Thank you for your thoughtful response. In my estimation, however, you used some of the weaker texts you could have used to demonstrate the time statements.
Let's take a couple specific verses out of the 100+ and address them.
Matthew 21:40-45
Fulfilled? or are we still waiting for that?
Hebrews 10:37
Literal or figurative?
James 5:8
Literal or figurative?
If you don't believe that the resurrection is a literal event in which we rise from the earth, then you don't believe in a resurrection at all. Jesus leaves no room for a metaphorical interpretation.
Help me understand how you arrive at this supposition.
Define Literal, and explain how you believe Literal is inextricably tied to fleshly in the context the resurrection.
I believe in the literal resurrection Paul described:
1 Corinthians 15:35-36,38,44
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” 36 You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 And what you sow
is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain...38
But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. .44 It is sown a natural body; it is
raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
The Bible uses the term "resurrection" literally of national restorations (Isa 26:13-14,19-20/ Ez 37), personal salvation/baptism (Col 2:12, Rom 6:4), the transfer of departed souls in the O.T. Hades/Sheol into God's heaven (1 Thess 4:13-16), and by implication, the final state of all things (Rev 22:13-14).
Parsing them all out is what can get tricky.
I maintain that the destruction of the Old Covenant nation is the
primary sense of the apostles' eschatological teachings.
For example, I would characterize
Luke 2:34-35 as speaking of Israel's first-century destruction and re-constitution via the Nazarene sect of King Jesus under the foretold NEW covenant.
Then, I am of the view that 1 Thess 4:13-17 is a discussion of when the O.T. dead would escape Hades/Sheol and be united to Christ in the heavenlies. In short, Paul says that their release from Hades was about to happen, as the impending historic change of the covenants (Heb 8:13/2 Cor 3:6-11) was to be marked by the Temple's profanation/desecration (2 Thess 2:3-4/Matt 23:33-24:2) and God's wrath on their disobedient Jewish countrymen (1 Thess 2:15-16/Mt 23:33-38/Acts 3:22-24).
It is even possible to understand resurrection in light of the AD 30-AD 70 period, as the word itself means "to stand" and receives multiple uses and meanings in scripture. (Like the examples I said before: the OT "national resurrections" of Israel; the "being raised" with Christ in baptism; the removal of the departed OT souls from Hades to Heaven; the final state).
Many of today's Christians have erred by not recognizing the link between the time statements and the end of the Old Covenant age, when God came in judgment upon Christ's enemies (Pharisees, Zealots, Sadducees, etc) at AD 70 (Matt 21:40-45). Yes, even though we hold firm to a *final* judgment of God in the future
, the imminent one that was "near" and "soon" and "at hand" to first-century Jews was the AD 70 end of their nation and covenant and priesthood and tribes and 1500-year dynasty under Moses. The old nation instituted by Moses gave way to the new and greater covenanted nation which was made worldwide in Christ Jesus.
Just about everyone who studies NT theology knows that a major change took place for the dead back in the first century. In OT times, the dead did *not* ascend into Heaven but rather were prevented from doing so by the absence of a covenant that cleansed them fully. Moreover, nearly all christian groups admit that a change has occurred for the dead between the OT times and the NT times.
What is entirely unclear however is precisely when that change took place. I am making the case that the bible teaches it took place when the Temple was destroyed during their "visitation" (
Luke 19:40-44), in the days of vengeance (
Luke 21:20-22).
The destruction of the Temple was hugely significant in that it was the historic signifier that the Old Covenant had vanished and the New had replaced it. Moreover, the destruction of the Temple was a key teaching of Christ, and one St. Paul picks up on at 2 Thess 2:3-4. And so I believe the most obvious and biblical understanding of 1 Thess 4 is that the dead in Hades were to be united to Christ when the Temple was profaned and desecrated. The "change" was huge, for it was the precise "change" that we think of when we distinguish the Old Covenant from the New Covenant.
What was to happen to the O.T-era dead was a central issue in the switch from the Old Covenant age to the New Covenant age. And in fact, nearly all christian groups admit that a major change took place for the dead during that time. Yet there is no agreement about what event marked their release from Hades. I believe the scripture is clear that the destruction of the Temple marked their release from Hades, as St. Paul teaches.
I think Paul addresses it by saying the dead ones go first and living ones later. For sure, I believe we can all agree that faithful Christians are now raised to heaven at death, and that this phenomenon began no later than AD 70. I believe St. Paul marks the change as having taken place with the destruction of the Old Covenant constitution and commonwealth.