I'm quite interested in your comments on this. Because your user name is on-topic with it, I take it that it's something you've looked into quite a bit. I'm going to drill you a bit, if you don't mind, 1. because it will help me understand your position better, and 2. because I want to find the holes in your doctrine. I will try to do it respectfully, but if it doesn't seem that way, I hope you will still indulge the questions.
I sense a kindred spirit. I, too, have been trying to find the holes in my own views for 9 years now. If there is error within them, I want to know it and discard whatever is not in sync with the entirety of scripture. That is why I present these online, in case those with a critical eye might see something that I do not.
If Jesus isn't really the first (because of those He raised from the dead before His death, Samuel, Moses (at the Transfiguration) and possibly some raised by Elijah and Elisha), then how can He be called the "firstfruits" of the resurrection?
The term "First-fruits" is connected to the agricultural harvests under Mosaic law. God used this symbolism connected with the 3 typical harvest seasons in the land of Canaan (Passover, Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles) to represent
three group resurrection events taking place over the span of history. Even though there were a sprinkling of other individuals resurrected over the millennia, from Elijah's ministry forward, we know that NONE of them had ever ascended to heaven (John 3:13). And this ascension to heaven for a glorified, resurrected saint is the culmination of our salvation process.
It is not enough simply to have our incorruptible, immortal glorified bodies raised above ground out of the grave. For our salvation process to be completely perfected, we must finally be standing
face-to-face with God's glory in our glorified bodies, where we are "presented faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy" (Jude 1:24) This is how Christ became the unique one of ALL those previous individual samples of individuals that were bodily resurrected before Himself. Christ was the unique "First-born", and the "First-begotten" one out of those other 144,000 First-fruits
to ascend to His Father in heaven, just before morning on His resurrection day. (As in "I have
begotten thee from the womb before the morning" - Psalms 110:3 LXX). No other resurrected person could enter heaven until Jesus had opened up the way by going there first. That's why the Mosaic law put such emphasis upon the importance of the "First-born" of the matrix being dedicated to the Lord. It symbolized Christ the glorified, resurrected "First-born" ascending to the Father's presence before anyone else.
This is also why Paul spoke of a "
better resurrection" than the few cases of women who "had received their dead raised to life again" (Hebrews 11:35). For those few to have been given a glorified resurrected body was wonderful, but they still had to remain on the earth in that resurrected state at least until Christ had become the "First-born" and the "First-begotten" in heaven that resurrection day. A "
better resurrection" was one which allowed
an entire resurrected group to ascend to heaven and the Father. This happened for the first time in AD 70. For the first time, glorified, resurrected men were allowed to enter the temple in heaven when the last of those 7 angels had finished pouring out their plagues in Revelation 15:8.
An interesting possibility. But why would they need to be "sealed" from harm, if they are in their resurrection bodies?
The 144,000 First-fruits, Matthew 27 resurrected saints of the "First resurrection" had remained on the earth, up until that AD 70 Pentecost day resurrection. They had been "sealed" on their own resurrection day (when that group were given those white robes indicating their resurrected state - Rev. 6:9-11). A "
seal" in scripture represents a
delayed fulfillment of an assured promise. We ourselves even in this life are "sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise" dwelling within us until "the redemption of the purchased possession" - the resurrection of our physical bodies. These 144,000 Matthew 27 saints were "sealed" at their own resurrection event to show that their eventual, final ascension to heaven and God's presence was still an assured promise, but only
delayed for a "little season" after that AD 33 "First resurrection".
We remember that those 144,000 were said to be the only ones who could learn that "new song" ( Revelation 14:3). That is because their situation was a unique one. As being the group of the resurrected "multitude of captives" which were given to men by the ascending Christ, they patiently served in the early church, edifying the believers. They acted as prophets, apostles, evangelists, pastors, and teachers, as Ephesians 4:11-12 tells us. Paul also said in Romans 8:23 of these Matthew 27 saints, that the church "HAD the First-fruits of the Spirit" among them, patiently waiting along with the church for their final escort into heaven with the others.
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Your three citation there EASILY comport with a resurrection that has not yet happened, especially since it is unlikely even in your doctrine that the resurrection of the unjust has happened, right?
I would say along with Paul in Acts 24:15 that a resurrection of
both the just and the unjust was
about to take place in his generation. That resurrection of the "unjust" only resulted in their physical bodies perishing in the grave, unlike the physical bodies of the just, which were given immortality - a quality only found with Christ, and by extension those who are IN Christ.
When the souls of the unjust come from Hades to stand before God in judgment, they have no protective righteousness of Christ covering them. Therefore, God's consuming fire destroys the wicked, both body and soul (Luke 12:5). It is as Psalms 1:4-6 said, "The ungodly are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall
perish."