Because his physical body was not alive!
Dear rwb,
Concerning life after death and the bodily resurrection, there is not much more I can present from scripture. I will respond briefly to some of your last comments though.
You said:
How will those who have died return with Christ from heaven physically since mortal flesh & blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God? It is the spiritual body of believers in heaven that have physically died in Christ that will return with Christ. Then our physical flesh also shall be resurrected, no longer mortal & corruptible, but immortal and incorruptible, made alive again through the spirit that returns with Christ.
Have you not read 1Corithinians chapter 15? It contradicts your statements above.
When the bodily resurrection occurs, those who are converted, will receive a
spiritual body and rise from the grave. They receive a spiritual body because flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of Heaven. This spiritual body will be similar to the one Christ displayed when He appeared to the Apostles after He was resurrected.
As for the "order" of the resurrection, the dead in Christ will be resurrected first and then those who are alive and remain, will rise and join them in the air.
1Thes 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
As for how much time passes between the two events, scripture does not say but it cannot be very long because those who remain must be resurrected before they have time to physically die.
Why do you believe that when a person's spirit returns to God that their spirit is
already in a spiritual body? There is no scripture that teaches this understanding. If your belief were true, there would be no need for a saved person to experience the bodily resurrection from the grave because they would already have a spiritual body.
I have thoroughly explained
from scripture the truth of when a believer receives life after they die. They receive it when the bodily resurrection from the grave occurs at the end of this age. Since you cannot receive that truth from the scripture I have presented, there is no reason to discuss this subject any further.
You said:
Early and latter rain are of the harvest of the souls that are eternally saved through Christ. The early rain comes for whosoever physically dies in Christ when we are raised a spiritual body to heaven. The latter rain shall come for all who have lived and died in Christ (believers), as well as for all believers who are still alive at His second coming, when our spirit gives physical immortal life to our new body of flesh & bone. In the final harvest (latter rain) we shall once again be as we were in the beginning when God created man with body + spirit and they became complete living souls. Only then we shall never grow sick, or old, and we will never again die.
Where are the scriptures that say the Early and Latter Rain is a harvest of souls? I know of none.
In the farming analogy, it is the Early and Latter Rains which
causes the wheat (the Elect) to grow and be ready for harvest into the Kingdom of Heaven. The time of the harvest occurs just after the Latter Rain is poured out on a believer. With the Latter Rain, the believer's spiritual blindness is healed, which in turn, causes Christ to appear to them. When Christ appears, the Day of the Lord will commence. But because the believer is now "blameless",
they will not experience wrath during their time of judgment. Instead, they will reign with Christ during their own judgment as shown in the last half of Revelation chapter 19.
Also, the second coming of Christ is when Christ "comes again" to a believer who has only received the Early Rain of the Spirit. When Christ comes the second time, He pours out the Latter Rain of the Spirit upon the believer for their salvation.
Because the second coming of Christ happens to all the Elect during their lifetime, the second coming of Christ must be a
re-occurring event and that is exactly what these verses below teach:
Rev 1:4 John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne...
Rev 1:8 I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.
Scripture also says that Christ will "come quickly" to His Elect because if He didn't come to each of them before they die, they would not be saved:
Rev 22:20 He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.
You said that you believe that Mat 24:34 is referring to all the Elect - that they are the generation who will not pass away until all the things listed in chapter 24 come to pass.
Mat 24:33 So likewise ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors. 34 Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled.
"All these things" include the second coming of Christ which is shown in verses 29-30:
Mat 24:29 Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: 30 And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.
After a believer is given the Latter Rain, their sun and moon will be darkened. This means that because their spiritual blindness has been healed, they will no longer be receiving their "truth" from Satan (the natural sun) or from their carnal nature (the natural moon). They will now receive truth only from Christ (the spiritual Sun) and their new spiritual nature of the Holy Spirit (the New Moon).
When Christ "came again" to Peter on the Day of Pentecost and poured out the Latter Rain on him, Peter made a similar statement about the sun and moon:
Acts 2:17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams: 18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy: 19 And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke: 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, BEFORE the great and notable Day of the Lord come: 21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Mat 24:29-30 and Acts 2:14-21 are describing the same event. That event is the second coming of Christ and is when a believer will call on the name of the Lord and be saved (v. 21 above). This event is the moment of salvation for a believer. It is called the First Resurrection (the spiritual resurrection). Immediately after the spiritual resurrection, the "great and notable Day of the Lord" (judgment) will follow. After the Elect believer's judgment is complete, they will be converted. It all happens very quickly - just as it did to the Apostles on the Day of Pentecost.
You said:
This is NOT truth! Christ did indeed come to save all of His creation, but the atoning blood of Christ will only benefit whosoever among the mass of humanity that shall believe on Christ through the power of His Spirit shall be eternally saved.
As I have pointed out, belief (faith) in Christ comes ONLY after a person has been given the free gift of the Spirit by Christ. You even quoted a verse that says a person's faith is a fruit of the Spirit.
From your statement above, I can see that you are mixing in your own "works" with faith so as to make yourself worthy of salvation and why others are not worthy. When a believer does this mixing of the Old and New Covenants, they are committing the sin that leads to death. This is the deception of Satan's "another gospel" by which he kills the saints. This is why all Ten Virgins are shown to be sleeping at night and why Paul could not eat or drink of the New Covenant of Christ while he lay blind in Damascus for three days. Since the time Paul wrote his first letter to Timothy, the pathway to salvation has included a time of falling away for
all new believers.
No one can avoid it. But because of the grace of God, Christ will come to all mankind someday (a time of His choosing) and give them the free gift of salvation:
Rom 5:15 But shall not the act of favour be as the offence? For if by the offence of one (Adam) the many have died, much rather has the grace of God, and the free gift in grace, which is by the one man Jesus Christ, abounded unto the many.
I would comment more on this subject but available space in this post is running out.
Joe