As noted in the previous postings, man does not have a soul; man is a soul.  It is the soul (man himself) that dies, is buried and returns to dust.  It is his spirit, and the spirits of all who have died, that return to God Who gave them.  We have all sinned.  Therefore we will all die, be buried, etc.  Every soul that has lived and died will rise in a resurrection, each in his own time.  There will be three resurrections which will involve three different spiritual categories of human beings.  One’s obedience or disobedience to God determines one’s category.  In this posting we will examine the character of those who will rise in the first resurrection, meet the Lord in the air, descend with Him to the Mount of Olives, enter Jerusalem, establish the Kingdom of God, then watch as Jesus destroys the two armies which, having joined forces in Armageddon, have arrived at Jerusalem intending to destroy Him and His saints.  See Armageddon.  But first there will be a resurrection of God’s Very Elect, His saints, His obedient remnant of true disciples.  As He warned, they will be few in number.  Many will have been called, but few will have been chosen for answering the call.  Let us now see who will comprise the chosen few.

The first resurrection will involve a) the “dead in Christ” who, throughout the history of man, obeyed the God of the Old and New Testaments [the Word–Jesus Christ] and b) those who are alive and are “Christ’s at His coming.”  Every eye and every nation will see Him, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God; and the dead in Christ will rise first.  Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so will we ever be with the Lord” (2 Thes. 4:16,17).  Universe headquarters for the Kingdom of God will be Jerusalem.

Those who be “in Christ” and “Christ’s at His coming” will be those few who had repented of their sins (iniquity–Law-breaking) and had received the Holy Spirit (Rom. 8:9) by which they were empowered to obey the Lord (keep the Law) for the remainder of their lives (Mat. 10:22).  These people will live forever and rule and reign over the earth with Christ throughout the Millennium (first 1000 years following the first resurrection) as revealed in Revelation 20:5,6.  As I wrote in God’s Very Elect: Future Caretakers of the Universe, following the Millennium and the second and third resurrections, God’s saints will take care of the entire universe forever.  These are they who have proved their love for Him by obeying His commandments (Law) and have withstood the persecution that inevitably comes from those in the Institutional Church, as well as their (the saints’) families and acquaintances.  See Persecution.  Some will have died violent deaths for Christ’s sake.  Those in the first resurrection are the Lord’s “peculiar” people, His “jewels,” His saints (holy ones) who were sanctified (set aside for holy use) by obeying God’s Truth–His Word (Jn. 17:17).  These are they who stood out from the rest of the religious world and were despised for doing so.  These are they who heard the call of God and, having counted the cost for answering it, came out of traditional Christianity and had paid a price for doing so.  They are the “Chosen Few” who found and entered God’s strait gate (true church) and walked His narrow (Scriptural) way that led them to His Kingdom.

It is the soul–the person him/herself–that dies, returns to its original composition (dirt), and is resurrected to meet the Lord at the appointed time.  Concerning the Truth that all must die, those saints who will be alive when Christ returns will die when they are born again–instantly changed from physical to spiritual bodily composition.  This miracle is explained in 1 Corinthians 15:46-54.  I will paraphrase the Apostle Paul’s description of the born again experience which will take place as the living saints rise to meet their Messiah in the air.  The saint is first physical, then spiritual–first of the earthly realm, then of the heavenly realm.  As the saint bore the image of the earthly, he will, upon rebirth, bear the image of the heavenly.  The rebirth is necessary because “flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”  For this reason all saints will be changed from physical to spiritual.  Paul describes the transition in verses 51 and 52: “Behold, I show you a mystery; we will not all sleep (die in this lifetime), but we will all be changed.  (This will happen) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump, for the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised incorruptible (not subject to death) and we will be changed.  For this corruptible (body) must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”  Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians (3:18) that “we all, as if looking into a mirror, will see the glory of the Lord by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  In 1 Jn. 3:2 the Apostle addressed this miracle: “Beloved, now we are the sons of God, and at this time we do not look as we shall then look.  But we know that, when He appears, we will be (look) like Him, for we will see Him as He is.”  THOSE IN THE FIRST RESURRECTION WILL HAVE THE SAME APPEARANCE AS THE LORD–THEY WILL REFLECT HIS GLORY.  To learn what Christ looks like now and what  true saints will look like following their resurrection, let us turn to Revelation 1:12-15 where John describes Jesus Christ, and in so doing describes His resurrected saints.  John reports that He was wearing a robe down to His feet with a golden girdle around His chest.  His hair was white like wool.  His eyes were as flames of fire.  His feet looked like burnished brass.  THIS IS HOW HIS SAINTS WILL LOOK FOLLOWING THEIR RESURRECTION AND REBIRTH.  Please hurry back Lord Jesus.  L.J.