Jesus was raised up in his old body. But at the general resurrection we will *not* be a raising up in our old body.
His old body was different if you notice after Hr arose from the dead, just as we will be changed. The old body is part of it but we are changed!
Many will have been cremated, and the elements/ash will have been used and reused over the course of many years. Scattered elements cannot be reassembled, since as elements they can be reused by multiple bodies in their basic elemental forms.
Irrelevant! God keeps the books and knows where to find enough of us to raise us up. It reminds me of an old movie called Starman.
(starting about after the 1:15 sec point)
"Raising us from the dead" will be a restoration of the person to a body, but not to the old body. It will be to a new body.
Not TO an old body FROM an old body. We are changed. Immortal. Incorruptible
Being "raised up" is a metaphorical description of a person coming back from the dead, his spirit being restored to bodily form, even if an entirely new body. The "1st Resurrection" involves not the resuscitation of the old body, but rather, the restoration of the person to an entirely new body.
No I don't think so.
It also reminds me of something I heard long ago that the Hari Chrisnia supposedly believed. Apparently I was told that they think that some sort of angel or spirit comes at some point in their life when they are unaware and takes on hair! Ha. These days with DNA even mankind is aware that DNA holds a lot of info. Imagine what God knows and can use! Whether it is an atom or atoms that somehow remain from us somewhere, DNA, or...whatever He is absolutely able to raise us up and then also change us into a new forever body like He has as well! That is what He is going to do. It doesn't matter that the harichristna thing is just a myth, it gives the idea a little bit what God could actually do.
The dead in Christ on earth will rise first! Whatever is left of their dead bodies and He knows there is enough for each believer that ever died! It matters not at all if it is some bit too small to be detected by the human eye or there is a whole newly dead body!!
Don't try to work out the logistical problems. We cannot engineer a trip to heaven, and a trip back to earth by plane! or by any other form of flight that we know about.
We don't have to know how He opens heaven and comes back to earth with us. His ways are higher than our ways. WE do need to know He will do some things though, not how.
This has been your whole problem from the beginning--trying to figure out how we can be on earth one minute, and then appear on earth in the clouds the next second. It all takes place, ie our Rapture and Immortalization "all stuffed into a burrito!"
No. Being raised in an instant is not any issue or problem whatsoever. My issue with the yo yo philosophy is that they have us doing what the bible says we will no do. That is go through that period of wrath. Then they ignore the glories of spending several years in heaven with Jesus after that, as He promised we would go where He is and that He prepared a PLACE for us. Then they ignore all the reunions in heaven with mothers and fathers and friends and meeting bible heros and having Jesus pass out rewards and crowns etc. Then they ignore the wonderful marriage ceremony and how we are His bride and people forever. Then they try to make it sound like that supper takes place in a festering smelly death filled body filled middle east where birds are eating the dead flesh and men have to cover their noses to be there! They also neglect the reason Jesus is coming to mete out vengeance at last on the wicked and take over planet earth forever and rule with us. And on it goes.
Jesus appears in heaven with all his saints.
In your yo yo theory it is NOT all the saints. There are plenty of dead and living ones one earth still!
By "appearing in heaven" I mean that somehow this is a sign appearing in the sky--Jesus with all of his saints. I don't honestly know what this means, because the description says it is like lightning.
It is what it is.
It may just be a bright light indicating the administration of the world has changed from Satan to Christ. Don't try to figure out the logistics, as I said--it won't be possible.
Ha. No. He is really coming and so are we and they will see Him! Every eye on the planet!
We are told we won't suffer wrath, which refers to *eternal judgment.* That is, the Saved will not suffer Damnation.
Psalm 2:2 The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying,
3 Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.
4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision.
5 Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure.
That is talking about the time He takes over and smites the nations.
14 The great day of the Lord is near, it is near, and hasteth greatly, even the voice of the day of the Lord: the mighty man shall cry there bitterly.
15 That day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble and distress, a day of wasteness and desolation, a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness,
That is the specific time known as the time of anger and wrath and vengeance etc.
The "wrath" we are saved from does not refer to a "Period of Wrath," which is what Pretribbers say the Reign of Antichrist is. The book of Revelation goes to great lengths to show that Antichrist will be judged. With all of the detail it is thought by Pretribbers that the entire Reign of Antichrist is a "period of wrath."
Of course we are spared from hell. We are also spared from that time of indignation and anger and wrath. For it is the wrath of God. You wouldn't say 'God spares you from 14 rooms in hell, but you will get burned in room number 24.
But it isn't. The reign of Antichrist certainly is a problem for the saints, who suffer persecution.
Not the Bride/church saints!
And certainly God will not bless the earth for following the Antichrist. But for the most part, it is at the end of the reign of Antichrist that God's wrath is poured out.
The worst of it. The whole thing is wrath. When Babylon is destroyed that is wrath. The vials, they are all wrath.
Revelation 15:1
And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God.
Jesus has still not returned when the vials are poured out. So what are you going to do with that? Are you going to say, well, I guess the Rapture must be just before the vials toward the end of that seven years before He returns? Either that or you must have us going through the wrath of God! Which is it? The case that the whole seven years is His anger and wrath is not hard to make. If all you demand is a verse using the word wrath in it, well, as stated, there is the one I posted. Are we appointed to that?
This final battle, termed "Armageddon," will undoubtedly kill a lot of saints. But they will not thereby be suffering "God's wrath." Rather, they will be innocent casualties in a battle between God and Satan.
I am not sure. I won't debate that point. I would have to look closer at it. My first thoughts on the matter are that He may take up all the believers like He took us up years before at the Rapture! Take out His ambassadors before the war so to speak. But I think it is more of a trap! God wants those wicked to be in one place. He allowed those frog like demons to gather them there. How is that really a war? It will be a slaughter! Not like they ever had any hope whatsoever of fighting Almighty God! They may have been deluded enough to think they did, but that doesn't weigh into the 'battle' at all. I can just see their face when maybe they suddenly realize that all the believers they hoped to murder en masse before trying to fight God have all disappeared! Maybe they had noted huge migrations of vulture and eagles etc before this. God had ordered all the birds to go to that area already! This is the supper God prepared for them.
