Who Are the Dead In Christ?
So I was reading the article on the state of the dead. It makes sense, but doesn’t seem to answer the question: who are the dead in Christ that are resurrected at Christ’s second coming, if we go to heaven when we die? That is what keeps me confused.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: The dead in Christ are those who have believed in the Lord Jesus and His finished work of atonement for the forgiveness of their sins. When believers die, they go immediately into the presence of the Lord. As our pastor Gary Inrig says, our connection with Christ when we have been born again is stronger than death. Death cannot separate us from Him.
Humans have two parts: material (the literal body), and the immaterial (spirit and soul). The Bible speaks of both spirit and soul, so we cannot argue that the two are identical, but the Bible doesn’t describe these parts clearly. (For example, see Hebrews 4:12,13.) So, for the sake of discussion from our limited, time-bound perspective, we will just speak of the two parts of humanity: material and immaterial. The spirit and soul are clearly, on the basis of Hebrews 4:12–13, very closely connected—so closely that we cannot tease them apart; only God’s word can separate them. So we will speak of material and immaterial.
We also know, on the basis of 2 Corinthians 5:1–9, that when we die, our true identities are “unclothed”. The immaterial part of us, therefore, is separated from the material. It is the immaterial part of us that goes to the Father. This is expressed in verse 8 where Paul says that we “prefer rather to be absent from the body and present with the Lord.” So it is not our whole person—body and spirit—that goes to God; it is just our immaterial part, the identity and the spirit that knows the Lord.
The resurrection is about uniting our bodies back with our spirits. God created humans to be composed of both material and immaterial parts; this fact was demonstrated by the Lord Jesus when He became incarnate in a human body. When He hung on the cross and cried, “Into Your hands I commit my spirit,” He breathed His last, and He died. His body was buried, and His immaterial spirit went to the Father. He was with the thief in Paradise that day just as He had said He would be!
When He arose on Sunday, God gave Him a resurrected body that is eternal, and His eternally living spirit came back into His body. We can know that our deaths and resurrections will be like Jesus’s death and resurrection. He showed us what to expect.
Humans are not human if they’re merely spirits. We have to be body and spirit united. Death is a temporary separation of the body and the spirit, but during our deaths, we can know that our Lord will keep our spirits in Him. When we are indwelled by the Holy Spirit, that uniting is eternal. He will NEVER leave us, and even death cannot separate us from His love (Rom 8). Our immaterial selves, our identities and our knowledge of Him, are eternally alive, and even in death we are hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:3). Death doesn’t break our spiritual, literal connection with Him. But we aren’t complete without bodies, and His promise is that He will make us completely new. Our born-again spirits will be united with our new, glorified, resurrected bodies that will never die.
In our resurrection we will become the eternal, full humans that the Lord’s atonement purchased for us!
To What Old Testament Sacrifice Does Hebrews 7 Correspond?
In Hebrews 7:27 Paul says that Jesus “…does not need daily” to offer sacrifices for sins. Paul goes on to say, “first for his own sins and then for the people’s.”
Is it safe to conclude that this “daily” that Paul mentions refers to the sin offerings, and that the blood of them is taken into the tabernacle of meeting and sprinkled on the veil? Is this “daily” the sin offering described in Leviticus 4 as opposed to the “daily” which includes burnt offerings for evening, and grain offerings for morning (Ex. 29:38-47)? It appears that the blood from the lambs described in Leviticus 1 and 2 is not taken into the tabernacle of meeting.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Hebrews 7:26, 27 refers to all the sacrifices that the priests always offered throughout the year. Their offerings were endless, and they included sin offerings for themselves, guilt offerings, thank offerings, peace offerings, and daily morning and evening offerings. The priests had to do them all, and they had to offer sacrifices for their own sins before they could launch into sacrificing for the people.
This passage is saying that Christ’s sacrifice of Himself is superior to ALL the sacrifices that the priests had to offer day in and day out, year in and year out—including the daily offerings for a continual burnt offering before the Lord.
This verse can’t be specifically linked to a single type of OT sacrifice because the writer is making a point of saying Christ’s sacrifice is better than ALL of those endless sacrifices.
The sin offerings in Leviticus 4, by the way, did not have blood sprinkled ON the veil but IN FRONT OF the veil. The yearly Day of Atonement sacrifice had blood sprinkled in front of and ON the mercy seat inside the Holy of Holies. Now, I’m sure blood got on that veil, for sure…but Leviticus 4 states that it was to be sprinkled in front of the veil.
Adventists have twisted Hebrews terribly by forcing it to have direct application to various OT rituals, but when Jesus came and fulfilled the law, including all the sacrifices, we see that He Himself did IN HIMSELF what every different sacrifice foreshadowed. No single shadow could encompass and foreshadow all of Jesus’ fulfillment.
So in Hebrews 7:26, 27, we see the author making the point that Jesus was so superior to the levitical priests that every single sacrifice was fulfilled IN HIM: the daily sacrifices, the sin offerings, the guilt offerings, the thank offerings, the peace offerings, the Day of Atonement offering.
In order to help an Adventist understand that Jesus’s single sacrifice replaced ALL the Old Testament sacrifices and that there wasn’t just a one-to-one correlation, one has to read the entire chapter of Hebrews 7. The author is making the point that Jesus’s priesthood is completely different from that of the levites. His priesthood correlates to that of Melchizedek who was a king and priest of God BEFORE there was a law! Jesus has a superior priesthood, and His Sacrifice is superior in every way to the levitical sacrifices.
Further, Hebrews 7:26, 27 makes even more sense if you look at Exodus 29:36–42 where the daily sacrifices required to consecrate Aaron and his sons to the priesthood are described. Before they could offer any sacrifices at all, they had to be consecrated to God by a series of daily sacrifices.
Jesus had no personal sin and thus did not have to offer any daily sacrifices for His purification. Rather, He sacrificed Himself once for all, and His eternal, superior priesthood according to the order of Melchizedek rendered all those levitical sacrifices—every one of them—obsolete!
Because Jesus came and fulfilled the law, no levitical priest has to offer up any more sacrifices at all!! Their jobs are obsolete because Jesus has come and has fulfilled the meanings and shadows of each different sacrifice.
The OT priests had to offer sacrifices every single day, both the morning and evening ones as well as all the sin offerings people brought…and so on. Hebrews 7 is telling us that they don’t have to offer any more sacrifices because Jesus’s blood is sufficient. His is the eternal, once-for-all sacrifice that completely satisfies God’s requirements and fulfills ALL the shadows!
I’m Confused About the End Times
Thank you so much for the work that you are doing in sharing the ways in which Adventism has the gospel of Jesus Christ wrong in many ways. I found your podcast when I randomly came across the Cultish podcast and heard you two for the first time. I’ve been listening for over a year.
I’m writing because I’ve listened to your messages in the past on Revelation, the state of the dead, the rapture, and your views on eschatology. I’m also apart of a Bible-believing church that believes as you do, but I’m still confused in understanding the order of everything.
Here are a few questions
1. From what I’m understanding, when a believer dies, their spirit goes to Heaven, correct? Then, when the rapture occurs, those saints on earth are caught up. Are they caught up and given their glorified bodies in that moment? Do the saints who die with Christ come back with Him in the rapture and get their glorified bodies then too?
2. What are the saved doing during the tribulation? Are they in heaven? Are we aware of what’s going on in the tribulation?
3. Is there a chart that shows the order of events from the rapture until the new heaven and new earth? I feel like I need a visual to better understand all the events.
Any information would be greatly appreciated.
—VIA EMAIL
Response: Thank you for writing! I so understand the somewhat dizzying worldview changes that occur when we start to take apart our Adventist worldview and rebuild biblical truth into our minds. It is a very hard thing to go through—but so, so rewarding.
Now to address your questions:
1. You are understanding this the way we see it in Scripture. Here’s what 1 Thessalonians 4:13–18 says:
But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of [the] archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1Th 4:13-18 LSB)
What Paul is saying is this: God will bring WITH JESUS those who have fallen asleep in Him. In other words, He brings the spirits of those who have been asleep in Him back with Jesus. I never noticed this detail as an Adventist!
Then Paul says that those who are alive when He comes will not precede the dead in being glorified and untied personally with Jesus. So when Jesus descends, bringing with Him the spirits of those who were asleep in Him, announced by the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, then the dead in Christ—whose spirits are there with Jesus—rise first. They are resurrected, and instantaneously their spirits are united with their glorified bodies! At the same time those who are alive will be caught up and glorified together with the resurrected saints. Thus the dead and the living will be glorified together and caught up with Jesus in the air, and we will be with Him forever!
2. We are not told much about what the saved are doing during the tribulation. We know we will be with Jesus where He is. Revelation 19 tells us that we will celebrate the marriage supper of the Lamb with Him, and that event is described just before the Lord Jesus comes to judge His enemies. As to what we know—we aren’t told, but we can infer from the account of the souls under the altar in chapter 6 asking, “How long, Oh Lord?” that those in heaven have some knowledge of what is going on. It makes sense that we will, because our connection with the Lord Jesus is intimate and eternal when we are in Him. One thing I’m sure of is that from our perspective of being glorified with Him, earthly things will look different than they look to us here. We will see from the perspective of eternity.
3. I do not have a chart showing the events, but I have seen some. My problem with a chart (at this point in my understanding) is that there is just enough lack of clarity about the timing of events that I don’t feel I can be dogmatic enough to establish a “for sure” sequence. My understanding is that the rapture will take the church out of the world before God’s wrath is poured out. It seems that the seven years of the tribulation (a time-frame repeated in various places in Daniel 9 and also in Revelation) will begin with the appearance of the antichrist. He will make peace, but he will break that peace halfway through, and the last 3 1/2 years will be marked by dreadful destruction and suffering in the world and especially in Israel. The church will be taken out, it appears to me, before the antichrist is revealed. This timeframe is established on the basis of those seven years being the commencement of the 70th week described in Daniel 9 that was cut off from the first 69. This will be the time that God’s plan will again focus on Israel, and the time of the gentiles and the “church age” will be ended.
You might enjoy listening to our Daniel series of podcasts as well; we also review Daniel 9 in our Revelation series, if you are listening to that. We review Daniel 9 right before we discuss Revelation 12:1–5. The more I read these prophecies, the more clear they appear to be. It’s quite remarkable!
Even though there are details we don’t know about when and how these events will transpire, we can know this: God does not trick us, and His word will come true. The reality of things will make sense to us as they occur; I believe that prophecy is God’s mercy to us so that, when world events seem overwhelming and threatening, we can know that the Lord is not surprised, and He He has us securely in His hands. He doesn’t tell us enough for us to predict the future; He reveals just enough so that, as things occur, we can see Him at work and know what is happening. The point in all of this is NOT to know the details of the future but to know absolutely that we can trust Him. †
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