Actually, I would like to discuss it further point by point. But, you don't respond directly to my points. Instead, you just repeat the same things over and over about what you believe without directly responding to any points I make or any questions I ask. Going back and forth with long essays doesn't do it for me. Nothing specific is being addressed that way.
Well you give me long essays based on the way you see things so I have to give you a long essay to say why I don't see things the way you see them.
Based on what you said there, that means you believe the second death no longer has power over the souls John saw in heaven and I agree with that.
With that being the case, why can't it be that they have already had part in the first resurrection? You agree that the second death already has no power over them, so that means they don't need to be bodily resurrected in order for the second death to not have power over them. That should make you rethink what having part in the first resurrection really means.
The answer to this is in my long post which you obviously never read, because you're asking a question which you would not ask if you had read that post. So let me try and answer it another way:
Why is death called the enemy of God? What is death? Is it only spiritual death, or is it physical too?
If you read each and every New Testament verse talking about "The Resurrection" (anastasis) and being raised from the dead/rising again from the dead (egeiro and anistemi) you will start to discover that each and every one of them is talking about the resurrection of the body. If you don't believe me, I've quoted not just the references, but the verses themselves here:
OF BIBLICAL PROPORTIONS: Resurrection Verses
God breathed His Spirit into Adam and Adam became a
living soul. When Adam sinned, he died because the Spirit of God was no longer dwelling in him, and so he died physically also. He was no longer a
living soul and so death came into him, and his body eventually died.
God hates death. He hates the separation of body and soul, He never purposed that for Adam. Death is the last enemy to be destroyed.
Adam = mankind. His death = the death of all of us, because we are all in him, we are all born sons of Adam.
Jesus is the last Adam, but not born of Adam but of God. He died - physically. His body was dead.
He rose again from the dead.
Death came through Adam, and it's all one and the same death. It's mankind's death.
The resurrection came by the last Adam, Christ, and it's all the same resurrection that those who are in Christ through spiritual
birth will experience when He returns.
The first Adam (who we were born into) lost the life of the spirit living in him
after the Spirit had breathed life into him, so Jesus said we must be
born of the Spirit from above, because that which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Jesus, the last Adam, is begotten of the same Spirit.
We have already been baptized into Jesus' death and been raised
with Him through spiritual
birth into the last Adam
, because He is in us, and we in Him.
God did not save us to leave body and soul separated, The resurrection of the body is an integral part of salvation. So when you say,
.. so that means they don't need to be bodily resurrected in order for the second death to not have power over them. That should make you rethink what having part in the first resurrection really means.
then what you are saying is nonsensical, because just as salvation without Christ is impossible, so salvation without the resurrection of the body is totally incomplete.
There is only one death, until now - Adam's death (Adam's death = mankind's death). There is only one resurrection from the dead - it's the last Adam's resurrection from the dead, which everyone who is in Christ already shares in, but also will share in - because the separation of soul and body (death) is an integral part of Adam's (mankind's) death, and Christ came as a man to save man from this predicament.
When those who are Christ's at His coming are raised from the dead and are reunited to their bodies which have been raised spiritual bodies, this is still part of the first resurrection - because just as Adam's death is mankind's death, so mankind's only resurrection from the dead, brought about through the sacrifice of Jesus of Himself, is His resurrection. It is A MAN who brought death to all men and it is A MAN who brings the resurrection from the dead to all men.
The second death can only come after the resurrection of those who were not in Christ, whose names were never written in the Lamb's book of Life.
Those who sleep in Christ wlll be raised first and the second death will have no power over them.
Please don't say I never answered your question. If you do, I definitely won't answer you again.