The first resurrection, of the Church only:
Revelation 20:6 (WEB):
(6) Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over these, the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and will reign with him one thousand years.
(Only Christians will become kings and priest and share Christ's inheritance - 1 Peter 2:9, "But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that you may proclaim the excellence of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light".)
Jesus taught that he would come back for the Church, John 14:2-3 (WEB):
(2) In my Father’s house are many homes. If it weren’t so, I would have told you. I am going to prepare a place for you.
(3) If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and will receive you to myself; that where I am, you may be there also.
which is the first resurrection/rapture, as Paul describes in 1 Thessalonians 4:
(16) For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,
(17) then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.
The rest of mankind (the "rest of the dead") have a seperate resurrection (the resurrection that the Jews, like Martha, knew about):
Revelation 20:13 (WEB):
(13) The sea gave up the dead who were in it. Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them. They were judged, each one according to his works.
Because she didn't know about the separate resurrection of the Church, which had not yet been revealed at that time. As the Cambridge Bible Notes says:
I know that he shall rise again] This conviction was probably in advance of average Jewish belief on the subject. The O.T. declarations as to a resurrection are so scanty and obscure, that the Sadducees could deny the doctrine, and the Pharisees had to resort to oral tradition to maintain it (see on Mar_12:18; Act_23:8).
It was a mystery that Paul revealed many years later:
1 Corinthians 15:51-52
(51) Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
(52) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.
1 Thessalonians 4:15-17
(15) For this we tell you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.
(16) For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with God’s trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise first,
(17) then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air. So we will be with the Lord forever.
And it's obvious that when it speaks of the
first resurrection that there must be a second resurrection, and that if those in the first resurrection are not subject to the second death then those that are must have had a part in a second, different resurrection.
Why does it mean that?! The Jews believed in a resurrection to human (physical) life again. They, and all mankind (except Christians) will get that, for Jesus paid the penalty for sin for all mankind (1 Timothy 2:6, "Who gave himself a ransom
for all, to be testified in due time";
Romans 5:6, "For while we were yet weak, at the right time
Christ died for the ungodly"). They are resurrected at the start of te 1,000 years of Christ's reign, and if at the end of the 1,000 years they fail the test for eternal life then they will suffer a second death. Death is death, the cessation of life - physical or spiritual is irrelevant. Only Christians are promised a change of nature to a spiritual nature, and they will then be immortal and never suffer a second death - 1 Corinthians 15:50-54 (WEB):
(50) Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit God’s Kingdom; neither does the perishable inherit imperishable.
(51) Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we [all Christians] will all be changed,
(52) in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.
(53) For this perishable body must become imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality.
(54) But when this perishable body will have become imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: “Death is swallowed up in victory.”
