When Jesus came He found this world a cemetery — all were dead. To these dead men Jesus announced, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation (judgment); but is passed from death unto life. 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” (Jn. 5:24-25). It should be obvious to every enlightened mind that Jesus was not talking here about the resurrection of dead bodies out of the cemetery, for that would mean that not one dead person in the past two thousand years has heard the voice of the Son of God and lived! He spake of the resurrection of souls that were dead in trespasses and in sins, dead to God — unresponsive to spiritual things and the spiritual realm.
Yet there are millions of earnest believers who know that they have been made alive in Christ, but who would invent still another physical resurrection to take place at some future date which they term “the FIRST RESURRECTION!” “First” infers that there could not be any other before it. In his wonderful revelation of the powers and realities of the kingdom of God John saw thrones, and sitting on them he saw the “souls” of those to whom authority was given to act as judges. These were also the “souls” of them that were beheaded (died to SELF) because of the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands, and THEY LIVED and reigned with Christ a thousand years. And then he adds: “THIS is the first resurrection.”
Perhaps the indignation of some will be aroused because of this statement, but if you carefully scrutinize the statements above surrounding this “first resurrection,” you will be forced to agree that this passage is not even dealing with a first “bodily” resurrection at all, for John sees souls, not bodies. True, the term “souls” at times in scripture denotes “people” or “persons,” that is, the entire being, spirit, soul and body. An example of this is found in passages like Genesis 46:26-27 wherein we read, “All the souls that came with Jacob into Egypt, which came out of his loins, besides Jacob’s sons’ wives, all the souls were threescore and six; and the sons of Joseph, which were born him in Egypt, were two souls: all the souls of the house of Jacob, which came into Egypt, were threescore and ten.” But in this case you can substitute the term “people” for “souls” all through the passage. Try it and see! Now try the same method with our text. Here in Revelation 20:4 you cannot do so! The phrase is, “the souls of them…” The only word in that phrase for which you can substitute the word “people” is “them.” “The souls of the people that were beheaded…” You cannot grammatically substitute the word “people” for “souls.” So John is not seeing people, he is seeing peoples’ souls, and these souls had been made alive, caught up to the throne, and were now capable of judging and reigning with Christ for a thousand years — in the illumination and glory and power of the day of the Lord! Isn’t it wonderful!
The fact of the soul’s living and reigning with Christ in heavenly glory and power being called the first resurrection is not difficult to understand. Every child of God has a soul as well as a body. The soul first experiences God’s transforming love and power: it is raised first, here in this present life for the elect of the Lord, and the soul’s union with the spirit is the harbinger of that resurrection yet to come when even our vile body shall be changed that it may be fashioned like unto HIS GLORIOUS BODY! For some years now the Spirit has been speaking to many of God’s called and chosen elect that it is now time for a people to lay hold upon and apprehend even this bodily transformation — resurrection. And during this same time the Lord has been preparing us for just such a glory — transforming our souls, bringing forth souls that are adapted and equipped to express themselves through such a body of glory as mature sons of God — souls that have been fully saved, fully redeemed, fully quickened, fully purified, fully transformed, fully made overcomers, brought into union with the spirit, raised up out of the dust of the death realm and made to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus! Oh, yes, I know something about that! This is not doctrine, theory, or conjecture, my beloved brother, sister, but a present and powerful and living reality that God is working in my life, and in your life! This is the power of the first resurrection! Any other kind of resurrection must take place at a later time, in another order, and as the result of this first one! That is the mystery.
The first resurrection is just one of many events revealed in the book of Revelation. This is not a book of outer world events but it contains the keys to inner spiritual events that will uncover Christ — Head and body. Revelation is really another “gospel” written in signs and symbols concerning the working of Christ in His people and which takes up where the four Gospels in our Bible leave off. Another interesting and significant teaching in connection with the first resurrection is the statement which immediately follows: “But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished” (Rev. 20:5). Who are, or what is, the “rest of the dead?” Can we not see that the “rest of the dead” can refer only to that part of each of us which has not yet been raised up into life — the mortal body. That is certainly the “rest” of the dead in my life! And there are two conditions which must be met for the body to be transformed. First, the soul must be fully redeemed, transformed, and raised up to live in His sight, for that is the first resurrection. Second, the body cannot be changed until “the thousand years are finished,” that is, until the day of the Lord in our life is consummated — until the day of the Lord in our life has fully and completely done its work in us! The body can only be changed when we have completely become new creatures in Christ Jesus by the release of our spirit and the resurrection of our soul that has been dead and wasted because of our old Adamic nature. We are being made alive as a new people, conformed to His image, because we have risen in newness of life and are seeking those things which are above where Christ sits at the right hand of God. This is the first resurrection!
This new life is not something that is going to happen some day, somewhere. This new life has already happened and is happening, first in our souls as we put on that precious mind which was in Christ Jesus. We have the life of the ages now because we have been resurrected into the kingdom of God. “Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Col. 1:13). We do not have to go to the grave to receive this resurrection and translation. Blessed be God! We are not waiting for our “rapture.” Nothing new must be added, and no specific prophetic events must occur before we have this translated life. Our death to Self, our beheading, the losing of our old Adamic head of the carnal mind, is but the gateway to a larger, fuller, heavenly life — the more abundant life of sonship to God. As we sign our death-warrant and consign to the grave the “old life,” it is only to find that we are recipients of a life infinitely more wonderful and glorious — as the firstfruits of His redemption. Marvelous truth! Glorious fact! How it enriches! What treasures of grace, what a reservoir of power, what radiance of glory — what a wealth of meaning! That is the matchless energy which works in the believer — THE POWER OF CHRIST’S RESURRECTION!
Preston Eby
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