How are "the dead in Christ" going to rise if they are already there in Heaven?
Hi Willie,
1 Thessalonians 4:14 "For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so
them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."
2 Corinthians 5
1 For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved,
we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
2 For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven:
3 If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked.
4 For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened: not for that we would be unclothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.
My thinking is this . . .
Being a new creature, this is not just a wispy nothingness, but has spiritual, heavenly, substance. When we die, we leave this body, but still have our substance in the heavenly, which is what I think Paul is talking about when he writes of our being present in the body but absent from the Lord, preferring rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.
I ask myself in what way are we absent from the Lord? He will Never leave us or forsake us.
But we don't see Him. Our walk is by faith, and not by sight.
But when we close our senses here, I believe we will be seeing there, present with the Lord.
At the resurrection, we will again be joined to material bodies, but then redeemed, perfect, immortal.
We are new spirit children of God now, with heavenly existance now, to live accordingly, even while we wait for those redeemed bodies.
Much love!