I am tending towards Ray’s explanation of the physical resurrection of unbelievers from what he says in the following:
…those who are spared death at the conclusion of this eon and will live on into the reign of Jesus Christ with their physical bodies, will not be outdone by the wicked who are raised from their graves. There will not be two communities of non-believers being judged—one in physical bodies, and those among the worst of humanity that have ever lived, being in beautiful, glorious, powerful, incorruptible, SPIRITUAL bodies.
That makes perfect sense to me. That said, I don’t believe Ezekiel 37 can be used to substantiate this. (And yes, what I say below is only my interpretation, just as Marques and Joe have their interpretation, so take it as you will).
Let me begin by asking, does anyone here believe that the things spoken of in Revelation are literal events that John was seeing? Well, of course not, because:
1. John was seeing a vision while being in the Spirit
2. it is told to us that the revelation is signified, that is, told in signs and symbols, by Jesus to his servant John
Now, if we had not been informed that the book had been signified, would anyone here still believe that the great whore was literally a gaudily dressed woman prancing around the earth on a great red dragon, or for that matter, that the great seven headed beast was literally a great monster with seven heads and ten horns occasionally rising up out of the ocean like Nessie at Loch Ness? I’ll take a chance and say no. You’d probably still believe these images were symbolic or metaphoric simply because it said that John was in the Spirit seeing these things in vision.
So then why are some taking Ezekiel 37, where the chapter clearly begins…
Ezekiel 37:1 The hand of the LORD was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the LORD…,
…to be not symbolic or metaphoric, but something literal, as in literal bodies being resurrected from the earth? Yes, God does say He will bring them up out of their graves, but when we first see these bones they're not in graves, but lying all jumbled together in a valley. What valley could this be? Perhaps the valley of the shadow of death? What I mean is: true, there are no “spiritual matches” as Marques said for tendons and muscles and such being put onto bones anywhere else in Scripture, but do "spiritual matches" have to necessarily include the exact words that are used in whatever vision one is talking about? What about "spiritual matches" that include similiar ideas or similiar visions?
What I mean is that it is not unlike God to give multiple visions or explanations to people to explain exactly the same event. So what if we read the rest of that same chapter? The latter half of Ezekiel 37 describes the Lord telling Ezekiel to take two sticks, one for the House of Judah and one for the House of Israel, and put them together to make one stick. In this way, the Lord will rejoin the whole house of Israel that was split during the time of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, by bringing the two houses, both cut off from God and scattered throughout the nations - being essentially dead - into the land He had promised Abraham and make them one nation.
Ezekiel 37:19 Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim…even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand.
Ezekiel 37:21ff Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen (nations), whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all
This is exactly what can be seen in metaphoric language in Ezekial 37:12.
Ezekial 37:12 Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, O my people, I will open your graves, and cause you to come up out of your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel.
The kingdom of the House of Israel, which ceased to exist after God scattered them among the worldly nations after the Assyrian captivity and gave them a writ of divorce, was to be brought back together with the kingdom of the House of Judah, which mostly disappeared after the Babylonian captivity and then ceased to exist totally after the destruction of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and become one nation again as it was under the reign of the blessed king David. This time they would have the Christ as their king, who is symbolized in this passage by David.
Ezekiel 37:24-25 And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd…and my servant David shall be their prince for ever.
Now, if we look in the chapter before, chapter 36, we have another description of this same event.
Ezekiel 36:24ff For I will take you from among the heathen (nations), and gather you out of all countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my people, and I will be your God.
The whole nation of Israel was dead, spiritually dead as is described by the heart of stone. But the Lord would revive them spiritually by giving them a heart of flesh, and the entire nation would be resurrected when God would bring them back into the land that God had promised their fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. In fact, God describes this resurrection of national Israel in verse 35-36.
Ezekiel 36:35ff And they shall say, This land that was desolate is become like the garden of Eden; and the waste and desolate and ruined cities are become fenced, and are inhabited. Then the heathen (nations) that are left round about you shall know that I the LORD build the ruined places, and plant that that was desolate: I the LORD have spoken it, and I will do it.
Has any of this happened yet? I don’t think so. Anyone who says that the nation of Israel founded in 1948 is absolute fulfillment of these visions given to Ezekiel hasn’t really read them very well. Hardly any of the Jewish people in Palestine accept Jesus as their Messiah so therefore their hearts are still as stony as the hearts of the Pharisees in the first century.
However, I do think that the process has started, and it started at the first appearing of our Lord on the earth. Here is what Jesus says in John 5:25.
John 5:25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.
The dead He's talking about here aren't physically dead people, but spiritually dead people. The words of Jesus were, even at that time, and are, continuing even to today, resurrecting the spiritually dead with hearts of stone and replacing them with hearts of flesh, able to see and understand what God is doing with His chosen people and with all the nations of the earth.
Ezekiel 37 is a description of the resurrection of the nation of Israel to the land promised to them (the New Jerusalem?) sometime before, during, after (I don’t know) the return of our Lord, not a description of the individual resurrection of people at the last day to reward and judgment. Yes, if we look at Ezekiel 37:1-14 all by themselves, it’s easy to come up with the latter explanation. But when taken along with the rest of what God is showing Ezekiel, I think that that explanation has a few flaws.
God bless,
Eric
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Topic: Physical Bodies at ressurrection (Read 23052 times)