The Five Deaths & Resurrections of Scripture, Including the "First Resurrection" and "Second Death"

 

Kurt Simmons

 

Death and resurrection are probably the single most compelling topics of scripture. In a very real way, the whole relevance of the Bible and Christianity is rooted and founded in human mortality and the prospect of life after death (or the lack thereof). Indeed, Christ’s resurrection is what validates the Christian faith and sets it totally apart from every other system of belief under the sun. Apart from death and resurrection, few would likely search after and seek God. Romans says that man was subjected to vanity “in hope” (Rom. 8:20; cf. Eccl. 1:2) ⸺ hope that mankind would seek after and find its Creator, the source of eternal life. In this article, we examine the death and resurrection of man to determine what the Bible teaches about these topics. We’ll look first death, then at resurrection.

Five Deaths Taught in Scripture

There are five deaths taught in scripture experienced by individuals:

1)      Moral and spiritual death

2)      Juridical death

3)      Physical death

4)      Hadean death

5)      Eternal death

Generally speaking, these are progressive, each one going before the one that follows. Moral death precedes juridical death; juridical death precedes physical death; physical death precedes Hadean death; Hadean death precedes eternal death. We say “generally speaking,” because there are exceptions. Enoch and Elijah did not experience physical death, but nevertheless went to Hades and therefore experienced Hadean death. Likewise, lacking the intellectual faculties necessary to make moral judgments, infants and children cannot formulate the mens rea (Lat. “guilty intent”) necessary to be accountable for sin.[1] Therefore, although subject to physical death, infants and children are not in danger of juridical and eternal death. However, such exceptions aside, these five deaths are progressive and proceed those next following, culminating in eternal death unless the grace of God intervene. Let’s look at each of these in turn.

Moral and Spiritual Death

God created man in his image and likeness (Gen. 1:26; 5:1). This is best understood, not in terms of man’s outward form or appearance, but his inward moral and intellectual faculties. Genesis tells us that God breathed into Adam’s nostrils the breath of life, and he became a living soul (Gen. 2:7). Elsewhere in scripture, God’s breath is associated with his word and Spirit. Hence, Paul states that all scripture is given by “inspiration of God” (II Tim. 3:16). The word “inspiration” here is θεοπνευστος (theopnuestos), and means literally “God-breathed.” Indeed, “breath” and “Spirit” are closely associated in scripture as may be seen when Jesus breathed on the apostles and said “receive the Holy Spirit” (John 20:22). The medium by which God verbally inspired scripture is his Spirit (John 3:34; Rev. 2:7, 11, 17; 29; 3:6, 13, 22). The Spirit that now dwells indirectly in man by God’s word (as man believes and obeys scripture), formerly dwelt directly in our first ancestor when God breathed into him and gave him breath and life.

The Spirit indwelling Adam made him a participant in the image and likeness of God. Although his physical body was impressed with various lusts and passions necessary for his existence and the propagation of the race, these were under the controlling influence of the Spirit. Therefore, Adam and Eve were not “carnally minded,” which is to be at enmity with God, resulting in death (Rom. 7:6, 7). Rather, they were spiritually minded and would have borne the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, against which there is no law (Gal. 6:22, 23). However, with our first ancestors’ fall, the direct indwelling of God’s Spirit that elevated man above his carnal nature was forfeited. Adam became “carnal, sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14). Adam’s fallen nature was then passed to his descendants who were made in Adam’s image and likeness (Gen. 5:3). As heirs of Adam’s “fallenness,” our first nature is to walk, not in the Spirit, but after the lusts of the flesh: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like (Gal. 6:19-21). The lusts of the flesh are inimical to the Spirit. And as the Spirit is life, it follows that the works of the flesh are death. Hence, man’s moral estrangement from God is referred to as a type of “death.”

·         “Let the dead bury their dead; but go thou and preach the kingdom of heaven.” Luke 9:60

·         “For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.” Rom. 8:6

·         “Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them.” Eph. 4:18

·         “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” Rev. 3:1

These and other passages show that, in his fallen nature, morally estranged and alienated from God, man is in a type of moral and spiritual death. Moral and spiritual death is followed by “juridical” death.

Juridical Death

Juridical death is the legal consequence of moral and spiritual death. It is the judicial decree of God condemning man for sin, banishing man from his presence, and sentencing him to death ⸺ first, physical death, followed by Hadean, and, finally, eternal death. Being under the sentence of death, the alien sinner is juridically dead. Passages describing juridical death include:

·         “And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife…thou shalt return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.” Gen. 3:17-19

·         “So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.” Gen. 3:24

·         “And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. Gen. 4:16

·         “For the love of Christ constraineth us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead.” II Cor. 5:14

·         “And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins.” Eph. 2:2, 5

·         “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh.” Col. 2:13

The first three verses demonstrate the juridical act of God, condemning man for sin, sentencing him to physical death, and banishing him from his immediate, personal presence. The last three verses describe man’s legal condition and estate while under judgment of sin and death, separated from the presence of God.

Physical Death

Moral and juridical death led to physical death. God sentenced Adam to return to the dust of the earth for obeying the voice of his wife (Gen. 3:17-19). God shut the way to the tree of life lest man eat and live forever a sinner (Gen. 3:22-24). This shows that although physical death was a direct penalty of sin, it also was made part of the remedy: first, in putting off the body of sins of the flesh through death so that God could save man’s soul or spirit; second, in the substitutionary death and atoning sacrifice of Christ.

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Heb. 2:14, 15

Hadean Death

Prior to the cross, the spirits of the dead were not admitted into God’s heavenly presence, but were sequestered in Sheol (Heb.) or Hades (Gk.). The way into God’s heavenly presence was re-opened only by the death of Christ (Matt. 27:51; Luke 23:45; Heb. 6:19; 10:19-20). We enter God’s presence first covenantally, by obedience to the gospel (Heb. 10:19-20), then actually, upon the reception (“redemption,” Rom. 8:23; Eph. 1:14) of our immortal bodies when we inherit eternal life (I Cor. 15:54).

There were two places in Hades: a place of torment or punishment for the lost, and a place of comfort and rest for the saved (Luke 16:19-31; Luke 23:43; Acts 2:27, 31). The place of torment was called “Tartarus,” the “pit,” or the “bottomless pit” (II Pet. 2:4; Rev. 9:1; cf. Ezek. 31:14, 16, 18); the place of comfort was called “Abraham’s bosom,” the “third heaven,” or “Paradise” (Luke 16:22, 23; 23:43; II Cor. 12:2, 4). The Old Testament does not expound at length upon Sheol, but where it speaks of it, the dead are always portrayed as fully conscious (Isa. 14:9-20; cf. I Sam. 28:3-20). This is consistent with images in the New Testament (Luke 16:19-31; Matt. 17:1-13). Because Hades was the final barrier to full communion in the actual presence of God, Hadean death was the “last enemy” to be destroyed (I Cor. 15:26). Then would come to pass the saying “O death, where is thy sting? O grave (Gk. αδη, Hades) where is thy victory?” (I Cor. 15:55).

Revelation portrays Hades as being destroyed following the general, eschatological resurrection of AD 70 (Rev. 20:11-15). Specifically, Revelation states that “death and Hades” were cast into the lake of fire (Rev. 20:14). In this passage, death and Hades are set over against the “sea,” which also gave up its dead (v. 13). The sea probably refers to the Mediterranean which has associations with the pagan peoples inhabiting its shores. It is from the Mediterranean that the four pagan, world empires of Daniel’s visions arose, including the Greeks and Romans (Dan. 7:1-3). In this light, the “sea” would appear to refer to those out of covenant relationship with God and therefore probably should be equated with the bottomless pit and the lost. If so, “death and Hades” in Rev. 20:13, 14 may refer to Paradise and the saved, whereas the “sea” refers to Tartarus. If this is correct, since only “death and Hades” were destroyed, it is possible that Tartarus still exists as a place of punishment for the lost prior to suffering the “second death” (final extinction) (cf. Luke 12:47, 48). It is also possible that all of Hades has been destroyed and that the lost receive their just reward for their sins in the lake of fire itself before suffering final extinction or annihilation. Indeed, the destruction of Tartarus may be implied by Rev. 21:1 when John says “there was no more sea.” Arguments can be made for both views.

Eternal Death

The final punishment of the lost is to be cast into the “lake of fire,” which is also called the “second death” (Rev. 20:15). The lake of fire and second death are also called “Gehenna” (e.g., the valley of Hinnom). This valley lay adjacent to Jerusalem, southwest of its walls; it is the place where the corpses 185,000 Assyrians that died by the stroke of the angel of God were buried and burned (Isa. 30:33; 37:36; there called “Tophet”). It later became the city dump. Because of its perpetual fires and maggots, it is described as a place where “their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched” (Isa. 66:24; Mark 9:43-47). During the war with Rome, 600,000 bodies of Jews who starved to death in the siege were cast beyond the city walls into Gehenna. A similar number probably suffered the like fate in the siege of Nebuchadnezzar almost seven hundred years before (cf. Lam. 4:1-12). Because of its history and symbolic value, Gehenna came to be associated with the fate of the damned, symbolic of the end the spirit suffers after its final judgment. Some have argued that Gehenna was merely a physical place in Judea whose whole meaning and significance was used up in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. However, this is clearly wrong.

That Gehenna, the lake of fire, and the second death all refer to the same fate shared by the lost every nation is clear by comparing Mark 9:43-47, where the lost will be cast into “Gehenna the fire that never shall be quenched,” with Matt. 25:41, 46, where the lost go away into everlasting punishment reserved for the devil and his angels, with Rev. 20:10, 14, 15, which states the devil was cast into the lake burning with fire and brimstone, also called  the second death. If A = B and A = C, then B = C. If the lost (A) suffer Gehenna (B), and if the lost (A) suffer the fate of the devil (C), and if the devil suffers the lake of fire or second death (C), then Gehenna (B) equals the lake of fire or second death (C). That the lost all nations are liable to Gehenna (the lake of fire) is also expressly stated by Matt. 25:32 and is implicit in the fact that the dead from the “sea,” which has close associations with the Gentiles and paganism, were cast there (Rev. 20:11-15).

That there is a second death implies also a “first” death, which almost certainly refers to physical death. The first death brought the soul to Hades; the second death brought the damned to Gehenna. Some believe that the lost suffer “eternal conscious torment” in Gehenna. Verses relied upon in support of this view include Matt. 25:46, Mark 9:43-46, and Rev. 14:10, 11; 19:21; 20:10. Others take the view that the lost suffer complete extinction, or annihilation. In support of this view is the fact the Bible states that the wages of sin is death (Rom. 6:23). This was the penalty warned in the garden, not eternal conscious torment (Gen. 2:17). By definition, death is the total absence of life. Physical death is the complete extinction of physical life. If the second death is the death of the soul or spirit (intellect, personality), this would argue for the complete extinction of the personality and intellectual life. Moreover, Jesus says that God destroys both “body and soul” in Gehenna (Matt. 10:28). If the soul is destroyed, it is difficult to see what is left to suffer “eternal conscious torment.” John says death and Hades were cast into the lake of fire, indicating their complete destruction or annihilation. If that is true of something inanimate like Hades, one assumes it would be equally true of the soul. However, regardless of one’s view, the “second death” is the fifth and final type of death we find in scripture. We can now turn our attention to the resurrection.

Five Resurrections in Scripture

  Each of the five deaths has its corresponding resurrection.

·         Moral and spiritual resurrection

·         Juridical resurrection

·         Physical resurrection

·         Hadean resurrection

·         Eternal resurrection

Moral and Spiritual Resurrection

Man experiences moral and spiritual resurrection in repentance and obedience to the gospel of Christ. Ephesians states “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14). Although at one time we were darkness, we are charged to “walk as children of light” in all goodness, righteousness, and truth. Our conversion is a rebirth, giving us moral and spiritual light and life.

Juridical Resurrection

Juridical resurrection consists in man’s acquittal from the guilt of sin through repentance and baptism. When we obey the gospel, we enter a covenant relationship with God by which we are “reborn,” “regenerated,” and “resurrected.” Verses describing man’s juridical resurrection include:

·         Eph. 2:5, 6 - But God who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;) and hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus. (cf. v. 1)

·         Col. 2:11-13 – In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ: Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead. And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

·         Rom. 6:3, 4 – Know ye not, that so many of us as were baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized into his death? Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.

·         Titus 3:5 – Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost.[2]

Physical Resurrection

Only isolated instances of physical resurrection are recorded in the Bible (I King 17:17-23; II King 4:18-37; 13:21; Matt. 9:18-26; 27:52; Luke 7:11-15; John 11:1-19; 20; Acts 9:36-43). With the exception of Jesus who ascended into heaven, those resurrected in the flesh would have experienced physical death a second time.

The flesh lusts against the Spirit and is the source of human sin and temptation (Gal.6:17; James 1:14). For this reason, the physical body is not the object of the eschatological resurrection associated with eternal salvation. Even if restored to our primal condition and innocent estate in the garden, mankind would still be liable to sin and temptation, and the fall of the race would invariably occur again. Instead, God brought in physical death so that he might save man’s soul or spirit and man could live forever with God in heaven, not upon this physical earth.[3] This is why infants and children sometimes suffer death even though innocent before God: God brings their spirit to heaven where they can live with him forever (“for of such is the kingdom of God,” Luke 18:16).

Absurd and fanciful notions like those set forth by Jehovah’s Witnesses and various Postmillennialists, which argue that God will make a new, material creation in which physically resurrected men will spend eternity, should be rejected as completely misconstruing the nature and essence of human fallenness and God’s desire to bring man to heavenly glory. The Pharisees also apparently believed in the eschatological resurrection of physical bodies. This explains the Sadducees’ question to Jesus, asking whose wife the woman widowed seven times would be in the resurrection (Matt. 22:23-33). The Sadducees themselves did not believe in the resurrection; the Pharisees did (Matt. 22:23; Acts 23:8). It is therefore likely that in propounding their hypothetical question, that the Sadducees were attempting to refute and show the ridiculousness of the view of their opponents among the Pharisees. But whether it belonged to the Pharisees or Sadducees, Jesus clearly rejected the notion that the resurrection involved physical bodies. Jesus states that in the resurrection the saints will be like angels in heaven (Matt. 22:30). Angels are spiritual, invisible, incorruptible, and immaterial; they live beyond the bounds of time and space and are incorporeal beings (“he maketh his angels spirits,” Ps. 104:4; Heb. 1:7). According to Jesus, the saints will be like angels in the resurrection.

Hadean Resurrection

We saw before that there is a “second death.” The same chapter also speaks of a “first resurrection” (Rev. 20:4-6). The “first resurrection” is not the resurrection to eternal life, but precedes it (Rev. 20:11-15). Since numerically the resurrection to eternal life would be the “second resurrection,” to identify the “first resurrection” we need only find where the saints were prior to the resurrection of the last day. Revelation tells us that they were in Hades: “and death and Hades delivered up the dead which were in them” (v. 13). This is confirmed by Rev. 20:4, which describes the first resurrection as including those martyred under Nero and the beast. Since all who died prior to the general, eschatological resurrection went to Hades, it is clear this is what the first resurrection refers to.

When disputing with the Sadducees about the resurrection, Jesus quoted the account at the burning bush, where God told Moses “I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob” (Ex. 3:6). Jesus then states as proof of the resurrection that “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living” (Matt. 22:31, 32). Jesus’ testimony therefore was that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were alive and had in some form or manner had already been resurrected. But inasmuch as they had not yet experienced the eschatological resurrection, they could only be participants of the first resurrection of the soul in Hades Paradise.

That the saints and confessors “lived and reigned a thousand years” in Paradise is probably an allusion, at least in part, to Greco-Roman notions of Hades, which had it that the dead lived in Hades a thousand years before being reborn to earthly life.  In his epic poem, the Aeneid, Virgil causes his lead character, Aeneas, a survivor of the Trojan war and legendary founder of Rome, to descend to the nether world, where his deceased father describes the 1,000-year sojourn of the soul in Hades:

Yes, not even when the last flicker of life has left us, does evil, or the ills that the flesh is heir to, quite relinquish our souls; it must be that many a taint grows deeply, mysteriously grained in their being from long contact with the body. Therefore the dead are disciplined in purgatory, and pay the penalty of old evil: some hang, stretched to the blast of vacuum winds; for others, the stain of sin is washed away in a vast whirlpool or cauterized with fire. Each of us finds in the next world his own level: a few of us are later released to wander at will through broad Elysium, the Happy Fields; until, in the fulness of time, the ages have purged that ingrown stain, and nothing is left but pure ethereal sentience and the spirit’s essential flame. All these souls, when they have finished their thousand-year cycle, God sends for, and they come in crowds to the river Lethe, so, you see, with memory washed out, they may revisit the earth above and begin to wish to be born again.[4]

Revelation was written to Greek and Latin speaking Gentiles in Asia Minor who would almost certainly have associated the millennia of Revelation twenty with Hades; the dragon symbolically bound in Tartarus for a “thousand years,” whence he is released to persecute anew the church, the martyrs in Paradise where they lived and reigned a “thousand years” pending the general resurrection to eternal life. The connection of the passage with Greco-Roman notions of Hades was even noted by the famous French skeptic, Voltaire:

The belief in this reign of a thousand years was long prevalent among the Christians. This period was also in great credit among the Gentiles. The souls of the Egyptians returned to their bodies at the end of a thousand years; and, according to Virgil, the souls in purgatory were exorcised for the same space of time—et mille per annos.[5]

If a learned skeptic recognized the connection between John’s imagery and ancient notions of Hades, it is difficult to imagine that contemporary Christians of Greek descent could fail to see it also. Of course, Christians don’t believe in reincarnation as the Greeks and Romans did. Nevertheless, the Greek and Latin speaking peoples of Asia Minor to whom the book of Revelation was addressed would undoubtedly immediately have recognized the significance of the allusion as pointing to the happy estate of the saved in the Hadean realm. The book of Revelation was written to strengthen the church against the coming persecution under Nero and the Jews. Revelation fourteen warns against worshipping the image of the beast or receiving its mark, even under pain of death, promising the martyrs rest, saying, “blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them” (Rev. 14:9-14). The group in Rev. 20:4-6 are those contemplated by chapter fourteen; those who died under Nero and entered into Hadean rest. The Greek and Latin speaking peoples of Asia Minor could therefore find courage to face martyrdom by the imagery of Rev. 20:4-6, knowing that their souls would be tenderly gathered by God to rest in Paradise.[6]

Eternal Resurrection

The eschatological resurrection of the “last day” of the pre-Messianic age was the release of the souls in Hades: the righteous to eternal life, the wicked to eternal destruction. “Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice, and shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation” (John 5:28, 29; cf. Dan. 12:2; Matt. 25:31-46). The resurrection to one’s eternal fate does not involve physical graves or bodies upon earth, but is the translation of spirits formerly confined in Hades: those in Tartarus would be cast into Gehenna; those in Paradise would be received into heaven. The saints living on this side of the eschaton go directly to heaven upon death; e.g., they are “changed” or “translated” at the last trumpet calling them from this life (I Cor. 15:51, 52).[7]

That the resurrection does not involve resuscitation of dead bodies is clear from the teaching of St. Paul. Paul says that the physical body will be exchanged for one like Christ’s “glorious body” (Phil. 3:21; Rom. 8:29). We are given a glimpse of Jesus’ glorified body in Revelation when he appeared to the apostle John (Rev. 1:12-17). Needless to say, Jesus’ body was not flesh and blood.

The nature of the resurrection body was addressed in Paul’s first general epistle to the Corinthians (I Cor. 15:35). Using the analogy of a seed, Paul states

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit. Howbeit that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, earthy: the second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are earthy: and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly. I Cor. 15:44-49

“Sowing” here is often confused with burial of a corpse. But this is not at all Paul’s meaning, as may be seen by reference to Adam. “Earthy Adam” is set over against “heavenly Christ.” Adam was “sown” a natural body when God planted Adam’s spirit within the clay body and made him a living soul; he would be raised in a spiritual body in the resurrection to eternal life. Like a seed which has a form completely unlike the plant that replaces it, so man is “sown” a physical being, subject to corruption and decay, but will be raised a spirit-being, immortal and incorruptible. The germ within the seed that becomes the plant is analogous to the spirit or soul. Encased within a hull that is to be discarded, the germ comes forth as a tender green plant, and the spirit is raised to eternal life. Paul sums it all up when he states that “flesh and blood does not inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption” (I Cor. 15:50).

In Paul’s second general epistle to the Corinthians the nature of the resurrection body is taken up again:

For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding weight of glory; while we look not at the things seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal. For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven. II Cor. 4:16-5:2

In I Corinthians, Paul used the analogy of the seed. Here, Paul uses the analogy of a house to describe the abode of the spirit within. The dichotomy between the outward, physical, earthly, visible, and temporal versus the inward, spiritual, heavenly, invisible, and eternal should be plain to all.  

Outward man (physical)

Perishes

Suffers earthly affliction

Things see (visible)

Earthly house / tabernacle

Temporal / suffers dissolution

Inward man (spirit)

Is renewed

Enjoys heavenly glory

Things not seen (invisible)

Heavenly house / mansion

Eternal in the heavens

Paul’s hope of heavenly glory made the afflictions of earthly life and mortality bearable, knowing that he had a better and abiding home in heaven. Indeed, he sums the whole section up saying that while we are at home in the physical body we are absent from the Lord, and that he would rather be “absent from the body and to be present with the Lord” (II Cor. 5:6-8). Absent from which body? The physical body of this earthly abode.

Conclusion

There are five deaths and five corresponding resurrections taught in scripture. It is important to understand each of these and their place in God’s plan of redemption.


[1] James says “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin” (James 4:17). Since infants and children cannot “know,” neither can they sin. The notion that God imputes Adam’s sin to infants and children who therefore are in peril of eternal damnation should be rejected as wholly inconsistent with the nature and goodness of God. “That  be far from thee to do after this manner, to slay the righteous with the wicked…that be far from thee. Shall not the judge of all the earth do right?” Gen. 18:25; cf. Ezek. 18:20; Matt. 18:3; Luke 18:16.

[2] That “regeneration” equates with resurrection, see Matt. 19:28.

[3] The “new heavens and earth” promised in Isaiah and spoken of by Peter and John describe the Messianic age that came in power in AD 66-70, marked especially by the destruction of Jerusalem. Man’s eternal inheritance is in heaven, not the “new earth.” See the author’s book “All Things Made New: The New Heavens & Earth and the Day of Christ’s Appearing.”

[4] Virgil, Aeneid, lines 735-51; C. Day Lewis ed; cf. Plato, Republic, X, 614

[5] The Works of Voltaire, Vol. III, sec. 1 (1764, Philosophical Dictionary, Part I)

[6] The epistle to the Hebrews seems to indicate that the Sabbath rest was a type, pointing to the saints’ rest in Hades Paradise (Heb. 4:3-11).

[7] The trumpet that raised the dead at Christ’s coming is not the same trumpet that marks the saints’ change at death: two trumpets are contemplated by the passage: one which raised the dead, the other that calls each of us from earthly life at the time of physical death.

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