The term resurrection, as we have stated previously, applies primarily to the body of man. The spirit and soul are not resurrected from the dead, except in the sense they are made alive when they come in contact with the Lord Jesus and then can ascend into the Presence of God in Heaven.

We do not know of all the places where the Spirit and Soul of Christ went after His death on the cross. But we do know of the place and time of His resurrection, of the coming forth of His flesh-and-bone body from the cave of Joseph of Arimathea.

We believe the spirit of the born-again saint is in the heavenlies with Jesus, and when he dies his soul goes to Paradise in Heaven, according to his spiritual development. But this is not his resurrection.

He enjoyed a spiritual "resurrection," so to speak, when he first received Christ. But, according to the Apostle Paul, the Day of Resurrection is yet ahead of us. Therefore, the spiritual "resurrection" of the born-again believers throughout history is not what is meant by the scriptural resurrection of the dead.

The resurrection of the dead, in its primary sense, has to do with the body. Until that is clear to us it is impossible to understand the resurrection of the dead and the release of the material creation.

In the fifteenth chapter of the Book of First Corinthians the Apostle Paul discusses the resurrection from the dead of Christ, and also the resurrection of the bodies of the Christians. We do not find any flavor whatever in this chapter of the current Christian emphasis on a pre-tribulation ascension of the believer to escape Antichrist and the great tribulation. First Corinthians, Chapter 15 describes the resurrection of the body at the sounding of the last trumpet, the seventh trumpet of the Book of Revelation (Chapter 11).

The believers in the so-called "rapture" are not clear whether the "rapture" is of the spirit or of the body—or precisely what role the body plays, if any, in the rapture. This unscriptural doctrine has confused the doctrine of the resurrection from the dead. Yet the resurrection to life of the body of the believer in Christ is the fundamental goal and hope of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God.

The resurrection of the body of the Lord Jesus was (and is) of the most extraordinary consequence. Paul claims that if the body of the Lord Jesus were not raised, "they also that are fallen asleep in Christ are perished." (I Corinthians 15:18). Why such a stress on the body of the Lord? And by "perished," Paul is implying a singular lack of faith in the benefit of having died in Christ apart from the prospect of being raised again in the body.

To be continued.