In Part Five, we learned about the general resurrection, when tens of billions of people will rise from their graves to live as physical human beings under judgment, when they will have the opportunity for salvation. These people, from all ages and cultures that have existed on earth, will learn a great deal when they rise from their graves. Among the chief things that they will learn is the true way of life that God teaches in His Word, and they will be taught about God's mercy and grace. Unlike most of mankind today, they will have God's Spirit available to them so that they can believe, understand, and use the knowledge of God to grow and prepare to be members of His Family. They will be instructed to live as God meant man to live from the beginning. This time, they will have what it takes to lead successful, righteous lives.What kind of life are they going to live? Speaking about this time through the prophet Isaiah, God helps us to see into the future:
For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former shall not be remembered or come to mind. . . . The voice of weeping shall no longer be heard in [Jerusalem], nor the voice of crying. No more shall an infant from there live but a few days, nor an old man who has not fulfilled his days; for the child shall die one hundred years old, but the sinner being one hundred years old shall be accursed. (Isaiah 65:17, 19-20)
From verse 20 comes the speculation that the Great White Throne Judgment period may be one hundred years long. If so, each resurrected individual—whether he had died as an innocent infant or an aged reprobate—will have one hundred years of living to prove to God that he is worthy of salvation and eternal life or of condemnation and eternal death in the Lake of Fire. What will such people do during this time?They shall build houses and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit. They shall not build and another inhabit; they shall not plant and another eat; for as the days of a tree, so shall be the days of My people, and My elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands. They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth children for trouble; for they shall be the descendants of the blessed of the LORD, and their offspring with them. (Isaiah 65:21-23)
In essence, this judgment period will be an extension of the wonderful peace, bounty, and prosperity that will mark the Millennium as humanity's true Golden Age. In this world, people struggle throughout their lives to produce a living only to see it wiped out in calamity or taken by another to enjoy. In the age to come, windstorms will not hit just as the crops ripen; war will not erupt just as a person's house is finished; and a person on the brink of retirement will not have his nest egg stolen by a honey-tongued swindler. People will live long, fulfilling lives free of fear of disaster. They will truly be blessed."It shall come to pass that before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear. The wolf and the lamb shall feed together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain," says the LORD. (Isaiah 65:24-25)
The people who rise in this resurrection will enjoy Millennial conditions with Christ and the firstfruits of God's Family living among them. Should a problem arise, even before they call for help, they will be answered. It is reminiscent of the time when Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, prayed for God's help, and while he was still speaking, God provided the answer to his prayer (Genesis 24:10-15). Quick responses like this will happen frequently during this period, allowing the people to see God working in their behalf, helping them come to salvation.Thus, in the very best of conditions, they will live full and abundant lives apart from Satan's influence (he will already have been cast into the Lake of Fire; Revelation 20:10). What is more, they will have God's Spirit available them, just as the Tree of Life was available to Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8-9, 16-17). There will be no better environment for them to live and accept God's offer of salvation.
Is this not a better way to regard the death of those whom God has not yet called? We all have relatives who do not know the truth, and should they die uncalled, we do not need to grieve for them bitterly, as if they were forever lost. We can still grieve, since we will miss their company for the time being, but because God has made provision in His plan to take care of this "problem," we can accept their deaths with consolation and hope.
We have no need to worry, as some professing Christians do, that the billions across Africa and Asia who have never heard the name of Christ are lost. Far more people have lived on the earth and not heard the name of Christ than who have. This should not even worry us, for God has these supposedly forsaken people in the palm of His hand (see Isaiah 49:14-16). When the most advantageous time comes, He will call them all, and if we know our God, the vast majority of them will be saved, because He finishes what He begins (Isaiah 55:11).
In Psalm 68:20, David writes, "Our God is the God of salvation; and to God the LORD belong escapes from death." This verse can be understood to promise that He will help us "escape from death" if we are in a car accident. While it certainly covers that, escapes means "deliverances." In the context, it refers more to deliverance in terms of salvation than to saving us from physical harm.
Why do more people not believe this? He is the God of salvation; salvation is what He does! Notice Psalm 74:12: "For God is my King from of old, working salvation in the midst of the earth." He saves! He saves people from eternal death, and He is doing that and will continue to do so by helping, instructing, and shaping His character in them. Death, brought upon man because of sin, is no barrier to the God of salvation. In fact, He makes use of sin and death to form the righteous character He desires His children to have.
Those who awake in the second resurrection will rise from their graves with new physical bodies of God's creation. They will awake without spot of disease, and they will be full of vigor. Those who have been lame or blind or retarded will no longer have such handicaps. Having rested in death and woken to a new life, they will take their first steps along the path to salvation.
Two of history's wisest men, Job and Solomon, contemplated the possibilities of an afterlife for human beings, and both concluded that something better awaited men and women on the other side of death. Realizing that God "has put eternity in their hearts" (Ecclesiastes 3:11), Solomon writes at the end of the book that, although the physical body "will return to the earth as it was, . . . the spirit [of man] will return to God who gave it" (Ecclesiastes 12:7). Job concludes that a time would come when, despite his being dead in the grave, "You [God] shall call, and I will answer You; You shall desire the work of Your hands" (Job 14:15). Both men knew there would be life after death.
The New Testament consistently teaches the doctrine of life after death through the resurrection from the dead (see I Corinthians 15 for the Bible's most concentrated teaching on it). While many understand that those whom God converts in this life will rise from their graves at the return of Christ to enjoy their eternal rewards (I Corinthians 15:51-52; I Thessalonians 4:14-17), the Bible reveals that all humanity will live again!Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat on it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled away. And there was found no place for them. And I saw the dead, small and great, standing before God, and books were opened. And another book was opened which is the Book of Life. And the dead were judged according to their works, by the things which were written in the books. The sea gave up the dead who were in it, and Death and Hades delivered up the dead who were in them. And they were judged, each one according to his works. (Revelation 20:11-13)
The apostle John calls the people standing before God's throne "the dead, small and great." His description is very general. Note that he does not say "some" of the dead but simply "the dead." God does not discriminate between good or bad, rich or poor, free or slave, those who lived before Christ or after Him, or any other distinction. It appears plain that He raises to life every human who has ever lived who has not already been changed to spirit!
As laid out neatly in this chapter's chronological sequence, this second resurrection occurs immediately after the glorious Millennium of Christ's reign on the earth (verse 5) and Satan's final rebellion (verses 7-10). Unlike those rising to glory in the resurrection at Christ's return, called the first resurrection (verses 5-6), this vast sea of humanity returns to life for the purposes of judgment. This Great White Throne period is a time of evaluation of each person's individual works, that is, his day-to-day manner of life.
For some reason, some commentators believe that this is only the impenitent dead—those who will be cast into the Lake of Fire, mentioned in verses 14-15. However, verse 15 clearly states that only those "not found written in the Book of Life" will suffer the second death. This is a general resurrection, as it has often been called, of unsaved mankind. It is not God's desire to condemn them to eternal death, for He wants everyone to come to repentance (II Peter 3:9). They will be judged—as His church is being judged now (I Peter 4:17)—for the purposes of granting them salvation, if they accept His calling and submit to His way of life. While it is the church's "day of salvation" right now (II Corinthians 6:1-2), for these people, it will be their first opportunity to accept God's invitation to eternal life.
Consider the enormous number of people who will rise in this resurrection! A conservative estimate of all who have ever lived on the earth is upwards of 50 billion people and growing all the time. These billions will awake to a paradise on earth, which will have been made beautiful, prosperous, and productive under the care of the sons of God. The newly resurrected may suppose they have gone to heaven, but they will soon learn that the blessed meek inherit the earth (Matthew 5:5).
What a massive effort it will take to feed, clothe, house, and teach such an incredible population! Making matters even more difficult is the fact that they will come from every age, ethnic group, religion, language, and culture that has existed since the time of Adam! They will range from jungle dwellers of Borneo to the most sophisticated and intellectual cosmopolitans of modern times, from barbarous Mongols under Genghis Khan to vegetarian peaceniks heralding the Age of Aquarius, from animist tribesmen to Buddhist monks. We can hardly fathom the massive cost, infrastructure, organization, and leadership it will take to give care and instruction to so many people as will happen in this great period of judgment.
The Old Testament also contains a snapshot of this general resurrection, though it concentrates on the resurrection of the manifold millions of Israelites who have lived down the centuries. This is the famous prophecy of the Valley of Dry Bones in Ezekiel 37:
The hand of the LORD came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the LORD, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. And He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?" So I answered, "O Lord GOD, You know." (Ezekiel 37:1-3)
The people whose bones these were had been dead a long time. The bones were dry, as if no juice of life could ever enliven them again. The prophet's reply is essentially, "Only God could make them live again. To me, they look hopelessly dead." But we know, as Jesus instructs, "with God all things are possible" (Matthew 19:26).
Again He said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: "Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, and cover you with skin and put breath in you: and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the LORD."'" . . . So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army. (Ezekiel 37:4-6, 10)
Notice what God says will happen in this resurrection: He will give them breath—the breath of life—to fill their lungs, and He will return to them their flesh: their sinews and skin. Clearly, God will raise them up to physical life again on the earth, not to some kind of ethereal existence in a celestial Xanadu. They will soon realize that their ideas of life after death were greatly mistaken and that the God of Israel, the One who raised them from the dead, is the one true God.
Next time, we will discover God's reasons for giving them this new lease on life.
