Timtofly
Well-Known Member
They were not martyred. No verse claims that. Was Jesus martyred on the Cross, by the Jews and Romans so humans could have salvation?Well, that's not why they were killed. They were martyred, Timtofly, because of their witness of Jesus. Yes, they witnessed of Jesus because they were spiritually alive, but they were not killed because of being alive in the spirit. It's right there in the text you quoted.
Was it God's plan even before Genesis 1:1?
It was also God's plan that at a certain point, some humans would choose between their head and the mark.
Both you and the other poster are wrong about their spiritual condition at the point their head was severed from their body. They were never born again. They never reigned with Christ prior to chopping off their head. The beheading was their second birth. They did that in faith. They refused the mark, and chose to loose their head instead.
They had to stand in judgment to determine if they received the first resurrection. They were granted the first resurrection after the judgment, not prior to them physically dying.
You really have to change every Scripture verse in God's Word to make Amil believable.
The first birth is physical. The first death is physical. The first resurrection is physical because it restores life after physical death. That principle cannot be refuted by any means. You have to change reality itself to make it something other than what first means in Scripture.
Jesus flipped the understanding of Nicodemus around, not reality. The second birth was always a reality, but was the faith part of Abraham's spiritual inheritance passed down. The Law was all about the physical aspect of a spiritual type. The second birth is still a type of resurrection but not the resurrection of what is physical.
And yes, all those in Christ in Paradise are seated physically in heavenly places. Just like they have been physically serving in that heavenly temple, day and night, since 30AD. What has not happened is the complete restoration of spirit with soul and body.
Prior to the Cross, the soul was alone in Abraham's bosom, the valley of the shadow of death. No permanent incorruptible physical body. After the Cross the physical resurrection was then an ongoing phenomenon both soul and body enjoying Paradise.
They will be raptured, caught up from Paradise just the same as those on earth, and the meeting place is in the air between heaven and earth. More verses point to their rapture from Paradise than from the living although in death on the earth. The truth of the matter is that those on earth are physically dead, being mortal, more so than those in Paradise.
The final step is the restoration of the spirit. Then Adam will be restored soul, body, and spirit. Now a complete son of God. The Holy Spirit only seals the soul, who we are. This body of death is not sealed. This body returns to dust. The spirit is waiting as part of the heavenly host. If you had your spirit, you would be a son of God, and have no need of salvation. The spirit is not dead. You are spiritually separated from the point of being a son of God.
Your soul born of the second birth is not given life, since it already had life. It is sealed of the Holy Spirit and should be now submitted to the will of the Holy Spirit. It is then at enmity with your physical body. That flesh has to be crucified daily, so in a sense the physical Law of Moses must continue, but without the outward show of the flesh with the sacrifice of bulls and burnt offerings. There is no longer an earthly priest standing between you and God, but Jesus as the high priest as your advocate with the Father.
So at physical death, the soul no longer has to be sealed but is redeemed, and enters the permanent incorruptible physical body in Paradise given by God like the original body came from God on the 6th day. No longer Adam's image of flesh passed down from generation to generation. 2 Corinthians 5:1. That still leaves the restoration of the spirit for the moment of the Second Coming. 1 John 3:2, Revelation 6:11, and 1 Corinthians 15:52-54.
And this is still pre-trib. Based on the point those glorified must wait until all the rest of the living on earth shed Adam's dead corruptible flesh. It states it right there:
"should rest yet for a little season, until their fellowservants also and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be fulfilled"
This does not mean saved people were left on earth. It means dead people in Adam's dead state still had to shed that dead state to allow them to be fellow servants and brethren. Those in Abraham's bosom had to wait thousands of years for the Cross. They were waiting for their fellowservants and brethren not even born yet. Not in the sense these people were left behind. At the Cross, Paradise was opened, and a permanent incorruptible physical body made available. They have still waited for thousands of years for their fellowservants and brethren. Is that picture of waiting that hard to discern? Now at the Second Coming, they still must wait a little season. The time of Jacob's trouble when Israel is restored as God promised. That restoration has been waiting since 720BC. That is who are the fellowservants and brethren, during this little season, that starts at the 5th Seal.
It is not that souls have been left behind for thousands of years. It is the point that humans on earth still have the opportunity to be redeemed. Those on the earth make up this restoration, so earth can be subdued. The church was already complete, and no one enters the church after the 5th Seal. The church on earth is not relatable, after all things are restored. No one passes sin and death on to the next generation. But all humanity are fellow heirs of the redemption of the Cross. That is the only means of restoring Adam's disobedience.