Isaiah 26:19
"Thy (God's) dead men shall live," (and) "together with My dead body (at the crucifixion)" "shall they (God's dead men) arise." With Him at His resurrection and ascend with Him to the safety and eternal security of the New Jerusalem, the City "whose builder and maker is God".
Note: Read verse 20 in this context.
This was spoken and revealed to the prophet by the Spirit of Christ for clarity and delineation about what He would do when He came into the world, and was crucified!
Let's pray:
Father as we open up our hearts, and minds to You, let Your Spirit of wisdom and testimony with revelation fall upon us, and let us meditate on this verse together, as we expect You to show us wonderful things we never knew before, and will You empower us in a right understanding through the illumination of Your holy Spirit given to us who believe, and through our acknowledgement of Your resurrection, open up the record of Your word and testimony as given to those who love You throughout all the previous generations, and make Yourself known to us through their faithful written record, with greater clarity, as we make every effort to present ourselves to You, and seek Your approval, as You give us an understanding so we will not be ashamed by incorrectly handling Your word, which contributes to many confusions among us, by those who do.
Mighty God through the Spirit of Christ given to us, give us clarity and continuity in the Gospel as You first delivered it to the Apostles, and now also to us through the confirmations of Your Holy Spirit in us! Amen.
The general theme of inform by the prophet in this Chapter and verse, and as we can understand it in light of the crucifixion and recorded instance and progress of Christ's resurrection, is to verify a difference between those who died before, as "God's dead men" and to include all who are grafted into the same holy promise and affirmation, of inclusion for those who would also thereafter the coming of the Lord also "die in Christ," during His millennial thousand years as a day, ministry of salvation from the witness of His own unique resurrection to immortality, and yet endure on earth, before the ending of death, in universal expression.
"God's dead men" being identified in one group of His affirmations of those that "arise", through the gift of Christ, in contrast and contradistinction to another group of those who would be retained in death, hell and the grave, and of those who would thereafter descend to the same after His appearing, to include those who are since that time remanded there, by His glory exalted, and as such are also doubly confirmed to remain there until the final resurrection of all the residue of humanity for the final judgement in the universal expression and greater body of immortality.
Jesus reveals of Himself in John 11:25 that HE IS THE RESSURRECTION, and the ETERNAL LIFE, He thereby affirms His power to sustain "God's dead men" in life, even though they were dead in the body, and raise them up to where He is in His immortal body for safe keeping, in the security of the "City God builds" for them and for us, in faithfulness to every subsequent generation, we also who are His, shall continue to "arise" to Him, throughout our generations to be gathered to Him, as we are being preserved in eternal life through our gathering to Him, even during a momentary absence from the earthly body when we die, as we ascend, and "arise" to Him.
This is the reality as narrated in the verse through the Spirit of prophecy and the truth in the testimony of Jesus Christ, so that as the prophet describes God's faithfulness to them who had passed away before, together with us who die in the Lord from that time forward in preservation of eternal life, whether in the body, or out of the body, and during this present period of thousands of years in transition to the culmination of Christ's Kingdom from heaven, when He will put an end to death all together, then we will all be changed.
For in this verse of inform and revelation, He specifically refers only to His own "body" when referencing how they will arise, "together with My dead body" that is the numbers of His already slain that will arise, at that time when they do arise "together with Him" at that time of Christ's own crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. For no one had ascended, nor could anyone at any time enter into that glorious City, without Him.
He therein also, gives us to understand this particular narrative, is as an intermediary fulfillment in the same blessed hope, which He had spoken of from the beginning, of His promise to give all of us together with them who have gone up before us, at one instance and glorious moment as of the twinkling of the eye, at His preordained shout and command, to be clothed upon evermore with an immortal body in likeness to Jesus in His own immortal body.
It is become historically and practically obvious now, that they must continue to wait even in heaven with Him, still yearning for the superior expression of the body immortal, even as we do so on earth in faith and one Spirit with them, and with Him, while an increasing and innumerable number is being gathered as one people and family, in rejoin to the Lord, and longing to be changed into His likeness.
But neither they, nor we, can be "changed" independently of one another, but rather all together at His glorious and universal command when this mortality "must" put on immortality, and the present heavens and earth be swallowed up completely and irreversibly by the greater expression of immortality as God has revealed to all the prophets and His Apostles, and to the Church. Amen!!!
Let's take a look at Matt 27:52 at this time in our reflections, And the graves were opened; and (the) many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves, after His resurrection and went into the Holy City, and appeared unto many.
So what we can understand from this is, that they who had died before in faith with God, were released from the captivity of death, hell and the grave, by Jesus when He entered the same and opened that prison door to set those captives free, yes, so was that therefore their resurrection bodily, as with His own? Or did they remain wondering around on earth as ghosts? No.
They ascended when He ascended in whatever state of preservation that they are in, like Moses, and Enoch, and Elijah, we don't expect to arise in the "body", until we are changed at His appearing, but rather until then we will arise as they arose, preserved in eternal life, to await the greater body of our redemption and clothing upon with our blessed hope in the body of immortality, so therefore, they are there remained with Him awaiting with Him, until He conquers death over us who are alive and remain, and we are joined together with them, in the consummation and clothing upon all together, with the greater body in the universal expression of immortality.
For at that time past, when He Himself ascended, nobody could ascend without Him, but they went up with Him, as a finite number they could rightly be counted in number with Him, of those who had come before and had ascended up with Him when He did, but the number of us now believing and that are increasing since that time, and arising in glorious formation of that cloud of witnesses arising, so as it is yet increasing so many in each generation from that time forward as with us who are arising daily, and will continue to do so, as long as the present heaven and earth environment is maintained for proliferation of the body in subjection to mortality for the purpose of the increasing, and greater harvest of those that are being born again by receipt of His Spirit and engaging in His testimony until the 1 Cor 15:26 universal putting of an end to all death all together, and at once, when He as the Apostle says, conquers once and for all the last enemy of Christ which is death itself!
This greater numbers of people being saved is therefore biblically spoken of and referenced as an innumerable and growing crowd, of ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, to His greater glory in increase.
So we can understand that no, not even Enoch or Elijah are clothed upon with an immortal body as of yet, but they are gloriously sustained in the same white robe and preservation as afforded to them by Christ, to wait a little bit longer, as God is increasing the inheritance and estate of His only begotten and ever beloved Son, through our preservation and that of all who are being grafted into the Israel of God, and "arising" to the City of His delight, in the heavens to await of all the rest of us who are alive and remain to His coming, and as the first fruits to arise without the body, they shall be last, and the last who are alive and remain to that moment in the body, shall be the first clothed upon with the immortal body in likeness to Jesus own glorious and Immortal body as the firstborn of many brethren. Amen!
The truth of this is demonstrated at that time when Moses and Elijah were conversing with Jesus on the mountain of His glorious transfiguration in light, for there is revealed in His light, one man who died, and another who never died in the same state of preservation in the light of Jesus Christ and for His greater glory alone among all humanity He is the Lord Immortal! Amen!
We can discern by the gospel and historic witness of His testimony, and His present estate arisen and exalted in the body of His Immortality, and our current state of dependency on the current environment for sustainment of the body in mortality, this verse in Isaiah 26:19 does not signify, and describe the whole fulfillment of His promise to resurrection, and redemption of the "body" to immortality at the end, but rather a faithful gathering of those that had come before Him, as arising with Him to the city of His preordained enthronement Immortal in heaven.
Many writers in addressing these verses fail to make the distinction, and therefore fail to understand the situational changes that occurred in His promise, for all who had ever died before and would thereafter die bodily, that Christ made in giving them placement with Him in heaven and universal order to the establishment of His Kingdom from heaven, that was irreversibly initiated, at Jesus own death resurrection and ascension to the New Jerusalem, while also retaining the present heavens and earth in sustain of procreation and death in the body, as reserved by His word given to Enoch, and Noah, for the destruction of the wicked, and the progress of the greatest harvest of every human being ever created, from Adam, to the final shout and command to universal expression in immortality.
So that Jesus Himself and all that He does between His own resurrection and that moment can rightly be understood, as the 'first' resurrection, but not the final resurrection. At the final resurrection every person ever created and having died will be resurrected. Those who have arisen in the interim, and those who are changed without ever dying have taken part in the 'first' resurrection, both of those who had died and ascended to Him in gathering, and those who will never die, do not need to be "resurrected" but all will be "changed" because those who are gathered to Him whether before or at that time, will "ever be with the Lord" and changed into His likeness. They will never experience the 'second death', that takes place in the universal expression of immortality, when all that are in death, hell and the grave as separated from the Lord, will be judged and thrown bodily into the lake of fire.
In order for them to be thrown bodily into the flame, they have to have been resurrected first.
At the end there will be a fulfillment of the promise that is our "blessed hope" as Paul the
Apostle aptly apprises us, that glorious and unmistakable moment, is yet ahead of us. For as He says "now do we have faith, HOPE, and love".
What is our blessed hope as Paul delineates it throughout his teaching, and why is it
already "blessed", it is hope because we are not yet changed to the body of Immortality
it is blessed through the resurrection of Christ Himself already Immortal, as the firstborn
among many who are called brothers in Him.
Redemption in the body to immortality, as he defines it is in context of Christ's final
command to end all death in universal expression. 1 Cor 15:26
And he declares the "mystery" that we will not "all die" as in separation from the mortal body
by death of the body, but we will "all be changed" and those of us who are alive and remain will never die in the body at all, but will rather be changed through participation and partnership in the resurrection of Christ first Himself, and then every other man at His command!
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