Frequently Asked Questions About the Resurrection

Frequent Asked Questions About the Resurrection

   If the Great White Throne Judgment is only for the lost, then when do the tribulation saints and the millennial saints get judged? At what judgment?
   If the Judgment seat of Christ is for the church age saints only and occurs prior to the 2nd coming. When do the Old Testament Saints get judged?
   When do the tribulation saints get resurrected and receive a glorified body?
   When millennial saints die prior to the end of the millennium, where do they go when they die? Are they immediately present with the LORD on Earth -absent from the body present with the Lord (as a spirit- since they will not be resurrected immediately)? Are they in the New Jerusalem? Are they in heaven in the sense of the presence of God with no actual time and space as we understand it? Are they kept under the altar like the tribulation saints are when they die?

Answer:    1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51f describes the rapture when all believers of this present dispensation of the Church Age will be resurrected and taken to heaven to be with the Lord. 1 Corinthians 3:10-15 describes the judgment of believers whose works will be judged for reward. (See 2 Cor. 5:9-10) The saved Millennial saints logically will be judged at the end of the 1000 years. The unsaved of the Millennial period will be judged at the Great White Throne Judgment which will occur after the Millennium.
Answer:    The Old Testament saints will be judged at the end of the Seven year Tribulation at Christ's Second Coming and before the Kingdom (Millennium) begins. (See Matt. 25:31-32)
Paul stated "But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming." (1 Corinthians 15:23) The word "rank" is the word "tagma and is used to refer to military rank or order as in a group or regiment of people. Therefore there will be separate and multiple resurrections of different groups of people. There will be at least three resurrections of saved individuals.

1. Old Testament Saints. At Christ's Second Coming the Lord will judge the Old Testament saints. This period includes the time from the beginning until the Church Age began at the institution of the local church as Acts 2 records (present Church Age). At the beginning of the Church Age the Old Testament dispensation is temporarily suspended. Those who are saved in the Church Age are the body and bride of Jesus Christ and are a separate group of believers. When the seven year Tribulation begins all Church Age saints will be resurrected (rapture). Immediately after the rapture the Old Testament dispensation is resumed and continues for seven years.

Daniel prophecies that there would be 490 years until the Coming of the Messiah and His setting up His Kingdom (Millennium). (Daniel 9:24) History records that 483 years of the 490 have occurred, but there remains seven more years to complete the Old Testament dispensation. At the present, God's prophetic time has been temporarily suspended until the present dispensation is complete. At the rapture the Church Age will end and the last seven years of the Old Testament will begin. Therefore at the end of the Old Testament dispensation the Messiah Jesus will return, purge the earth of the unsaved, judge the deceased Old Testament saints and set up the Millennial Kingdom promised to Israel.

Revelation 20:4-5 states, "And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for 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. But the rest of the dead lived not again until the thousand years were finished. This is the first resurrection." The "souls" clearly are Old Testament saints saved and martyred in the seven year Tribulation. These saints are said to live and reign with Christ for a thousand years which is the period of the Millennial Kingdom. Verse 5 states this is the "first resurrection." Although there is some confusion about the meaning of this phrase it seems logical to understand that is this is a reference to the just and all saved up to this point in time. The "first resurrection" would surely be a reference to saints of the Church Age (the body/bride of Jesus Christ) and all Old Testament saints.
2. Christians of the present Church Age. The resurrection of believers of this present age called the Church Age will be at the rapture which will end this present dispensation. The "catching away" or rapture of believers is explains in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, 1 Corinthians 15:51-57. Please go to https://bible-truth.org/myst-3.htm for a detailed explanation of the rapture.
3. The saints of the Millennium. The Bible does not specifically mention when the saints of the Millennial age will be resurrected. Saints who go into the New Heavens and Earth will be in new spiritual bodies. 2 Cor. 5:1, and 1 Corinthians 15:52 is a reference to the new body Church Age believers receive after their deaths. It would seem logical that at the end of the Millennium, the saints of that age would also be resurrected and changed as believers in this present age.

Answer:    Revelation 6:9-11, 7:13-14, shows the martyred Tribulation saints in heaven. 1 Thess. 3:13 says the Lord will return with "all" of His saints at His Second Coming. This would include the Old Testament, Church Age and Tribulation saints. Therefore the Tribulation saints would be resurrected at the Lord's Second Coming.
Answer:    The Bible does not explain all of this to us. I am not sure that people in the Millennium will die. I do not like to speculate, but I can find nothing that says they do or do not. If people in the Millennium will be in their natural bodies then it would seem logical that they could be killed or die of some cause. However, it could be that the Lord will protect all people on earth from injury and death. Of course at the end of the Millennial period they will certainly be "changed" like 1 Corinthians 15:51-52 says will happen to Church Age saints and will go into the New Heavens and Earth in their gloried bodies.