Something happened 2000 years ago that you seem to overlook: Jesus defeated sin, death, Hades and Satan. Hell had no more hold upon the redeemed. Revelation 20 shows the dead in Christ now populating heaven instead of Hades. Hades (Abraham's bosom) has been emptied of God's elect since Christ conquered it. The dead were raised from Hades in spirit and are now reigning with Jesus. But the physical resurrection does not occur until Jesus comes to raise the living and the dead at His one final future climactic coming.
Christ was the first to defeat sin, death, the grave and Hades. He is the first resurrection. After His glorious resurrection, He testified in Revelation 1:18: "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."
Death and Hades are now defeated. The grave has been conquered. God's people who die go now to be with Jesus. Hades was emptied after the first resurrection. Jesus defeated sin, death, Hades and Satan through his first Advent. The dead in Christ now reign in heaven with Christ.
This spiritual resurrection occurs to all those who identify with Christ in His first resurrection when He conquered sin, death, Hades and Satan. His sinless life, His atoning death and His glorious resurrection secured the full and eternal freedom of all His elect. This union with Christ raises us from the grave of our sin and allows us to be currently seated in heavenly places in Christ. Through this majesty work, Christ emptied Hades and led captivity captive taking them to heaven to reign with Him until the physical resurrection at His coming.
The Cross also gave those in Paradise an incorruptible body. NOT IMMORTAL. Immortality comes at the Second Coming. The church complete both living and in Paradise are presented as one whole body complete and glorified. Immortality is glorification. We are the complete image of God. The image Adam lost when he disobeyed God and literally died physically and spiritually. He lost the incorruptible body and recieve a corruptible one. His spirit was separated from the soul, spiritual death. His image was passed on to all of us in Seth. Genesis 5:1-3
1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God made he him,
2 Male and female created he them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam in the day that they were created.
3 Now Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and begat a child in his own likeness after his image, and called his name Seth.
God created Adam in God's image. Seth was born in Adam's sinful, corruptible, WITHOUT a God spirit (robe of white, immortal body).
John says only at the 5th seal will the soul recieve the robe of white, the God spirit part of the image of God. Soul is used in the term of Adam's dead image. The souls under the altar were still not glorified. The spirit, with God, re-joined to the body as the robe of white.
The view of a soul is a son of God incomplete. In Revelation 6, the soul was incomplete because it needed to join with the spirit. That has not happened to most of Adam's descendants. Enoch, Elijah, Moses, and John being caught up in the spirit, may be the only exceptions besides Jesus Christ, who had all 3 parts of God's image as a human without sin. Now Jesus's physical body could die and decay. IMO, that body returned to dust and was changed in the tomb. The resurrected body was incorruptible, but only after He ascended, because Mary could not touch a soul that was just a ghost or shell. That is sticking to the point the incorruptible body is in Paradise. Jesus came back with that permanent body and that was what Thomas touched.
Revelation 20:4 is the same soul concept. There were thrones to judge and they gave out incorruptible bodies. This time only an incorruptible body was the issue. It is not the same as the church. The church is who is handing out, these soul's incorruptible bodies from Paradise. We are not told the mechanics of how it works. We are not told how these thrones were arranged but they were between heaven and earth, because these souls could not enter Paradise without these incorruptible bodies, and they remained on earth after getting incorruptible bodies. They were not glorified. They just could not die the second death. The second death being a demon spirit joined to the soul, devoid of Light and God's image. Do they need a body in the lake of fire?
Claiming I am making this up goes with the territory of Biblical interpretation. A body is a body and there is only one type after death. If you attempt to spiritualize it, that is changing the whole dynamic of the passage in your own whatever we say interpretation. That is the territory of spiritualizing God’s Word. Revelation 20:4 specifically states a resurrection of a soul, judged, and given life, a body to live in. An incorruptible body that cannot die the second death. They are NOT made immortal gods. They have billions of offspring in the same type of bodies for 1000 years. They reign because they are the millions of foreparents to all those generations of humans.
If you want to change Scripture and make it fit your theology, God will not stop you. Point to one Scripture verse I have altered to bring glory to God. I am here to honor God, not give you my private interpretations, cause I have nothing to offer, but God's Word.
