likewise needs to be understood from its context rather than automatically equated with embodiment itself.

Jesus’ own teaching about the recipients of the Kingdom provides another important safeguard. In the Sermon on the Mount he says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3, KJV), and again, “Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:10). Between these two statements he says, “Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth” (Matthew 5:5). These sayings should not be separated too quickly into unrelated destinies. They occur within the same description of those receiving God’s blessing. The people to whom the Kingdom belongs are also described as inheriting the earth.

Jesus continues this theme throughout the sermon. He teaches his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, KJV), and later says, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33). The coming of God’s Kingdom is therefore not presented simply as the removal of humans from the earth to another location. Jesus places the Kingdom alongside the accomplishment of God’s will on earth as it is in heaven.

This does not by itself determine the precise nature of the resurrection body, nor does Matthew 5:5 alone settle every question about the final location of every child of God. But it does make one conclusion difficult to assume without further evidence: that Paul’s statement “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God” means that physical human existence and the inheritance of God’s Kingdom are inherently incompatible. Jesus speaks of people receiving the Kingdom, inheriting the earth, and praying for God’s Kingdom to bring the heavenly will into earthly reality. Paul’s own explanation points us instead toward the obstacle that must be removed: “neither doth corruption inherit incorruption.”

Nicodemus and Entrance Into the Kingdom

This is where Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus becomes especially useful. Paul says, “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.” Jesus tells a living flesh-and-blood man what is necessary to enter that Kingdom: “Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John 3:5, KJV). Jesus does not tell Nicodemus that entering God’s Kingdom is impossible because he is human. He tells him that he must undergo a birth from above. He then explains: “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (John 3:6).

We should not simply declare that John 3 and 1 Corinthians 15 are saying exactly the same thing. Their immediate subjects differ. Yet the conceptual correspondence is difficult to miss. Natural descent and ordinary mortal human life do not by themselves produce the condition required for God’s Kingdom. Something originating with God must intervene. Jesus describes being born of the spirit; Paul describes the resurrection body as spiritual.

And Nicodemus is especially important for another reason: Jesus is speaking to a human being and telling him that this transformation is available to him. He does not say that being born of the spirit is impossible for a human because humans are flesh and blood. Instead, being born from above is precisely what makes entrance into the Kingdom possible.

“We Shall All Be Changed”

Most importantly, Paul himself tells us what follows immediately after the statement that flesh and blood cannot inherit. He does not say that everyone must cease to have a body. He says: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51, KJV).

This is crucial because some of those Paul describes will apparently not experience physical death at all: “We shall not all sleep.” Nevertheless, whether dead or living, all require the same fundamental solution: they must be changed. The dead must be raised, while the living must be transformed. Both must reach a condition that mortal Adamic humanity does not presently possess.

This also shows that the central issue cannot be merely coming out of a grave. If some living believers are changed without first dying, then the ultimate objective is larger than physical resurrection alone. Resurrection belongs to a greater transformation from mortality into life beyond the authority of death.

Mortality Is the Problem

Paul soon defines that transformation with extraordinary precision: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53, KJV). The movement is from corruption to incorruption and from mortality to immortality. This brings us remarkably close to Jesus’ words in Luke 20. Paul says mortality must put on immortality; Jesus says that those attaining that age and the resurrection from the dead “cannot die any more.”

Different writers are speaking in different contexts, so we should not erase those distinctions. Yet the destination sounds increasingly familiar. The problem that must finally be overcome is death itself.

This helps us avoid a false choice. The biblical question is not necessarily whether resurrection is “physical” or “spiritual,” as though those words must always describe mutually exclusive realities. Paul himself speaks of a spiritual body. The deeper contrast in his argument is between life under the conditions inherited through Adam and life transformed through the power of God; between corruption and incorruption; between weakness and power; between mortality and immortality.

The Body Is Not the Enemy

This distinction matters greatly. Paul does not say, “The body cannot inherit the Kingdom.” He says that “flesh and blood cannot inherit,” and immediately explains the problem in terms of corruption and perishability. Nor does Paul elsewhere describe Christian hope as redemption from the body. Romans 8 says that believers await “the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23, KJV).

God’s answer to mortality is therefore not necessarily the abandonment of embodiment. It is the redemption and transformation of human existence. This is new creation brought toward completion. The body belonging to the present order of mortality cannot remain as it is; God must transform it into a condition appropriate to the life of the coming age.

Paul’s expression can therefore be allowed to stand in all its surprising force without immediately translating it into a philosophical conclusion that Paul himself does not state: “It is raised a spiritual body.”

What exactly that body will be in every physical respect may remain beyond what Paul explains. But what changes about its condition is much clearer. Corruption gives way to incorruption, weakness to power, mortality to immortality. The person who has borne the image of the earthly is brought to bear the image of the heavenly.

And Paul is about to describe the moment of that transformation. The trumpet sounds, the dead are raised incorruptible, and the living are changed. Most strikingly, some who undergo this change never enter the grave at all.

That is where our investigation must go next.

Chapter 22 “We Shall All Be Changed”

Paul has brought his argument to a remarkable point. The resurrection body is not simply described as the old mortal body returned to its former condition. It is raised in incorruption, glory, and power; it is called a “spiritual body.” Yet Paul’s next statement reveals something even more important for our investigation. The transformation he is describing is not limited to people who have died.

“Behold, I shew you a mystery,” Paul writes; “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:51, KJV). Some will sleep in death and require resurrection. Others will still be alive. Nevertheless, Paul places both groups under one necessity: all must be changed.

This may help us distinguish between resurrection as an event and resurrection as the condition toward which God is bringing his children. One person may pass through physical death and another may not, but neither can remain in the present mortal and corruptible condition. The destination is the same.

“We Shall Not All Sleep”

Paul’s statement is striking because it prevents us from defining the entire transformation simply as coming back from physical death. If “we shall not all sleep,” then some who experience the transformation will never enter the grave. They do not need to be restored from physical death, yet they still require the change Paul describes.

The NRSVue expresses the thought similarly: “We will not all die, but we will all be changed.” Paul then explains when: “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump” (1 Corinthians 15:52, KJV).

The dead and the living therefore approach the same destination from two different conditions. Paul says, “the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” The dead require resurrection; the living require transformation. Yet the result is described in the same language of incorruption.

This makes the distinction we have been developing increasingly important. Physical resurrection is real and necessary for those who have died, but physical resurrection alone cannot be the complete meaning of the transformation, because some experience the transformation without first dying.

“In a Moment”

Paul says the change occurs “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye.” The Greek word translated “moment” is atomos, something indivisible, from which our English word “atom” eventually developed. Paul’s point is speed: the decisive change does not require a long physical process. At the appointed moment, God can accomplish what mortal humanity cannot accomplish for itself.

This does not necessarily mean that everything connected with becoming a child of God begins at that instant. The preceding chapters have shown otherwise. A person can already pass from death to life, be made alive with Christ, receive the spirit, become a child of God, become a new creation, and begin being renewed according to the Creator’s image while still mortal. What happens “in a moment” appears rather to be the decisive transformation of the remaining mortal condition.

This distinction may help us reconcile language that otherwise appears contradictory. John can say, “Now are we the sons of God,” while also saying, “it doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2, KJV). Paul can say believers have already been made alive and raised with Christ while simultaneously saying they still await “the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23). The work has begun, but mortality remains. Then comes the moment when mortality itself must yield.

“At the Last Trump”

Paul connects this transformation with a trumpet: “For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed” (1 Corinthians 15:52, KJV). The trumpet therefore announces both resurrection and transformation. It concerns the dead who are raised and the living who are changed.

The imagery naturally recalls other biblical trumpets. Under the Law, trumpets announced assemblies, movements, festivals, and significant moments in Israel’s life. Most strikingly, the Jubilee was proclaimed by a trumpet on the Day of Atonement: “Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubile to sound…throughout all your land” (Leviticus 25:9, KJV). What followed was liberty and return: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof” (verse 10).

We should not simply declare that Paul’s “last trump” is the Jubilee trumpet. Paul does not explicitly make that identification. Yet after everything we have already observed concerning corruption, bondage, inheritance, redemption, and liberty, the resemblance deserves notice. Jubilee announced release from forms of bondage and restoration to inheritance. Paul’s trumpet announces something even greater: release from corruption and mortality itself.

The Jubilee could return a man to his possession. The resurrection trumpet can return the dead man himself.

Why “Last”?

Paul calls it “the last trump.” The expression naturally raises the question: last in what sense? Paul does not explain a numbered sequence of trumpets in this chapter. We should therefore be cautious about importing a complete prophetic chronology into two words.

Later, Revelation describes a series of seven trumpets, and the seventh trumpet announces that “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15, KJV). The surrounding passage also speaks about the time for the dead to be judged and for God’s servants to receive their reward (Revelation 11:18). The correspondence with resurrection and Kingdom themes makes comparison reasonable.

But similarity is not yet identity. First Corinthians was written long before Revelation, and Paul does not tell the Corinthians that his “last trump” means “the seventh trumpet of Revelation.” Our investigation should therefore keep the connection available without making it carry more weight than Scripture gives it.

The important point for Paul’s own argument is clear enough: the trumpet marks the decisive transition when the dead are raised incorruptible and the living are changed.

“This Mortal Must Put On Immortality”

Paul then explains what the change accomplishes: “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53, KJV). His language is remarkably concrete. He does not say that the mortal person must be discarded so that an unrelated immortal person can take his place. This corruptible must put on incorruption; this mortal must put on immortality.

There is continuity of person through transformation.

That is consistent with the seed illustration. The seed and what emerges are not identical in condition, yet neither are they unrelated. God gives it a body according to his purpose. Resurrection preserves identity while radically changing the condition under which that identity exists.

This also connects with Jesus’ statement about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Their relationship with God survives physical death because “all live unto him.” The God who remembers and claims the person is able to restore that person and bring him into a condition death can no longer destroy.

From Mortal to Unable to Die

Here Paul and Jesus come remarkably close to one another. Paul says that “this mortal must put on immortality.” Jesus says of those attaining that age and the resurrection from the dead, “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:36, KJV).

Paul approaches the subject through Adam, corruption, resurrection, and transformation. Jesus approaches it through the Sadducees’ question concerning marriage and death. Yet both lead us beyond merely returning to ordinary mortal life.

Lazarus was raised, but Lazarus could die again. Jairus’ daughter was restored to life, but she remained mortal. The widow’s son at Nain rose and resumed human life, yet Jesus never says that he had become incapable of dying.

Therefore, there appears to be an important distinction between being physically restored to life and reaching the condition Jesus describes as “neither can they die any more.” Paul’s language of mortality putting on immortality helps us understand what that distinction might involve. The objective is not merely life again. It is life no longer subject to death.

“Death Is Swallowed Up in Victory”

Paul then reaches the climax: “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory” (1 Corinthians 15:54, KJV).

Notice when victory is complete. It is not simply when a dead person begins breathing again. Victory comes when corruption has put on incorruption and mortality has put on immortality.

This distinction is essential to our study of resurrection. A person can be physically raised and still remain under the possibility of death. But Paul is looking toward a resurrection transformation in which death loses its claim altogether.

This also gives additional weight to Revelation’s description of the first resurrection: “on such the second death hath no power” (Revelation 20:6, KJV). Whatever conclusions we eventually reach concerning the timing and complete meaning of the first resurrection, its defining victory is clearly connected with freedom from death’s authority.

Jesus says, “Neither can they die any more.”

Paul says, “Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Revelation says, “the second death hath no power.”

These statements do not have to be made technically identical in order for us to recognize the common destination.

More Than Returning From the Grave

We can now refine the working model that has been developing through this book. Scripture appears to describe several related realities that should not automatically be collapsed into a single moment. A person may first hear Christ and pass “from death unto life.” He may be born from above, receive God’s spirit, become a child of God, be made alive and raised with Christ, and become a new creation. If he later dies physically, God can raise him from the grave. If he remains alive until the appointed transformation, Paul says he need not sleep in death at all. In either case, the final mortal condition must be changed.

This does not mean that we have proved that every biblical use of “resurrection” includes this entire process. Different passages emphasize different aspects. But it does suggest that the biblical picture is richer than a definition of resurrection as simply “a dead body begins living again.”

The final objective is incorruptible life beyond death’s authority.

That is why Paul’s words “we shall all be changed” may be as important to understanding resurrection as the words “the dead shall be raised.”

“O Death, Where Is Thy Sting?”

Paul concludes with a cry of victory: “O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?” (1 Corinthians 15:55, KJV). The victory belongs to God: “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (verse 57).

This brings us again to the central principle we encountered when considering the children of God. Humans do not transform mortality into immortality through their own power. The victory is given by God through Christ. Yet Paul immediately follows this promise with responsibility: “Therefore, my beloved brethren, be ye stedfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord” (verse 58).

The future transformation does not make present faithfulness irrelevant. It gives present faithfulness meaning.

The person who expects mortality to put on immortality is called to live now according to the life God has already begun in him.

And this prepares us for another passage where Paul places the dead and the living beside one another. In 1 Corinthians 15, “the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” In his first letter to the Thessalonians, he again describes those two groups, but adds a remarkable expression concerning the dead: they are “the dead in Christ.”

If they are dead, in what sense are they still in Christ? And what does it mean when both the resurrected dead and the living are gathered “to meet the Lord in the air”? That is where we turn next.

Chapter 23 “The Dead in Christ Shall Rise First”

Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians gives us another important view of resurrection, but he approaches the subject from a pastoral concern. Some Christians in Thessalonica had died, and those still living apparently needed reassurance concerning what would happen to them. Paul writes that he does not want them to be ignorant “concerning them which are asleep,” so that they will not sorrow “even as others which have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13, KJV).

His answer brings together several themes we have already encountered: physical death as sleep, continuing identity before God, resurrection, transformation of the living, the coming of Christ, and finally a meeting “in the air.” But before considering where that meeting occurs, there is a simpler expression that deserves attention. Paul calls those who have died “the dead in Christ.”

“Them Also Which Sleep in Jesus”

Paul begins: “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him” (1 Thessalonians 4:14, KJV). The expression translated “sleep in Jesus” is rendered by the NRSVue as “those who have died in Jesus,” while the NASB 2020 reads “those who have fallen asleep through Jesus.” The precise construction has been discussed, but the basic point is clear: physical death has not erased their relationship to Christ.

A few verses later Paul makes this even more explicit: “the dead in Christ shall rise first” (verse 16). That description is remarkable. They are dead, yet they are still identified as being in Christ.

This fits naturally with Jesus’ statement concerning Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Abraham is physically dead, yet God continues to identify himself as Abraham’s God, and Jesus concludes, “for all live unto him.” Physical death has interrupted Abraham’s conscious human life, but it has not erased who Abraham is to God. In the same way, the Thessalonian Christians have fallen asleep in death, yet Paul can still call them “the dead in Christ.”

Their relationship was established before they died.

In Christ Before the Grave

This is important because resurrection does not appear to create their relationship with Christ for the first time. They were already “in Christ” while living. They passed into physical death with that identity, and Paul still describes them by it while they are dead.

This gives additional weight to the thought we have been developing throughout this investigation: the most important preparation for resurrection takes place before death. The grave does not create a person’s relationship with God. It interrupts his physical life, while God preserves the identity and relationship already established.

Paul says elsewhere, “if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature” (2 Corinthians 5:17, KJV). Therefore, the same person can be a new creation while physically alive, later become one of “the dead in Christ,” and eventually be raised. New creation precedes the grave; physical resurrection follows it.

This does not make physical resurrection unnecessary. On the contrary, Paul’s entire purpose is to assure the Thessalonians that those who died will rise. But it helps us distinguish between the relationship that makes resurrection meaningful and the physical resurrection that restores the person from death.

“The Coming of the Lord”

Paul then says: “For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep” (1 Thessalonians 4:15, KJV). The word “prevent” in older English means precede. Modern translations therefore say that those who remain alive “will by no means precede those who have died” (NRSVue).

The Greek word translated “coming” is parousia. It can refer to presence, arrival, or coming, depending on context. Here it clearly concerns Christ’s parousia in connection with resurrection and the gathering of his people.

Again Paul places two groups beside one another: those who have fallen asleep and those who remain alive. This is the same basic distinction we encountered in 1 Corinthians 15: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.”

The living do not possess an advantage over the dead. Physical death has not caused those in Christ to miss what God has promised them.

“The Lord Himself Shall Descend”

Paul continues: “For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God” (1 Thessalonians 4:16, KJV). Once again a trumpet appears in connection with resurrection. First Corinthians says, “the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible.” Thessalonians says, “the trump of God” sounds and “the dead in Christ shall rise first.”

The correspondence is strong enough that these passages naturally illuminate one another. In both, a trumpet accompanies resurrection; in both, the dead and the living are distinguished; and in both, the living remain alive while the dead are raised. But 1 Thessalonians adds another element. After the dead rise, both groups experience something together.

“Together With Them”

Paul writes: “Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds” (1 Thessalonians 4:17, KJV). The word “together” is particularly important. The resurrected dead and the living are no longer treated as two permanently separate classes within Paul’s description. They converge. The dead have been raised. The living have remained alive. Then both are together. This corresponds naturally with 1 Corinthians 15. There the dead are “raised incorruptible” and the living are “changed.” Here the dead rise first, and then the living are caught up “together with them.”

Paul’s concern is not to establish superiority of one group over the other. His purpose is consolation. Those who died have not lost their place, and those who remain alive will not leave them behind. God brings both groups together in relation to Christ.

“Caught Up”

The Greek verb translated “caught up” is harpazō. It conveys the idea of taking, seizing, or snatching away. The word certainly describes a powerful action, but by itself it does not tell us the final location or permanent physical condition of those being caught up. Those questions have to be determined from the wider context. This matters because later theological systems have sometimes made the word carry an entire doctrine by itself. Paul says that the believers are caught up. We should affirm exactly that. But the verb alone does not tell us whether their destination is permanent residence away from earth, how their transformed bodies relate to physical creation, or whether “air” should be understood merely as geographical altitude. Those questions require further evidence.

“In the Clouds”

Paul says that they are caught up “in the clouds.” Biblical clouds frequently accompany manifestations of divine presence. Jehovah descended in a cloud at Sinai (Exodus 19:9). The cloud later filled the tabernacle (Exodus 40:34–35) and the temple (1 Kings 8:10–11). Daniel saw “one like the Son of man” coming “with the clouds of heaven” (Daniel 7:13, KJV), and Jesus repeatedly used the same imagery concerning the Son of man. Clouds in Scripture therefore can signify considerably more than elevation above the ground. They can mark divine presence, glory, authority, revelation, and access to God.

The experience of Moses at Sinai may be especially important. Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy elders initially ascend the mountain and are permitted an extraordinary encounter with the God of Israel (Exodus 24:9–11). But Moses is then called farther. “And Moses went up into the mount, and a cloud covered the mount” (Exodus 24:15, KJV). Finally, “Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount” (Exodus 24:18). The cloud was not merely something Moses observed from a distance. He entered it. There he remained forty days and forty nights in an extraordinary degree of communion with Jehovah.

It is also within this mountain encounter that Moses receives the pattern for the sanctuary. Jehovah tells him: “According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle…even so shall ye make it” (Exodus 25:9, KJV), and later repeats, “look that thou make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount” (Exodus 25:40). Hebrews later draws attention to precisely this event, saying that Moses was instructed to construct the earthly sanctuary “according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount” (Hebrews 8:5, KJV). Moses entered the cloud and was shown the heavenly pattern according to which the earthly tent of meeting was to be constructed.

There were therefore different degrees of approach at Sinai. The people remained below. Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and the seventy elders were permitted to ascend and experience something extraordinary. Moses, however, was called farther and entered the cloud. His experience was not merely about being physically higher on the mountain. The narrative uses physical approach to accompany an extraordinary degree of access to Jehovah.

This gives the cloud a particularly interesting place in our investigation. Paul’s readers may have heard considerably more in the words “in the clouds” than a simple indication of elevation above the earth. We should not claim that Paul explicitly tells us to interpret the clouds of 1 Thessalonians 4 through Moses’ experience at Sinai. Nevertheless, the biblical pattern deserves attention. The cloud is repeatedly associated with divine presence, and Moses’ entrance into the cloud becomes one of Scripture’s most striking pictures of a human being permitted to draw unusually near to God.

“Face to Face, as a Man Speaketh Unto His Friend”

Moses’ exceptional access to Jehovah did not end when he descended from Sinai. Exodus later describes Moses going to the tent of meeting, where “the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the LORD talked with Moses” (Exodus 33:9, KJV). The people could see the cloud standing at the entrance while Moses was inside meeting with Jehovah. The account then makes an extraordinary statement: “And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11, KJV).

This should not be understood as meaning that Moses literally saw Jehovah’s complete form. In the same chapter Jehovah tells him, “Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live” (Exodus 33:20, KJV). “Face to face” therefore describes the remarkable directness and intimacy of the communication between Jehovah and Moses. Moses enjoyed a relationship with God that differed in degree from the experience ordinarily granted even to other faithful servants.

Jehovah himself explained this distinction when Miriam and Aaron challenged Moses. He called the three of them forward and said: “If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. My servant Moses is not so” (Numbers 12:6–7, KJV). Then Jehovah described what was different: “With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches” (Numbers 12:8). The NWT expresses the contrast very clearly: “Face-to-face I speak to him, openly, not by riddles.”

This is especially significant because Miriam and Aaron were not being compared with unbelievers. Jehovah was distinguishing Moses even from other people through whom he could communicate. A prophet might genuinely receive a revelation from God through a dream or vision. Moses experienced something more direct. Jehovah himself pointed to the quality of communication between them as something exceptional.

The same thought appears near the conclusion of Deuteronomy: “And there arose not a prophet since in Israel like unto Moses, whom the LORD knew face to face” (Deuteronomy 34:10, KJV). Once again the language is relational. Jehovah knew Moses face to face. What distinguished Moses was not merely information he possessed or authority he exercised. His entire service was rooted in an extraordinary relationship with God.

This helps us understand why the cloud at Sinai should not be reduced to a geographical detail. Moses went farther than the others because his relationship with Jehovah permitted a degree of communion that the others did not yet possess. He entered the cloud, received the heavenly pattern, spoke with Jehovah with extraordinary directness, and afterward served as mediator for people who themselves did not possess the same degree of access.

“They Shall See the Kingdom of God”

There is another remarkable cloud that brings the experience of Moses directly into the ministry of Jesus. Immediately before the Transfiguration, Jesus made an extraordinary promise to his disciples: “Verily I say unto you, That there be some of them that stand here, which shall not taste of death, till they have seen the kingdom of God come with power” (Mark 9:1, KJV). Matthew records the promise as seeing “the Son of man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28), while Luke says simply, “till they see the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:27).

The placement of the Transfiguration immediately afterward in Matthew, Mark, and Luke is difficult to overlook. Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a high mountain. There his appearance is transformed before them, and Moses and Elijah appear speaking with him. These three disciples are still physically alive, standing on the mountain, yet they are permitted to witness an extraordinary manifestation associated by the preceding words of Jesus with the Kingdom.

Then the cloud appears.

Mark says, “And there was a cloud that overshadowed them: and a voice came out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him” (Mark 9:7, KJV). Matthew calls it “a bright cloud” and likewise says that the voice came “out of the cloud” (Matthew 17:5). Luke adds an especially interesting detail: “there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud” (Luke 9:34, KJV).

That last expression deserves attention in light of Moses at Sinai. Moses had once “went into the midst of the cloud” on the mountain (Exodus 24:18). Now, on another mountain, Moses appears with Jesus, and the disciples themselves experience the cloud of divine presence. Luke says that “they entered into the cloud.”

The parallel should not be pressed beyond what the Gospel writers state, but it is striking. Moses once entered the cloud and heard from Jehovah. At the Transfiguration, Moses appears again; the cloud overshadows the scene; living disciples enter it; and once again a voice comes from the cloud. But now the voice directs attention toward Jesus: “This is my beloved Son: hear him.”

The progression is significant. Moses had enjoyed exceptional communication with Jehovah, “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” At the Transfiguration, Moses himself stands within a revelation centered on the Son. The disciples are not merely told about this heavenly reality from a distance. Peter, James, and John are permitted to witness it while still living in ordinary human bodies.

This becomes especially relevant to Jesus’ preceding promise. He did not tell these disciples that they would first have to die and leave physical existence before seeing a manifestation of the Kingdom. On the contrary, he specifically said that some standing before him would not taste death until they had seen it. The Transfiguration then provides those living men with an extraordinary foretaste of Kingdom glory.

Peter later looked back on this experience and described it in language of royal majesty. He wrote that the apostles had not followed “cunningly devised fables” when making known “the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ,” because “we were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (2 Peter 1:16, KJV). He then recalls the voice from “the excellent glory” and says, “this voice which came from heaven we heard, when we were with him in the holy mount” (2 Peter 1:18).

The Greek word translated “coming” in 2 Peter 1:16 is again parousia—the same word Paul uses when discussing the resurrection and gathering of believers in 1 Thessalonians 4. Peter therefore connects what he witnessed on the mountain with the power and parousia of Christ. The Transfiguration did not constitute the complete future fulfillment of everything associated with Christ’s presence, but it gave living disciples an anticipatory manifestation of its glory.

This adds an important dimension to our discussion of the clouds. At Sinai, Moses entered the cloud and experienced extraordinary communion with Jehovah. At the Transfiguration, Moses appears again, but now Peter, James, and John—living human disciples—are drawn into the experience. They see the glorified Christ, witness Moses and Elijah speaking with him, enter the cloud, and hear the divine voice. Jesus had promised that some of them would see the Kingdom before tasting death, and they were given precisely such an experience.

The pattern therefore continues to move from exceptional access toward shared access. Moses entered the cloud. Later, living disciples entered the cloud. Paul then describes the resurrected dead and the transformed living being gathered together “in the clouds” to meet the Lord. We should not turn this sequence into a rigid equation, as though every biblical cloud must mean exactly the same thing. But neither should we overlook the repeated association between the cloud, divine presence, Kingdom revelation, Christ’s glory, and human beings being permitted to draw near.

This also strengthens an important principle already emerging from our investigation: participation in heavenly or Kingdom realities does not always require physical death first. Peter, James, and John remained living human beings, yet Jesus could truthfully promise that they would see the Kingdom before tasting death, and the Gospel writers immediately present the Transfiguration. Likewise, Paul can describe living Christians as raised with Christ and seated in heavenly places. Hebrews says living believers may approach the heavenly sanctuary through Christ. The biblical distinction may therefore be more subtle than simply physical life here versus spiritual life somewhere else after death.

The Transfiguration gives us a vivid picture of that possibility. Living humans stand on a mountain, the glory of the Kingdom is manifested before them, they enter the cloud, and they hear the voice of God directing them toward his Son.

From the Exception to the Goal

But perhaps Moses should not be viewed only as an extraordinary exception. His experience may also provide a historical manifestation of something toward which the larger biblical story ultimately moves. What was exceptional in one man begins, through Christ, to appear as the intended privilege of a family of children approaching their Father.

Jesus himself used the language of friendship with his disciples. “Henceforth I call you not servants,” he told them, “for the servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends; for all things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you” (John 15:15, KJV). The resemblance is striking. Exodus says Jehovah spoke with Moses “as a man speaketh unto his friend.” Jesus now calls his followers friends because he makes known to them what he has heard from his Father.

Yet the relationship develops even beyond friendship. Paul says: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14, KJV). These children receive “the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father,” and “the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:15–16). The direction of the biblical story is therefore toward increasingly intimate relationship with God—not merely receiving instructions from a distant Sovereign, but becoming children who know him as Father.

This makes Moses’ experience especially meaningful. Moses did not become equal to Jehovah, nor does becoming a child of God erase the distinction between Creator and creature. But Moses demonstrates how close the relationship between God and a human being can become. Jehovah knew him. Jehovah spoke with him. Moses entered the cloud of divine presence and received revelation there. His life became a visible manifestation of communion with God.

What was exceptional in Moses begins to resemble the goal toward which God brings his children.

The letter to the Hebrews makes this development especially clear. Under the earlier arrangement, access to the Most Holy was restricted. But through Christ, believers are told that they have “boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way” (Hebrews 10:19–20, KJV). The invitation is therefore: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (verse 22). The direction is no longer simply that one exceptional mediator approaches while everyone else remains at a distance. Through Christ, those belonging to God are themselves invited to draw near.

This does not mean that every child of God becomes another Moses or receives his prophetic office. Nor should Moses’ “face to face” communication simply be equated with the completed condition of resurrection. But Moses gives us a remarkable historical illustration of the kind of relationship Scripture values: God knows the person, communicates with him, reveals himself to him, and permits him to approach.

The final chapters of Revelation take this direction to an extraordinary conclusion. Speaking of God’s servants, Revelation says: “And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4, KJV). Moses spoke with Jehovah “face to face,” although he was still told that he could not literally see God’s face and live. At the culmination of the biblical story, however, God’s servants are described with the astonishing words: “they shall see his face.”

Seen from this perspective, Paul’s statement that the resurrected dead and transformed living are caught up “in the clouds” becomes especially suggestive. We should still resist turning an association into a definition. Paul does not say, “the clouds mean communion with God.” But Scripture has already given the cloud a rich history. The cloud marks divine presence. Moses entered it. Within that encounter he received the pattern of the sanctuary. His relationship with Jehovah was afterward described as “face to face.” Through Christ, access to God is opened more widely, and the final biblical picture presents God’s servants seeing his face.

The movement therefore appears larger than transportation through the atmosphere. It is a movement of approach. Moses once entered the cloud while others remained at a greater distance. Paul sees the resurrected dead and the transformed living gathered together “in the clouds” to meet Christ. What was manifested exceptionally in Moses—extraordinary nearness, communion, and access to God—may help us understand the direction toward which sonship ultimately moves.

The goal is therefore not merely immortality. It is not simply survival beyond death. Freedom from death is essential because death interrupts human life and communion. But the deeper goal of becoming a child of God is an unhindered and permanent relationship with the Father. Resurrection restores the person, the spirit brings the person near, incorruption removes the bondage of decay, and immortality removes the possibility that death will again interrupt that relationship. The final biblical picture is therefore not merely of people who cannot die. It is of God’s children dwelling in his presence, bearing his name, and finally reaching the condition described in the simple words: “they shall see his face.”

From this perspective, the cloud, the mountain, and the sanctuary begin to form one continuous line. Moses entered the cloud and was shown the pattern of the place where Israel would approach God. The earthly sanctuary then represented that approach under restrictions. Christ entered the greater reality to which the pattern pointed and opened what Hebrews calls “a new and living way.” The question before us, then, is no longer merely where resurrected people go. It is how completely human beings may be brought into the presence of God.

That is where we turn next.

“To Meet the Lord”

The believers are caught up “to meet the Lord.” The Greek expression contains the noun apantēsis, “meeting.” The word can describe going out to meet someone who is approaching. It appears, for example, in Jesus’ illustration of the ten virgins: “Behold, the bridegroom cometh; go ye out to meet him” (Matthew 25:6, KJV). It also appears in Acts 28:15, where believers travel out to meet Paul as he approaches Rome.

Some interpreters therefore understand 1 Thessalonians 4 as portraying believers going out to meet an arriving King rather than being permanently removed to the place from which he came. That is a reasonable contextual possibility, especially because Paul places the event at Christ’s parousia. Nevertheless, the noun apantēsis by itself does not determine every movement that follows the meeting. We should not replace one assumption with another.

What Paul states unmistakably is simpler and more important: the dead in Christ are raised, the living are gathered together with them, and both groups meet the arriving Lord.

“In the Air”

Paul then says that they meet “the Lord in the air” (1 Thessalonians 4:17, KJV). The Greek word is aēr, the ordinary word for “air.” It is not ouranos, “heaven.” Strictly speaking, therefore, Paul does not say in this verse that believers are caught up “to heaven.” Christ descends “from heaven,” but the meeting itself occurs “in the air.”

That distinction does not prove that heaven is unrelated to the scene. The entire event belongs to the manifestation of Christ from heaven, and the clouds we have just examined carry a long biblical association with divine presence. But if we are building our understanding from Paul’s actual words, we should preserve his wording before drawing conclusions from it.

The Transfiguration makes this caution particularly appropriate. Peter, James, and John did not have to die in order to witness a manifestation of the Kingdom. They remained living human beings, yet they entered the cloud and experienced Christ’s glory. Moses likewise entered the cloud while still physically human. Paul now describes both the resurrected dead and the living being gathered “in the clouds” to meet Christ “in the air.”

None of this proves that 1 Thessalonians 4 is nonphysical. But it does caution us against assuming that nearness to heavenly glory automatically means abandonment of physical human existence.

Another Use of “Air”

Paul uses the same Greek word aēr in Ephesians 2:2 when he speaks of “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience” (KJV). Here “air” appears within a spiritual and authority-related context. Paul connects it with a ruling power and with a spirit operating within disobedient humanity.

This does not mean that aēr lexically means “spiritual atmosphere.” The Greek word still means air, and Ephesians 2 does not automatically define 1 Thessalonians 4:17. Nevertheless, Paul himself can use “air” within a discussion of spiritual rulership, influence, and human conduct.

The larger context makes the comparison even more interesting. The people formerly walking according to “the prince of the power of the air” are then described as having been “dead in sins.” But God “hath quickened us together with Christ” and “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:5–6, KJV).

These believers were physically alive when Paul wrote those words. Yet Paul says they had been made alive, raised with Christ, and seated in heavenly places. Scripture can therefore describe genuine participation in heavenly realities while people remain physically embodied. “Heavenly” standing cannot automatically be reduced to a change of physical address after death.

From One Authority to Another

A possible pattern now begins to appear. Ephesians describes humanity walking according to “the prince of the power of the air,” under a spirit operating in disobedience. Those who are made alive with Christ, however, are raised with him and seated with him in heavenly places. They continue to live physically within the present world, yet their relationship to its governing spirit has changed.

This raises an important possibility. Perhaps meeting Christ “in the air” involves more than distance or altitude. It may also involve authority. The present “air” is associated with a spirit operating in disobedience. Christ’s parousia announces the presence of another ruler. The question may therefore concern not only how high believers are lifted, but under whose authority they finally stand.

Revelation provides an interesting additional connection. At the climax of the seven bowls, “the seventh angel poured out his vial into the air,” after which a great voice from the temple and throne declares, “It is done” (Revelation 16:17, KJV). We should not simply assume that Revelation’s “air” has exactly the same symbolic significance as Ephesians 2:2. Yet it is noteworthy that the air itself appears as the object of divine judgment at the climax of the sequence.

This corresponds with a broader biblical theme of changing rulership. Revelation announces: “The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15, KJV). Peter speaks of “new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness” (2 Peter 3:13). Whatever physical dimensions ultimately belong to these promises, the biblical picture certainly includes a transformation in the authority under which human life exists.

This way of understanding “air” as an environment of influence also has a history within Jehovah’s Witness literature. Publications have compared Satanic influence to the air surrounding the earth and have interpreted “the ruler of the authority of the air” as describing the pervasive spirit of the world. Earlier discussions also connected Revelation’s seventh bowl, poured upon the air, with judgment upon that world-permeating spirit. The separate study Air examines that historical and biblical line in greater detail.

The comparison becomes particularly interesting because Paul elsewhere describes being “caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2, KJV). He says that he himself could not tell whether the experience occurred “in the body” or “out of the body.” Whatever conclusion we eventually reach concerning the “third heaven,” Paul’s uncertainty is itself significant: the reality of what he experienced was not dependent upon his ability to explain its physical mechanism.

We should therefore resist making “air” a technical synonym for authority, mentality, or spiritual condition. Paul does not define the word that way. But neither should we assume that physical altitude exhausts the significance of a scene filled with resurrection, transformation, clouds of divine presence, the trumpet of God, Christ’s parousia, and permanent union with him.

Could meeting Christ “in the air” also mark the decisive transition from the authority characterizing the present age into the uncontested authority of Christ?

That remains a working interpretation. But it fits the pattern we have been tracing. A person can pass from death unto life while physically alive. He can receive the spirit, become a child of God and a new creation, be raised with Christ, and be seated in heavenly places. Yet he remains mortal and awaits the redemption of his body. At Christ’s parousia, the dead are raised, the living are changed, and together they meet Christ. What has begun through the spirit may then reach a condition no longer interrupted by corruption and death.

In that sense, being “caught up” may involve considerably more than relocation. It may describe complete transfer into the authority of the coming age.

The recurring direction is therefore not simply upward. Moses enters the cloud and comes into extraordinary communion with Jehovah. Living disciples enter the cloud and see a manifestation of Christ’s Kingdom. The resurrected dead and transformed living are gathered in clouds to meet the arriving King. The movement is toward another presence, another authority, and another degree of communion with God. The believer does not merely change altitude. He comes completely under another rule.

“And So Shall We Ever Be With the Lord”

Paul himself tells us where the emphasis finally belongs: “and so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thessalonians 4:17, KJV). The permanent reality is not that they will ever be in the air. Paul says that they will ever be with the Lord.

That distinction matters. The air is where Paul describes the meeting; being with Christ is the enduring relationship he emphasizes. His conclusion rests not primarily upon coordinates but upon communion.

This brings us again to Moses. What made Moses’ experience extraordinary was not ultimately his altitude on Sinai. It was that Jehovah spoke with him “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” Likewise, what made the Transfiguration extraordinary was not merely that Peter, James, and John climbed a mountain. They were permitted to witness Christ’s glory, enter the cloud, hear the divine voice, and experience a manifestation of the Kingdom while still alive.

The same relational emphasis appeared in Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees. Abraham’s identity was not finally determined by the location of his remains. Jehovah declared, “I am the God of Abraham.” Abraham belonged to him and therefore lived unto him. Paul uses similarly relational language concerning Christians who have physically died: they are “the dead in Christ.” Death has not erased whose they are.

The culmination is therefore beautifully simple. Those who are alive to God, those who are “in Christ,” the resurrected dead, and the transformed living are brought together into a condition in which nothing—including death—can again interrupt their relationship with the Lord.

“And so shall we ever be with the Lord.”

Comfort One Another With These Words

Paul concludes: “Wherefore comfort one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:18, KJV). This reminds us why the passage was written. Paul was not primarily giving grieving Christians a map of the universe. He wanted them to know that believers who had died had not lost their share in Christ’s parousia.

Those who died are still “in Christ.” They will rise. Those remaining alive will not precede them. The living will be gathered together with them. Both groups will meet the Lord, and from then onward they will always be with him.

The sequence now fits remarkably well with the passages we have already examined. A person can become alive to God before physical death. He can become a child of God, receive the spirit, become a new creation, and be described as raised with Christ. If he physically dies, that relationship is not erased; he remains known as one who is “in Christ.” At the resurrection he is restored. If another believer remains alive until Christ’s parousia, that believer does not first have to enter the grave; he is changed. The dead and living are brought together into the completed reality of Christ’s presence, beyond the mortality that previously interrupted human life and communion.

The clouds have now taken us from Sinai to the Transfiguration and from the Transfiguration to the gathering at Christ’s parousia. Moses entered the cloud and experienced extraordinary communion with Jehovah. Living disciples entered the cloud and witnessed a manifestation of the Kingdom. Paul sees the resurrected dead and transformed living gathered in the clouds to meet the Lord. The events are not identical, but their direction is striking: toward presence, communion, revelation, Kingdom authority, and approach.

That leaves an important question. If living disciples could see a manifestation of the Kingdom before tasting death, if Moses could enter the cloud of divine presence while physically human, and if living Christians can already be described as raised with Christ and seated in heavenly places, how far does this access actually extend? Must a human being cease to be physically human before entering the presence represented by the heavenly sanctuary? Or has Christ opened a way of approach that begins while his followers are still living?

The letter to the Hebrews speaks directly about such access.

It calls it “a new and living way.”

Chapter 24 A New and Living Way

The previous chapter left us with an important question. Moses entered the cloud of divine presence while still a living human being. Peter, James, and John entered the cloud and witnessed a manifestation of the Kingdom before tasting death. Paul could describe living Christians as already raised with Christ and seated “in heavenly places.” If these expressions describe genuine access to heavenly realities while humans remain physically alive, then perhaps the question is not simply where a person goes after death. Perhaps the more fundamental question is how a human being comes into the presence of God. The letter to the Hebrews addresses precisely this question.

The Way Was Not Yet Made Manifest

Hebrews begins its discussion by describing the sanctuary arrangement under the Law. There was a first compartment and beyond it a second, “which is called the Holiest of all” (Hebrews 9:3, KJV). Priests regularly entered the first compartment, but access to the second was severely restricted. “But into the second went the high priest alone once every year, not without blood” (Hebrews 9:7).

The writer then explains the significance of this arrangement: “The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing” (Hebrews 9:8, KJV).

This is remarkable language. The problem is described in terms of a way that had not yet been opened. The sanctuary itself taught Israel that God could be approached, but it simultaneously demonstrated that unrestricted access had not yet been granted.

This brings us back naturally to Moses. Moses had experienced a degree of communion with Jehovah that was exceptional. He entered the cloud. Jehovah spoke with him “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” He was shown the pattern of the sanctuary on the mountain. Yet the sanctuary constructed according to that pattern contained boundaries. The people could not simply walk into the Most Holy. Even the priests did not possess unrestricted access, and the high priest entered only under carefully prescribed conditions.

Moses had been permitted extraordinary nearness to Jehovah, but the arrangement built according to the pattern shown to him still testified that the way had not yet been opened for everyone. Hebrews announces that something changed through Christ.

Jesus, the Forerunner

Earlier in the letter, the writer describes Christian hope as “an anchor of the soul, both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into that within the veil” (Hebrews 6:19, KJV). Then he adds: “Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus” (verse 20).

The word “forerunner” is significant. A forerunner does not merely arrive somewhere alone. The designation naturally suggests someone who goes ahead of others.

Jesus enters first.

That distinguishes his role from that of an isolated traveler whose destination has nothing to do with those following him. Hebrews presents Jesus’ entrance as being “for us.” He goes ahead as High Priest, and the hope of his followers is already described as extending “within the veil.”

This does not mean that believers have already experienced everything that Jesus has experienced. Hebrews clearly gives Christ a unique position. He is the High Priest. He is the forerunner. He has entered heaven itself and appears “in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24, KJV). We should therefore not erase the distinction between Christ’s completed entrance and the present experience of his followers.

But neither should we overlook the direction of the imagery.

The forerunner has entered because others are to follow.

“Having Therefore, Brethren, Boldness to Enter”

By the time Hebrews reaches chapter 10, the earlier restriction of chapter 9 has been dramatically reversed.

Hebrews 9 had said that “the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest.”

Hebrews 10 now says: “Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus” (Hebrews 10:19, KJV).

The contrast could hardly be stronger.

There was a time when the way was not yet manifest. Now believers have boldness to enter.

And these words are addressed to living Christians.

The writer does not say, “After you die, you will finally be permitted to begin approaching.” He speaks to people who can hear the letter, respond to its exhortation, exercise faith, and draw near. Their access begins in their present life.

How is this possible?

Hebrews answers: “By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil” (Hebrews 10:20, KJV).

The expression is particularly appropriate to everything we have been considering. The way is not merely new.

It is living.

Through the Veil

Under the earlier arrangement, the veil represented separation. Behind it stood the Most Holy, associated with Jehovah’s presence. Access was restricted. But Hebrews says that Jesus opened a way “through the veil, that is to say, his flesh” (Hebrews 10:20, KJV). Through his sacrificial death and his priestly work, Christ did not merely enter God’s presence himself. He opened a way of approach for others. The language of Hebrews therefore changes the question. Instead of asking only, “Where is heaven?” we begin asking, “Who has access to God?” That distinction is important. A person might imagine heaven entirely in geographical terms: earth below, heaven somewhere above, and death as the necessary means of transportation between the two. Hebrews approaches the matter differently. Its dominant imagery is sanctuary imagery. There is an outer condition, a veil, a holy place, a priest, blood, cleansing, entrance, and approach. The central problem is not distance measured in miles. It is access. And the solution is not death itself. It is Christ.

“Let Us Draw Near”

Having said that believers possess boldness to enter by the blood of Jesus, the writer immediately gives the invitation: “Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith” (Hebrews 10:22, KJV). Again, this is addressed to living people. They are told to draw near now. This does not mean that they physically walk into a building in heaven. Nor does it mean that every distinction between their present condition and the final condition has disappeared. They remain mortal. They still await the fulfillment of their hope. They can still suffer, sin, weaken, and even draw away. The letter itself repeatedly warns them to endure. Yet their access to God is real.

This corresponds closely with what Paul says in Ephesians. God “hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Ephesians 2:6, KJV). The believers remain physically embodied, yet their standing before God has changed. Hebrews expresses the same broad reality through sanctuary language. The veil that once marked restricted approach no longer prevents those coming through Christ from drawing near. The heavenly reality has become accessible before physical death.

A Better Hope, “By the Which We Draw Nigh Unto God”

Hebrews had already stated this principle even more directly: “For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God” (Hebrews 7:19, KJV). The purpose of the better hope is described relationally. We “draw nigh unto God.” This is the same direction we observed in Moses. What distinguished Moses was not merely that he possessed unusual information. Jehovah knew him “face to face.” Moses drew near.

It is the same direction we observed at the Transfiguration. The disciples were permitted to enter the cloud of divine manifestation and hear the voice directing them toward the Son. It is the same direction we observed in 1 Thessalonians 4. The permanent conclusion of the gathering is not that believers remain forever in the atmosphere. It is that they “ever be with the Lord.” And now Hebrews makes the underlying principle explicit: through the better hope established by Christ, “we draw nigh unto God.”

The Heavenly Calling Begins Before Death

Earlier, Hebrews addresses its readers as “holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling” (Hebrews 3:1, KJV). Notice again the present language. They are not merely people hoping that one day, after death, they might become participants in something heavenly. They are already “partakers of the heavenly calling.”

The Greek word translated “partakers,” metochoi, refers to those who share or participate in something. Hebrews uses the same word elsewhere when speaking of those who “were made partakers of the Holy Ghost” (Hebrews 6:4, KJV). Their heavenly participation therefore begins while they are still living. This fits the pattern that has developed throughout our investigation. The coming age can be tasted before it arrives in fullness. The spirit can be received as the earnest of an inheritance not yet completely possessed. A person can pass from death unto life while still mortal. He can be raised with Christ while still awaiting bodily redemption. He can become a child of God while it has “not yet” appeared what he shall finally be. The heavenly calling follows the same pattern. Participation begins before completion.

“Ye Are Come Unto Mount Sion”

Near the conclusion of Hebrews, the writer brings together many of the themes we have been examining and does so by returning directly to Sinai. He first reminds his readers of the mountain their ancestors approached: “For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of words” (Hebrews 12:18–19, KJV).

The description immediately recalls the world of Moses. There is a mountain that can be touched, fire, darkness, tempest, a trumpet, and the voice of God. Yet the dominant experience of the people is fear and restricted approach. They beg that the word should not be spoken to them any further, and even Moses says, “I exceedingly fear and quake” (Hebrews 12:21, KJV).

Then comes the extraordinary contrast: “But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn…and to God the Judge of all…and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant” (Hebrews 12:22–24, KJV).

The wording deserves careful attention. The writer does not say merely, “You will come to Mount Zion after you die.” The KJV says, “ye are come unto.” The Greek proselēlythate expresses an approach that has already occurred: you have come to, you have approached. This is why translations such as the NWT render the expression, “you have approached a Mount Zion.” And these words are addressed to living Christians.

A Kingdom Which Cannot Be Shaken

Hebrews then moves from approach to a coming transformation. The writer warns his readers not to refuse “him that speaketh,” because the One whose voice once shook the earth now promises: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven” (Hebrews 12:25–26, KJV).

He immediately explains the significance of this shaking: “Yet once more” indicates “the removing of those things that are shaken…that those things which cannot be shaken may remain” (verse 27).

This language is particularly significant after our discussion of the “air,” heavenly places, and changing authority. Hebrews itself anticipates a shaking that involves not merely the earth but also “heaven.” Something belonging to the existing order can be shaken and removed, while something else remains.

The writer then identifies the enduring reality: “Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God acceptably” (Hebrews 12:28, KJV).

The movement is therefore striking:

Sinai is shaken.

Earth and heaven can be shaken.

Things that belong to the temporary order can be removed.

But the Kingdom cannot be shaken.

This does not require us to conclude that “heaven” in every biblical passage simply means governmental authority. Nor does Hebrews give us permission to turn every physical description into a symbol. But it does demonstrate that biblical “heaven” language can participate in a discussion about the removal of one order and the permanence of another. What finally remains is the Kingdom that cannot be shaken.

And again, notice the position of the believers. They are not merely waiting outside this reality. They have approached Mount Zion. They are approaching God through Christ. They are receiving the Kingdom.

This gives additional depth to the meeting “in the air” considered in the previous chapter. If Ephesians can describe living believers as seated in heavenly places, if Hebrews can say that they have already approached heavenly Jerusalem, and if the same letter can speak of a shaking of both earth and heaven while an unshakable Kingdom remains, then we should be cautious about interpreting Christ’s gathering of his people primarily as transportation from one physical location to another.

The larger movement is from one order to another—from what can be shaken to what cannot be shaken, from restricted approach to opened access, from mortality and corruption toward permanent life under the Kingdom of God.

And the conclusion of Hebrews 12 brings us back to the purpose of that access. Those receiving the unshakable Kingdom are called to “offer God sacred service with godly fear and awe” (Hebrews 12:28, NWT).

Access leads to service.

That is precisely where the next stage of our investigation will take us.

Those who participate in the first resurrection are not merely described as people who cannot be harmed by the second death.

Revelation says something more:

“They shall be priests of God and of Christ.”

Why does resurrection lead to priesthood?

Perhaps because those who have been brought near are being prepared to help others draw near.

The True Tabernacle

Hebrews also describes Jesus as “a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man” (Hebrews 8:2, KJV). This brings us directly back to Moses. The writer continues by explaining that the earthly priests “serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things,” just as Moses was warned when he was about to make the tabernacle: “See…that thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount” (Hebrews 8:5). Moses entered the cloud and saw the pattern. Israel built the earthly representation. Christ ministers in the greater reality. And through Christ, believers are invited to draw near. This progression is difficult to miss. What Moses saw on the mountain was not an end in itself. The earthly sanctuary constructed according to the pattern was itself a “shadow.” The greater reality concerns access to God through Christ.

This gives additional significance to the cloud imagery considered in the previous chapter. Moses entered the cloud and received the sanctuary pattern. At the Transfiguration, living disciples entered the cloud and heard the Father identify his Son. In Hebrews, that Son becomes the High Priest who opens the way into the greater sanctuary. Cloud, sanctuary, Christ, and access are not unrelated themes. They converge around the question of approaching God.

Not Merely a Future Address

This may require us to reconsider what we mean when we use the word “heavenly.” “Heavenly” certainly can refer to the realm in which God and the angels dwell. Hebrews itself says that Christ entered “into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us” (Hebrews 9:24, KJV). We should not explain that language away.

But Scripture also speaks of heavenly realities in which physically living believers already participate. They are seated “in heavenly places in Christ.” They are “partakers of the heavenly calling.” Their hope enters “within the veil.” They possess boldness to enter through Christ. They are commanded to draw near. Heavenly access therefore cannot be defined solely as a physical relocation occurring after death. There is a relationship with God that begins now. There is an entrance that begins now. There is a communion that begins now. And there is a heavenly standing that begins now.

Yet none of this eliminates the future. The same believers remain mortal. They await the redemption of the body. Those who die await resurrection. Those alive at Christ’s parousia await transformation. What begins through faith and spirit must still reach its completion beyond the authority of death.

Moses and the Opened Way

We can now return once more to Moses. Under the earlier arrangement, Moses stood almost alone in the extraordinary degree of communion he enjoyed with Jehovah. Others could approach to a point. Moses went farther. He entered the cloud. Jehovah spoke with him “face to face.” He received the pattern of the sanctuary. The sanctuary subsequently demonstrated both possibilities at once: God desired to dwell among his people, yet access to his immediate presence remained restricted.

Through Christ, Hebrews announces a profound change. The way has been opened. The goal is not to make every believer another Moses in office or authority. The goal is something more fundamental: that those who become children of God may themselves draw near to their Father.

Moses’ exceptional relationship therefore becomes a powerful illustration—not an exact prophecy, but an illustration—of what unrestricted communion with God can mean.

This also helps explain why sonship is so much greater than simply surviving death. A resurrected person who merely resumes physical existence has certainly received an extraordinary gift. But the biblical purpose we have been tracing goes farther. The person passes from death unto life, receives the spirit, becomes a child of God, enters the new creation, is brought under Christ’s authority, and draws near to God through the way Christ has opened.

The final goal is not simply life that never ends. It is life with God.

Access and Priesthood

And here another question naturally arises. Under the Mosaic arrangement, approach to God was connected with priesthood. Priests served in the sanctuary. The high priest entered the Most Holy. Access, sacrifice, cleansing, and priestly service belonged together.

Yet Hebrews says that through Christ ordinary believers may now draw near. Peter goes still farther and calls Christ’s followers “a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9, KJV). Revelation likewise describes those participating in the first resurrection as “priests of God and of Christ” (Revelation 20:6). That connection deserves careful attention. If the first resurrection brings people into a condition over which the second death has no power, why does Revelation immediately describe them as priests?

Perhaps the answer begins with what we have just discovered. A priest is not merely someone who has gained access. A priest serves because access has been granted. The one who has been brought near can help others draw near. And that takes us to the next stage of our investigation.

Chapter 25

Priests of God and of Christ

Our investigation began with resurrection, but it has gradually brought us to priesthood. This is not an accidental change of subject. Revelation itself makes the connection. After describing those who have part in the first resurrection, John writes: “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” (Revelation 20:6, KJV).

Three ideas appear together: resurrection, freedom from the authority of the second death, and priestly service. Why?

Why should those who participate in the first resurrection become priests? If resurrection meant only restoration to life, priesthood would not necessarily follow. But if resurrection in its fullest sense brings human beings from death into permanent life with God, then priesthood begins to fit naturally into the larger picture we have been tracing.

Those who have been brought near are prepared to serve in helping others draw near.

The Priests Who Denied the Resurrection

At this point we should remember who originally brought the question of resurrection to Jesus. The Sadducees were not merely an abstract theological school debating a difficult doctrine. They were closely associated with the priestly aristocracy and the leadership surrounding the Jerusalem temple. Acts makes the connection particularly explicit when it says: “Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees)” (Acts 5:17, KJV).

This does not mean that every Sadducee was a priest or that the Sadducees constituted one priestly family. But the movement was strongly represented among the powerful priestly circles connected with the temple. This makes their encounter with Jesus especially significant.

The men who challenged Jesus about resurrection belonged to a religious world centered upon priesthood, sanctuary, sacrifice, and access to God—yet they “deny that there is any resurrection” (Luke 20:27, KJV).

Now, after following Jesus’ answer through the Scriptures, we arrive at an unexpected destination. Revelation describes those who have part in the first resurrection with these words: “they shall be priests of God and of Christ” (Revelation 20:6, KJV).

The contrast is striking.

The Sadducees approached Jesus from within a priestly establishment and used the Law of Moses to argue against resurrection. Jesus answered them from Moses himself: “Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush” (Luke 20:37, KJV). He brought them back to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God “not of the dead, but of the living.”

The argument that began with priests who denied resurrection eventually brings us to resurrection producing priests.

There is an irony here, but it should not be used merely to condemn the Sadducees. It reveals something deeper about the development of priesthood itself. The old priestly arrangement could regulate access to the sanctuary, offer sacrifices, preserve ceremonial cleanness, and teach the requirements of the Law. But it could not conquer death. Its own priests died and had to be replaced.

Hebrews makes precisely this point concerning the Levitical priesthood: “And they truly were many priests, because they were not suffered to continue by reason of death” (Hebrews 7:23, KJV).

Death continually interrupted priesthood.

Christ changes that pattern. “But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood” (Hebrews 7:24, KJV). His priesthood is grounded in a life that death cannot terminate.

Revelation then describes those sharing in the first resurrection as priests over whom “the second death hath no power.”

The connection deserves attention. The old priesthood served while remaining subject to death. Christ possesses a priesthood that death cannot terminate. Those participating in the first resurrection are likewise described as priests precisely when the second death has no authority over them.

This may help explain why resurrection and priesthood stand together in Revelation 20. The final priestly service envisioned there is carried out by people whose own relationship with God can no longer be interrupted by death.

The Sadducees had asked Jesus a question built entirely upon repeated death: one brother dies, another takes the woman, he dies, another follows, until all seven have died. Jesus answered by pointing toward people who “cannot die any more.”

And Revelation describes people beyond the authority of the second death as “priests of God and of Christ.”

The movement from the Sadducees’ question to Revelation’s priesthood therefore brings us almost full circle. The question began within a priestly world still governed by death. The answer points toward a priesthood characterized by life.

“A Kingdom of Priests”

The idea reaches back to Sinai. Before the formal priesthood was established, Jehovah told Israel through Moses: “Ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:6, KJV).

This statement is remarkable because it was addressed to Israel as a people. Jehovah’s purpose was not merely to have priests somewhere within the nation. The nation itself was called toward a priestly identity.

Yet the historical arrangement that followed became more restricted. The Levites were taken in place of Israel’s firstborn sons (Numbers 3:12–13), and within the tribe of Levi the priesthood itself belonged specifically to Aaron and his sons. We should therefore distinguish carefully between Levites generally and priests specifically. Not every Levite was a priest.

Nevertheless, Exodus 19 preserves the larger purpose: “a kingdom of priests.”

The combination of kingdom and priesthood appears again much later in the Christian Scriptures.

“A Royal Priesthood”

Peter writes to living Christians: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9, KJV).

The resemblance to Exodus 19 is unmistakable. Peter takes language originally spoken to Israel at Sinai and applies it to followers of Christ.

And once again, notice when this priestly identity begins.

These Christians had not yet experienced the final transformation from mortality to immortality. They were still living ordinary human lives. They could suffer, be persecuted, make decisions, and need counsel. Yet Peter calls them a “royal priesthood.”

This follows the same already-and-not-yet pattern we have encountered repeatedly. They are already children of God, although what they shall be has not yet fully appeared. They have already been raised with Christ, although they remain mortal. They are already partakers of the heavenly calling, although they still await the fullness of their inheritance. They have already approached heavenly Jerusalem, although they have not yet reached the completed condition in which death has no authority.

Likewise, priesthood begins as an identity and service before its final expression.

“Made Us Kings and Priests”

Revelation develops the same theme. John says that Jesus Christ “loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father” (Revelation 1:5–6, KJV).

Later, the heavenly song declares concerning those redeemed by Christ: “And hast made us unto our God kings and priests: and we shall reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:10, KJV).

There are textual differences in Revelation 5:9–10 concerning the pronouns and the exact form of the final statement, which is one reason modern translations differ from the KJV at this point. The central point, however, is stable: Christ’s redemptive work results in a kingdom and priests who exercise rule.

Then Revelation 20 brings the theme directly into the discussion of resurrection: “they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with him.”

The pattern therefore appears repeatedly: redemption leads to priesthood, and priesthood is joined with Kingdom service under Christ.

This brings us back to Exodus 19. “A kingdom of priests” was not an isolated phrase. The purpose announced at Sinai reappears among those redeemed through Christ.

What Does a Priest Do?

It is easy to hear the words “king” and “priest” primarily as titles of elevated status. But biblically, priesthood is fundamentally connected with service, holiness, sacrifice, instruction, and approach to God.

A priest stands within an arrangement of access.

Under the Law, priests served at the sanctuary. They offered sacrifices, handled holy things, taught the people, and operated within the arrangement by which Israel approached Jehovah. The high priest entered the Most Holy on behalf of the people.

The direction is important. Priesthood is not primarily about being farther away from humanity because one has achieved a superior position. It exists because human beings need reconciliation, instruction, cleansing, and access to God.

This is why Hebrews places so much emphasis on Jesus as High Priest.

Christ does not use his superior position to distance himself from those he serves. His priesthood brings them near.

Hebrews says that “we have a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus the Son of God” (Hebrews 4:14, KJV). Yet immediately the writer emphasizes his ability to understand those for whom he serves: “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15).

The result is access: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). The pattern is the same one we saw in the previous chapter. Priesthood opens a way of approach.

Jesus Remains the High Priest

At this point an important distinction must be preserved. The fact that Christ’s followers become priests does not place them on the same level as Christ. Jesus remains the unique High Priest.

Hebrews develops this at length. His priesthood is “after the order of Melchisedec” (Hebrews 5:6; 7:17). He offers the decisive sacrifice. He enters the greater sanctuary. He becomes the mediator of the new covenant. He opens the new and living way. The priesthood of his followers therefore exists under his priesthood, not in competition with it.

Revelation 20:6 expresses this beautifully. They are “priests of God and of Christ.” Their priesthood derives from their relationship with him. This distinction becomes especially important if we ask what work these priests may eventually perform. Whatever role they receive must remain an extension of Christ’s work and authority. He is the one through whom reconciliation with God becomes possible.

Priests Who Have Known Weakness

Yet there may be another reason why humans transformed through Christ are suited for priestly service. They know what it means to live under weakness. Jesus himself entered human life and “was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15, KJV). Hebrews therefore presents his human experience as directly relevant to his priestly compassion. Earlier it says that “in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succour them that are tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). Human experience matters to priestly service.

Those whom Christ redeems know another dimension of that experience personally. They have known what it means to live under the condition inherited from Adam. They have known weakness, temptation, failure, repentance, forgiveness, discipline, and gradual transformation. They know what it means to experience the conflict Paul describes between the desire to do what is right and the law of sin operating in human members (Romans 7:21–25). They know what it means to need the ransom rather than merely understand it as a doctrine.

This should never be used to make their priesthood superior to Christ’s. Scripture gives Jesus the preeminent position precisely because he is the one through whom their redemption became possible. But it may help us appreciate why God would choose redeemed humans for service toward other humans.

They have experienced the road on which they may eventually help others travel. They know corruption because they were subject to it. They know liberation because they themselves were liberated. They know what it means to be far away and then brought near. They know what it means to be dead in sins and made alive. They know what it means to receive the spirit as a pledge while still struggling with mortality. Their priestly service can therefore arise not merely from authority but from experience.

“Greater Works Than These”

Jesus made an extraordinary statement to his disciples: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do” (John 14:12, KJV). We should be cautious about defining exactly what Jesus meant by “greater works.” The immediate context connects these works with Jesus going to the Father, prayer in his name, and the coming of the helper, the holy spirit (John 14:12–17). The later expansion of the Christian message after Jesus’ departure certainly provides one important way of understanding the statement.

Nevertheless, the words establish an important principle: Jesus did not envision his followers merely admiring his work from a distance. His work would continue through them and expand. That fits the pattern of priesthood. Christ opens the way. Those brought through that way become servants within his work. Those who have received mercy become ministers of mercy. Those who have been reconciled participate in the work of reconciliation.

Paul expresses this principle clearly: God “hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18, KJV). First they are reconciled. Then they participate in reconciliation. That may be one of the simplest explanations of priesthood.

Kings Who Serve

Revelation combines priesthood with rulership. Those participating in the first resurrection “shall reign with him.” But Jesus radically redefined what rulership among his followers should mean. He told his disciples that “the princes of the Gentiles exercise dominion over them,” and that their great ones “exercise authority upon them.” Then he said: “But it shall not be so among you” (Matthew 20:25–26, KJV). Instead, “whosoever will be great among you, let him be your minister,” and “whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant” (verses 26–27). Jesus then points to himself: “Even as the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many” (verse 28). This must shape how we understand the kingship of the children of God. Biblical rulership under Christ is not permission to dominate. It is responsibility to serve.

Therefore “kings and priests” should not immediately evoke an image of privileged rulers removed from ordinary humanity. The model is Christ, the King who serves and the High Priest who gives himself for others. The greater the authority, the greater the responsibility to serve.

The First Resurrection and Priesthood

We can now return to Revelation 20 with a fuller framework. “Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection.”

Why blessed? Why holy? Why does the second death no longer have authority? And why immediately afterward are these people called priests?

Perhaps these ideas belong together more closely than they first appear. Those who participate fully in resurrection life have themselves passed through the problem they are being prepared to address. They have moved from death unto life. They have been redeemed from corruption. They have become children of God. They have been brought near through Christ. They have reached a condition in which the second death no longer has authority over them.

They are therefore free to serve without themselves remaining enslaved to the enemy from which others need liberation. This would make priesthood not merely a reward after resurrection but a purpose of resurrection. God brings people into life so that life may spread through service.

The Priesthood and the Rest of Creation

This brings us again to Romans 8. Paul says that “the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19, KJV). Creation waits because it too is subject to “the bondage of corruption.” Yet Paul says that creation itself will be “delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (verse 21).

Why does creation wait for the revealing of God’s children? The verse does not give us a complete administrative description. We should not invent details Paul does not provide. But the relationship is unmistakable: the liberation of creation is connected with the revealing of the children of God.

Revelation adds another piece. Those who participate in the first resurrection become priests and reign with Christ. Perhaps the connection is not difficult to see. The children are first liberated. Then creation shares in their liberty. The priests are first brought near. Then they serve within God’s purpose of bringing others near. The rulers are first taught by the Servant-King. Then they exercise authority according to his pattern of service. The redeemed become participants in the work of redemption.

From Access to Service

The biblical movement we have traced from Moses now becomes clearer. Moses entered the cloud and experienced extraordinary communion with Jehovah. But Moses did not remain on the mountain. He came down and served the people. Christ entered the greater sanctuary as High Priest and opened a new and living way. Those who come through Christ are invited to draw near. They approach Mount Zion and heavenly Jerusalem. They become a royal priesthood. And Revelation sees those participating in the first resurrection serving as “priests of God and of Christ.” Access therefore is not an end in itself. A person is not brought near merely so that he can enjoy a privileged position while others remain far away. He is brought near so that he can serve.

This brings the contrast with the Sadducees into its fullest perspective. Their question began with a priestly establishment still subject to death and a hypothetical family in which death repeatedly destroyed every human attempt to preserve life and name. Jesus answered with the God of the living and with children of the resurrection who “cannot die any more.” Revelation then describes people over whom the second death has no authority becoming priests. The old priests could serve only until death stopped them. Christ continues forever. And those who share fully in resurrection life are prepared for a service that death can no longer interrupt.

The question now becomes larger than the destiny of those priests themselves. If creation is waiting for the revealing of the children of God, what happens when those children are finally revealed? Why does Paul connect their liberty with the liberation of creation itself? Perhaps resurrection is not only about what God intends to do for his children. Perhaps it is also about what he intends eventually to do through them. That is where we turn next.

Chapter 26

The Creation Waiteth

At the conclusion of the previous chapter we arrived at an important question. Revelation describes those who have part in the first resurrection as “priests of God and of Christ,” while Paul says that creation itself is waiting for the revealing of the children of God. Are these ideas connected?

Romans 8 provides one of the broadest views in Scripture of what God is accomplishing through his children. Paul does not describe salvation merely as individuals escaping death. He places the children of God within a much larger drama involving creation itself. “For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God” (Romans 8:19, KJV). Creation waits. But what is it waiting for? Not merely for Christ to appear. Paul specifically says that creation waits for “the manifestation of the sons of God.”

“The Manifestation of the Sons of God”

The KJV uses the word “manifestation.” The Greek word is apokalypsis, meaning a revealing or disclosure. Modern translations commonly render the expression as “the revealing of the sons of God” or “the revealing of the children of God.”

This is important because Paul has already identified believers as children of God earlier in the same chapter. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God” (Romans 8:14, KJV). He continues: “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (verse 16).

They do not first become God’s children at their future revealing. They are children already. Yet something about them remains unrevealed. This agrees closely with John: “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2, KJV). Now children. Not yet fully revealed. This distinction has followed us throughout our investigation. A person can pass from death unto life now. A person can be made alive with Christ now. A person can receive the spirit now, become a child of God now, become a new creation now, and approach heavenly Jerusalem now. Yet mortality remains. The body still awaits redemption. The final condition in which one “cannot die any more” has not yet been reached. Romans 8 places these two realities side by side.

Children, Heirs, and Suffering

Immediately after calling believers children of God, Paul continues: “And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ” (Romans 8:17, KJV). Once again sonship leads naturally to inheritance. Earlier we followed inheritance through Israel’s land laws, levirate marriage, Ruth, Jubilee, Abraham’s seed, and finally Christ. Here Paul brings the argument into its Christian fulfillment. Those who belong to Christ are not merely servants standing outside the household. They are children, and because they are children, they are heirs.

But Paul immediately adds something uncomfortable: “if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” Present sonship does not mean present completion. The children still suffer. They still live within a creation subject to corruption. They still wait. Paul therefore says, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18, KJV). The glory is future in its manifestation, but the identity already exists. The children are being prepared before they are revealed.

“The Creature Was Made Subject to Vanity”

Paul then explains why creation is waiting: “For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope” (Romans 8:20, KJV). The Greek word translated “vanity” is mataiotēs, carrying the idea of futility, frustration, or emptiness. Other translations make this clearer. The NRSVue speaks of creation being “subjected to futility,” the NASB 2020 likewise uses “futility,” and the NET says creation was “subjected to futility.”

Creation exists under a condition in which things do not reach their intended permanence. Life appears and disappears. Bodies grow and decay. Generations build what later generations lose. Families struggle to preserve names. Inheritance passes from hand to hand. Land is possessed and lost. Human beings labor, age, and die.

The problem confronted by the Sadducees’ hypothetical story is therefore only one small expression of a much larger condition. Seven brothers die one after another because the entire creation remains under the power of corruption.

The Law could respond to some consequences of death.

It could preserve a dead brother’s name through offspring.

It could regulate inheritance.

It could restore family possession through Jubilee.

It could provide redemption when property had been lost.

But it could not remove the condition producing the losses.

Paul looks beyond the regulation of corruption to liberation from corruption itself.

“Delivered From the Bondage of Corruption”

Paul continues: “Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:21, KJV). The word translated “corruption” is phthora. It can carry the sense of decay, destruction, perishability, or corruption. It is the same family of language that becomes so important in 1 Corinthians 15, where Paul contrasts corruption with incorruption. This creates a significant connection with Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees. Jesus says that the children of the resurrection “cannot die any more.”

Paul says that creation will be liberated from “the bondage of corruption.” And 1 Corinthians says that “this corruptible must put on incorruption.” These passages are not identical descriptions, and we should not collapse them into a single formula. Yet they move toward the same great enemy: corruption and death.

What makes Romans 8 especially remarkable is that the liberty of creation is described in relation to the liberty of God’s children. Creation will be delivered “into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” The children experience the liberty first. Creation follows into it.

Why Does Creation Wait for the Children?

This brings us back to our original question. Why does creation wait for the revealing of God’s children? Paul does not give a detailed description of exactly how their future service operates. We should therefore resist constructing an administrative system that the passage itself does not provide. But Scripture gives us several pieces that can be placed beside one another without forcing them.

Romans says creation waits for the revealing of God’s children. Revelation says those participating in the first resurrection become priests of God and Christ and reign with him. Jesus says that greatness among his followers means service rather than domination. Paul says that those reconciled through Christ receive a “ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:18).

Taken together, these passages suggest a purpose larger than personal survival. God’s children are not simply liberated from creation’s suffering so that they can leave it behind. Paul pictures creation itself sharing in their liberty. The direction is not abandonment. It is liberation.

The Creation Groaneth

Paul then gives creation a voice: “For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now” (Romans 8:22, KJV). The imagery is that of childbirth. This is important. Paul does not compare creation merely to something dying. He compares it to something suffering while awaiting birth. Groaning therefore does not necessarily mean that creation is being discarded. The pain is connected with something that is to emerge. And then Paul makes the comparison personal: “And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves” (verse 23). Creation groans. The children of God groan. Both are waiting. But the children possess something creation generally does not yet possess in the same way: “the firstfruits of the Spirit.” The spirit is therefore evidence that the future has already begun within people who still belong physically to the present creation. They taste the powers of the coming age while still experiencing the weakness of this one.

“Waiting for the Adoption”

Paul continues: “waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (Romans 8:23, KJV). At first this may seem surprising because Paul has already called them children of God. Why are children still waiting for adoption? Again, the pattern is one of present reality and future completion. They possess the spirit of adoption and cry, “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). The spirit bears witness that they are children (verse 16). Yet they still wait for adoption in another sense—the completed public realization of sonship connected with “the redemption of our body.” This is particularly important for our study. Paul does not describe the body as something from which the child of God must finally escape. He describes something happening to the body: redemption. The body belongs within the redemptive purpose. That corresponds naturally with resurrection. The person who has already passed from death unto life may still physically die. If so, physical resurrection remains necessary. The person who remains alive until Christ’s coming must still be changed. In either case, the work begun through the spirit reaches the mortal body itself. Sonship therefore moves toward embodiment free from corruption. That is very close to the condition Jesus described: “Neither can they die any more: for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36, KJV).

The Firstfruits and the Harvest

Paul calls the spirit “the firstfruits.” Firstfruits are not the entire harvest. They are the beginning and guarantee that more is to come. This language again prevents us from treating present spiritual life and future resurrection as competing alternatives. The present work of the spirit is not a substitute for future transformation. It is its beginning. The child of God receives life now. The spirit begins transformation now. The person is brought near now. But the body still waits for redemption. The firstfruits point toward harvest. The pledge points toward inheritance. Sonship points toward revealing. Life points toward resurrection. And resurrection points toward freedom from corruption.

Liberty and Jubilee

Earlier we considered Jubilee, when liberty was proclaimed throughout the land and people returned to their possessions and families. Romans 8 does not explicitly call the liberation of creation a Jubilee, so we should not claim that Paul is directly interpreting Leviticus 25. Nevertheless, the resemblance is difficult to miss. Jubilee proclaimed liberty to those who had lost freedom. Romans speaks of creation being delivered from bondage. Jubilee restored possession. Romans speaks of children who are heirs. Jubilee prevented loss from becoming permanent. Resurrection prevents death itself from becoming permanent. The earlier arrangement could restore what remained within the mortal order. The larger redemption toward which Scripture moves addresses mortality itself. Jubilee returned the inheritance to the family. Resurrection returns the heir.

The Children Are Also Part of the Groaning Creation

There is another safeguard we should keep in mind. The children of God should not imagine themselves standing proudly above the suffering creation.

Paul does not allow that.

“We ourselves groan within ourselves.”

They know the bondage from the inside.

Their bodies are still mortal.

They experience pain.

They lose people they love.

They struggle with weakness.

They know fear.

They know temptation.

They know what it means to wait for redemption.

This connects directly with the priestly theme of the previous chapter. The people who may eventually participate in the liberation of others are themselves people who have needed liberation.

They do not serve creation as strangers to its suffering.

They come from within its groaning.

This gives another dimension to the wisdom of God’s purpose. Those who are brought into the liberty of his children have firsthand knowledge of the bondage from which creation needs release.

Their authority under Christ therefore need not be cold or distant.

It can be compassionate service.

Not Dominion as the Nations Exercise It

Jesus gave his disciples a clear warning about authority. The rulers of the nations “exercise dominion,” but “it shall not be so among you” (Matthew 20:25–26, KJV).

If the children of God are revealed in connection with creation’s liberation, their role must follow the character of Christ’s rulership.

He rules by serving.

He conquers by giving himself.

He becomes High Priest by entering human suffering.

He brings people near rather than using authority to keep them far away.

Therefore, if resurrection leads to priesthood and kingship, it cannot mean merely that one group escapes suffering and then exercises power over another group.

The model is Christ.

The purpose is restoration.

The direction is liberty.

The Children and the Creation

We can now see why Romans 8 belongs so naturally within our investigation of Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees.

The Sadducees constructed their question from the world as they knew it: a world in which people marry, fail to produce offspring, die, and require legal arrangements to preserve a dead man’s name.

Jesus answered from beyond the authority of that world’s greatest limitation.

“They cannot die any more.”

Paul expands the horizon. The problem is not merely that seven hypothetical brothers died. The entire creation is in “bondage of corruption.”

And the answer is not merely that isolated individuals will be returned temporarily to life.

Creation itself waits for liberty.

It waits for the revealing of God’s children.

Those children are already being formed within the old creation. They hear the voice of the Son and pass from death unto life. They receive the spirit. They become children. They are transformed into a new creation. They are brought near to God. Yet they continue to groan while waiting for the redemption of the body.

Then comes their revealing.

Revelation sees those over whom the second death has no power serving as priests of God and Christ.

Romans sees creation entering “the glorious liberty of the children of God.”

We should not claim to know every detail of how these statements will be fulfilled. But their direction is remarkably consistent.

God does not merely rescue individuals from death.

He is bringing his children into a kind of life that death cannot hold, and their liberation belongs within his larger purpose for creation.

The Last Enemy

One enemy, however, still stands behind everything Paul has described.

It stands behind the Sadducees’ seven brothers.

It stands behind the need for levirate marriage.

It stands behind the preservation of names.

It stands behind lost inheritance.

It stands behind the groaning of creation.

It stands behind corruptible bodies.

It even stood behind the old priesthood, whose priests “were not suffered to continue by reason of death.”

That enemy is death itself.

Paul does not say that God will merely manage it better.

He says it will be destroyed.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26, KJV).

And once death itself is destroyed, Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees reaches its fullest possible meaning.

“They cannot die any more.”

Chapter 27 The Last Enemy…Death

The question of the Sadducees began with death.

A man marries and dies without children. His brother takes the widow and also dies. Then another brother dies, and another, until all seven have died. The woman finally dies as well. Their question assumes a world in which death repeatedly interrupts marriage, family, inheritance, and human continuity.

Jesus answered by pointing toward a condition in which the premise of their argument no longer operates: “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:36, KJV).

Paul describes the same enemy from another direction. In 1 Corinthians 15 he does not treat death as a permanent feature of creation that God simply teaches humans to endure. Death has an end.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26, KJV).

“But Now Is Christ Risen From the Dead”

Paul begins the central portion of his resurrection argument with Christ himself: “But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept” (1 Corinthians 15:20, KJV).

Everything depends upon this.

Christian resurrection is not merely an idea about human immortality. It begins with an event: Christ has been raised.

Paul calls him “the firstfruits.”

The word immediately suggests that Christ’s resurrection is not isolated. Firstfruits belong to a harvest. What happened to Christ establishes the beginning of something that will extend beyond him.

Paul then places Christ and Adam in contrast: “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead” (verse 21).

The problem entered human experience through Adam.

The answer comes through Christ.

“For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive” (verse 22).

The two men therefore stand at the head of two conditions.

Adam is associated with death.

Christ is associated with life.

This brings us again to the larger meaning of resurrection. God is not merely reversing individual deaths one at a time. He is answering the condition that came through Adam.

“Every Man in His Own Order”

Paul continues: “But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming” (1 Corinthians 15:23, KJV).

The word translated “order” is tagma, a term that can refer to an order, group, or rank. Paul therefore presents resurrection according to an arrangement rather than as one undifferentiated moment.

First Christ.

Afterward those who belong to Christ at his coming.

Then Paul says: “Then cometh the end” (verse 24).

This is important because it prevents us from compressing everything Scripture says about resurrection, transformation, judgment, priesthood, Kingdom, and creation into a single instant. Paul himself gives an order.

Christ has already been raised.

Those who belong to Christ are associated with his coming.

Then comes the end.

The complete destruction of death belongs within that larger movement.

“Then Cometh the End”

What happens at the end?

Paul continues: “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father” (1 Corinthians 15:24, KJV).

This is an extraordinary statement.

Christ receives Kingdom authority, but his rulership is directed toward a purpose. The Kingdom is not an end in itself. Christ reigns in order to accomplish something.

Paul explains: “when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power.”

Then: “For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (verse 25).

Christ reigns until the enemies are subdued.

His kingship is therefore active and restorative. It confronts everything opposed to God’s purpose.

And among those enemies one stands last.

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

Death Is an Enemy

This simple statement deserves more attention than it sometimes receives.

Death is an enemy.

Scripture does not require us to romanticize it. It does not describe death as the final intended destination of human existence. Paul does not call death the doorway God originally designed so that humans could leave physical life behind.

He calls it an enemy.

That agrees with the entire direction of the biblical story.

Death enters after sin.

Human beings struggle to preserve names because people die.

Levirate marriage responds to death.

Inheritance laws operate within generations that die.

Jubilee restores possessions during mortal life.

Priests die and must be replaced.

Creation groans under corruption.

Bodies return to dust.

Graves hold those whom families remember.

Resurrection is necessary because death has done something that must be undone.

And Christ reigns until that enemy is destroyed.

Not Merely Reversed, but Destroyed

The distinction is important.

Lazarus was raised, but death was not yet destroyed.

The daughter of Jairus was raised, but death remained.

The widow of Nain received her son back, but the mortal condition continued.

Those miracles demonstrated divine authority over death, but they did not yet produce the final condition Jesus described to the Sadducees: “Neither can they die any more.”

A person can therefore be physically restored from death without death itself having been abolished.

Paul points beyond restoration to destruction of the enemy.

This helps us understand why resurrection in its fullest biblical sense must involve more than leaving a grave. If a person is raised only to remain permanently subject to the same enemy, death has been reversed for that moment but not conquered in its final sense.

Jesus points toward the greater condition.

“They cannot die any more.”

Revelation expresses it another way: “on such the second death hath no power.”

Paul expresses it as incorruption and immortality.

Different passages approach the matter from different directions, but the final movement is toward life beyond the authority of death.

“He Hath Put All Things Under His Feet”

Paul then quotes the language of subjection: “For he hath put all things under his feet” (1 Corinthians 15:27, KJV).

This recalls Psalm 8, where humanity is described as being crowned with glory and honor and having the works of God placed under its feet. Hebrews 2 later applies that language in connection with Jesus. It acknowledges that “we see not yet all things put under him,” but adds: “But we see Jesus” (Hebrews 2:8–9, KJV).

Jesus therefore stands at the center of restored human purpose.

What humanity lost under Adam begins to appear in Christ.

He is not conquered by death permanently.

He conquers it.

He does not remain in corruption.

He is raised.

He does not use authority merely for himself.

He brings others into life.

This is why Paul can speak of Christ as “the firstfruits.” His resurrection begins a harvest.

The Son Delivers the Kingdom to the Father

Paul then carries the argument to a point beyond the destruction of death: “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” (1 Corinthians 15:28, KJV).

Christ’s authority therefore does not culminate in independence from God.

It culminates in complete harmony with God.

The Son accomplishes the work entrusted to him and ultimately delivers the Kingdom to the Father.

Paul concludes: “that God may be all in all.”

This may be one of the most important statements for understanding the destination of the entire resurrection story.

The goal is not merely that human beings live forever.

The goal is that everything is finally brought into proper relationship with God.

This takes us back to Jesus’ words about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

“He is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38, KJV).

Life is ultimately life unto God.

Resurrection restores the person, but its final purpose is relationship.

The destruction of death removes the enemy that interrupts human life.

The Kingdom removes hostile authority.

Priesthood serves reconciliation and approach.

Sonship brings humans into the family of God.

And when the work is complete, “God may be all in all.”

A New Heavens and a New Earth

This larger horizon appears elsewhere in Scripture.

Isaiah records Jehovah’s promise: “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind” (Isaiah 65:17, KJV).

The description that follows is remarkably concrete. People build houses and inhabit them. They plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They enjoy the work of their hands. Their offspring are mentioned. Life is pictured in terms of restoration, fruitfulness, security, and blessing.

We should, however, be careful not to identify every detail of Isaiah 65 directly with the final condition Jesus described in Luke 20. Isaiah’s prophecy still contains references to death and judgment: “the child shall die an hundred years old” (Isaiah 65:20, KJV). Whatever the precise fulfillment of the passage, its description is therefore not identical point for point with the condition in which people “cannot die any more.”

This may suggest stages within the larger work of restoration, or it may reflect prophetic imagery describing restoration through categories meaningful to Isaiah’s audience. We should leave room for the text rather than forcing every prophetic description into one moment.

But the direction is clear.

God creates.

God restores.

Human life flourishes.

The former troubles do not remain forever.

“There Shall Be No More Death”

Revelation carries the picture still farther.

John sees “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1, KJV). He then hears the announcement: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (verse 3).

Again, notice the direction.

The climax is not simply humans going somewhere else.

It is God dwelling with humanity.

Then comes one of the clearest statements in Scripture concerning the final enemy: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death” (Revelation 21:4, KJV).

No more death.

This takes us directly back to Jesus.

“They cannot die any more.”

And to Paul:

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.”

And to Revelation 20:

“The second death hath no power.”

These expressions belong naturally beside one another.

They describe the disappearance of death’s authority.

The Tabernacle of God Is With Men

There is another important connection with the path we have followed through Moses, the sanctuary, Hebrews, and heavenly Jerusalem.

Revelation does not end merely with immortal individuals. It ends with communion.

“The tabernacle of God is with men.”

The sanctuary theme that began with restricted approach reaches toward unrestricted presence.

At Sinai, boundaries surrounded the mountain.

The tabernacle placed curtains between degrees of approach.

The high priest entered the Most Holy under carefully prescribed conditions.

Moses experienced exceptional nearness.

Christ entered the greater sanctuary as forerunner.

Through him believers receive boldness to draw near.

They “are come unto mount Sion…and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Hebrews 12:22, KJV).

And finally Revelation says: “the tabernacle of God is with men.”

The biblical movement is therefore not away from relationship but toward its completion.

The distance is being overcome.

“They Shall See His Face”

Revelation 22 brings this movement to perhaps its most intimate expression: “And they shall see his face; and his name shall be in their foreheads” (Revelation 22:4, KJV).

Earlier we considered Moses, with whom Jehovah spoke “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend.” We also noted that this did not mean Moses literally saw the full unveiled being of God, since Jehovah himself said, “there shall no man see me, and live” (Exodus 33:20).

Yet Moses’ experience represented extraordinary communion.

The final biblical picture uses the same relational language: “they shall see his face.”

What Moses experienced exceptionally points toward the direction of God’s purpose—unhindered relationship.

This helps us understand why immortality alone would be an incomplete description of salvation. Endless existence without reconciliation to God would not be the biblical goal.

The goal is life with God.

His name upon his servants.

His presence with humanity.

His children living unto him.

What Happens to the Question of Marriage?

At this point we can briefly return to the question that began the entire investigation.

The Sadducees wanted to know which of seven dead brothers would possess the woman in the resurrection.

But after following Jesus’ answer outward through Scripture, the limitations of their question become increasingly visible.

Their hypothetical situation exists because death keeps breaking the family.

One husband dies.

Then another.

The law responds because the dead brother has no child to preserve his name.

But what happens when death itself is destroyed?

The entire legal mechanism generated by repeated death loses its premise.

This still does not answer every question we may have about relationships, male and female, family, or fruitfulness in the coming age. Jesus did not answer all of those questions, and neither should we pretend that he did.

But he did answer the Sadducees’ trap.

Their argument assumed that resurrection would simply reproduce the mortal arrangement that made the law of the brother-in-law necessary.

Jesus pointed beyond mortality.

“They cannot die any more.”

From Adam to the Children of the Resurrection

The biblical movement can now be seen as a whole.

Through Adam comes death.

Under death, human beings struggle to preserve names, families, inheritance, and life.

The Law provides temporary arrangements within that condition.

The prophets promise restoration.

Christ comes.

He dies.

He rises.

He becomes the firstfruits.

Those who hear his voice can already pass from death unto life.

They receive the spirit as a pledge.

They become children of God.

They become a new creation.

They are brought near.

They await the redemption of the body.

If they die, they remain known to God and are raised.

If they remain alive, they are changed.

Corruption puts on incorruption.

Mortality puts on immortality.

The children are revealed.

Creation is liberated.

Those participating in the first resurrection serve as priests of God and Christ.

Christ reigns until every enemy is subdued.

And finally the last enemy—death—is destroyed.

Then the Kingdom itself reaches its purpose.

God becomes “all in all.”

We have followed a long path from one short question asked in Jerusalem. The Sadducees asked, “Whose wife shall she be?” But after following the question through death, resurrection, sonship, and the final destruction of death, Jesus’ answer raises a greater question: Whose children are those who cannot die any more?

Chapter 28 Children of the Resurrection

The Sadducees came to Jesus with a question about a woman and seven husbands. Their argument was carefully constructed. Moses had commanded that when a married man died childless, his brother should take the widow and raise up seed for the dead brother. So they imagined seven brothers, each marrying the same woman and each dying without leaving a child. Finally the woman died also.

“Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them is she? for seven had her to wife” (Luke 20:33, KJV).

It sounded like a question about marriage. But underneath it was a question about resurrection itself.

The Sadducees denied that there was any resurrection. Their hypothetical family was intended to show that resurrection would create an impossible situation. If all seven brothers returned, the arrangement Moses had commanded would seem to produce a contradiction. Whose wife would she be?

Yet the contradiction existed only if resurrection restored all eight people into exactly the same condition under which the problem had arisen.

Jesus did not accept that premise.

“They Which Shall Be Accounted Worthy”

Jesus answered: “The children of this world marry, and are given in marriage: But they which shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world, and the resurrection from the dead, neither marry, nor are given in marriage” (Luke 20:34–35, KJV).

As we have seen, the Greek speaks of those counted worthy to attain or obtain that age and the resurrection from the dead. Jesus’ language therefore deserves to be read as more than a description of bodies emerging from graves. He speaks of a condition that is attained.

Then comes the statement that unlocks the Sadducees’ problem: “Neither can they die any more” (Luke 20:36, KJV).

The first brother died. The second died. The third died. Eventually all seven died, and the woman died also. The Mosaic arrangement invoked by the Sadducees existed precisely because a man could die childless and his name could disappear from Israel. Another brother was therefore called upon to raise up seed for him.

But Jesus points toward people who cannot die anymore.

Once death no longer governs the situation, the mechanism built around repeated death no longer governs it either.

From the Beginning

This does not mean that Jesus declared everything established at creation to be abolished. When questioned elsewhere about marriage, Jesus himself distinguished between a later Mosaic regulation and the arrangement “from the beginning.” Moses permitted divorce because of human hardness of heart, Jesus explained, “but from the beginning it was not so” (Matthew 19:8, KJV).

Jesus returned to Genesis: “he which made them at the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4, KJV). Male and female, leaving father and mother, cleaving to wife, and becoming one flesh belong to the creation account before human death entered the story. Levirate marriage belongs to a different situation. It responds to death, childlessness, threatened name, and interrupted inheritance.

For that reason we should remain cautious in both directions. Jesus’ answer to the Sadducees does not require us to insist that every feature of marriage continues unchanged in the coming age. But neither does it say that male and female cease to exist, that human beings become angels, that one flesh is abolished, or that physical human existence disappears.

Jesus did not answer every question we might ask about the coming age.

He answered the Sadducees.

“Children of God”

After saying that those attaining the resurrection cannot die anymore, Jesus continues: “for they are equal unto the angels; and are the children of God, being the children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:36, KJV).

He does not say that they become angels. The immediate comparison follows his statement that they cannot die anymore. Then Jesus gives them an identity that takes us far beyond the Sadducees’ original question.

They are “the children of God.”

The Sadducees asked whose wife the woman would be. Jesus speaks about whose children those attaining the resurrection are.

That distinction has gradually become one of the central discoveries of our investigation.

The Christian Scriptures speak of sonship as something that can begin before physical death. Those receiving Christ are given authority “to become the sons of God” (John 1:12, KJV). Those led by God’s spirit are called his sons, and the spirit bears witness that they are his children (Romans 8:14–16). John can therefore say, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God,” while immediately adding, “it doth not yet appear what we shall be” (1 John 3:2, KJV).

Now children.

Not yet fully revealed.

Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus fits naturally within this movement. “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, KJV). The Greek anōthen can carry the sense of being born again or born from above. Nicodemus thought of another physical birth, but Jesus spoke of birth from water and spirit.

The person can therefore begin becoming something before physical death: born from above, led by the spirit, a child of God, a new creation, passing from death unto life. Yet mortality remains, which is why resurrection and transformation are still necessary.

Sonship is real before it is complete.

“Passed From Death Unto Life”

This is perhaps why Jesus’ words in John 5 have been so important to our investigation: “He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life…and is passed from death unto life” (John 5:24, KJV).

The person is physically alive, yet a passage from death to life has already occurred.

Jesus then says that “the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live” (John 5:25, KJV). Later he speaks of the future hour when those “in the graves shall hear his voice, And shall come forth” (verses 28–29).

We therefore found reason to distinguish without separating two dimensions of the movement from death into life. A person can begin to live to God before entering the grave, while physical resurrection remains necessary if physical death occurs.

The spirit is the pledge of what is still to come. The believer becomes a new creation while still mortal. Paul can even speak of believers as made alive and raised with Christ while they remain physically embodied. Yet the body itself still awaits redemption, corruption must put on incorruption, and mortality must put on immortality.

The work begins before the grave.

Death does not bring it to completion.

God does.

“For All Live Unto Him”

Jesus then returns to Moses, but not to the law of levirate marriage.

He goes to the burning bush.

“Now that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Luke 20:37, KJV).

Abraham was dead. Isaac was dead. Jacob was dead. Yet God continued to identify himself with them.

Jesus concludes: “For he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all live unto him” (Luke 20:38, KJV).

We do not need to make these words mean that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were consciously living in heaven at that moment. Other Scriptures continue to speak of faithful people as having died while awaiting the fulfillment of the promises. Jesus’ argument establishes something more fundamental.

Death has not erased them before God.

Their relationship with him remains.

Their names remain before him.

And because the person remains known to God, death cannot prevent God from restoring the person.

This is where Jesus’ argument reaches much deeper than the Sadducees’ concern about preserving a dead man’s name.

The Name and the Person

The law commanded that the firstborn produced through the brother-in-law arrangement should succeed in the name of the dead brother “that his name be not put out of Israel” (Deuteronomy 25:6, KJV).

The law could preserve a name.

It could provide seed.

It could preserve the house and protect the inheritance.

Ruth brings these ideas together when Boaz acts “to raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance” (Ruth 4:10, KJV).

But none of these arrangements could restore the dead person himself.

A child could carry his name. Land could remain associated with his family. A monument could preserve his memory. But resurrection does something greater.

Human arrangements preserve the name of the dead. Resurrection restores the person whose name it is.

This makes Jesus’ appeal to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob especially powerful. Jehovah does not merely remember historical names. He identifies himself with the persons to whom those names belong.

“I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.”

Their death has not made God forget whose God he is.

From Seed to Children

The Sadducees’ question began with seed. A dead brother needed offspring so that his name would continue.

But the biblical story of seed itself moves toward something greater. The promise passes through Abraham and ultimately reaches Christ. Paul then says: “If ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise” (Galatians 3:29, KJV).

The question of physical seed opens into the question of God’s children.

And those children are heirs.

This brings together themes that at first appeared separate: seed, name, inheritance, redemption, sonship, and resurrection.

The law tried to preserve the dead man’s place within the family.

God intends to restore the person.

From Life to Incorruption

The life that begins now must therefore move toward something greater.

Paul describes the body as sown in corruption and raised in incorruption. He says that “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality” (1 Corinthians 15:53, KJV).

And not everyone must first enter a grave: “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed” (verse 51).

Some are raised.

Some may remain alive.

All require transformation.

This is why the resurrection cannot finally be reduced to the moment when a dead body stands again. The destination is the condition Jesus described: “Neither can they die any more.”

Revelation expresses the same final freedom by saying that upon those who have part in the first resurrection “the second death hath no power” (Revelation 20:6, KJV).

The issue is ultimately the authority of death.

Brought Near in Order to Serve

Our investigation also showed that resurrection does not end merely with the survival of those who receive it.

Those over whom the second death has no power become “priests of God and of Christ” (Revelation 20:6, KJV). Those who have been brought near are prepared to serve.

This is particularly striking because the original question came from the Sadducees, a movement closely associated with the priestly establishment, yet one that denied resurrection. The old priests themselves remained subject to death. Hebrews says that they could not continue “by reason of death,” while Christ possesses a continuing priesthood (Hebrews 7:23–24).

The question therefore began within a priestly world still governed by death and ends with a vision of priests over whom the second death has no authority.

Romans expands the horizon further. Creation itself waits for “the manifestation of the sons of God” and for liberation from “the bondage of corruption” into “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Romans 8:19–21, KJV).

We do not know every detail of how that service will operate. Scripture does not provide a complete administrative map of the coming age. But the direction is clear enough. God’s children are not simply rescued from creation’s suffering and removed from concern for it. Their own liberation belongs within God’s larger purpose to free creation from corruption.

The Last Enemy

Behind all of these themes stands the same enemy.

Death created the problem in the Sadducees’ hypothetical family.

Death created the need for another brother.

Death threatened the name.

Death interrupted inheritance.

Death caused generations of priests to be replaced.

Death placed Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in their graves.

Death makes creation groan.

And Paul tells us what eventually happens to it:

“The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Corinthians 15:26, KJV).

This is the final answer to the world assumed by the Sadducees.

They imagined resurrection inside a system still ruled by death.

Jesus pointed beyond that system.

“They cannot die any more.”

Whose Children?

We can now return to the question with which we began.

“Whose wife shall she be?”

The Sadducees wanted Jesus to identify which of seven dead brothers could claim the woman in the resurrection.

But perhaps their question was too small.

Jesus’ answer moves from marriage to mortality, from mortality to resurrection, from resurrection to sonship, and from sonship to God himself.

“They are…the children of God, being the children of the resurrection.”

So perhaps the deeper question is not merely:

Whose wife will she be?

But:

Whose children will they be?

Jesus answered.

They are the children of God.

They are the children of the resurrection.

Their identity is no longer secured by another generation being born to preserve their names. Their inheritance is no longer protected merely by laws designed to compensate for death. Their future does not depend upon human arrangements struggling to preserve what mortality continually takes away.

God himself remembers them.

Christ calls them from death into life.

The spirit begins their transformation.

If they die, they can be raised.

If they remain, they can be changed.

Corruption gives way to incorruption.

The children are revealed.

Creation is liberated.

The last enemy is destroyed.

And the purpose of the Kingdom reaches the destination Paul expressed in the simplest possible words: “that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28, KJV).

Jesus began his answer by correcting the Sadducees’ understanding of resurrection. But he ended by revealing something about God.

“He is not a God of the dead, but of the living.”

That is why resurrection is possible.

That is why death cannot have the final word.

And that is why the words with which Jesus concluded his answer may also serve as the conclusion of our investigation:

“For all live unto him.”