I never found one scripture to back up an earthly resurrection. The scriputre they use most often is the one about the righteous inheriting the earth, but never a resurrection to said earth.
Is the resurrection heavenly or earthly?
by jwfacts 14 Replies latest watchtower bible
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Kosonen
There will be a resurection both to earth and to heaven. In John 5:28 Jesus speaks about an earthy resurrection. JW say the heavenly resurection already started 1919 or little later. But that does not harmonize with Revelation 14:8,13, wich says that, first falls Babylon, and after that the ressurection begins. JW explain this by saying that Babylon did fall already once, and will fall once again. But in this chapter it is only once said that Babylon falls, and that chapter ends will God's final jugement to this world.
You can find more interesting "new truths" affirmed by the Bible, still rejected by GB on my site www.freewebs.com/scripturalanswers
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Terry
I've never figured out what the purpose of DEATH is as a punishment--let alone the resurrection which follows.
If the wages sin pays is death, think about this.
The person dies. Being unconscious no time passes. They wake up as a resurrected person. Where is the punishment in dying? It is like taking a nap.
Now, if the wages of sin is death--you've paid in full! Why is a judgement necessary? Judgement on top of a debt already paid?
It gets worse!
If you die BEFORE Armageddon, you pay with your life for your sin. However, you rejected the "message" based on your understanding of what kind of sense the teller of the message was able to get across. You were a weak, sinful, corrupt human with Satan trying to confuse you, also!
Compare this situation with dying, resurrection and being in a perfect body, no Devil around (chained for 1000 years) and a good, clear message without competing religions to confuse you. ISN'T THIS A SUPERIOR eduction? I mean, contrasted with the lousy message and conditions for listening before Armageddon?
None of this makes any logical sense!
Being created as a human being and becoming a NON-human being (a heaven-dwelling spirit) is not a resurrection. No, it is a TRANSFORMATION of kind---of nature---of being---of essence--so dramatic as to not be HUMAN!
You were NOT that sort of creature before the resurrection---so how are you said to be resurrected? What you were doesn't come back to life. Your personality is your identity! Your consciousness is your identity. Your consciousness is HUMAN and all its contexts, concepts, values and connections emotionally are human!!
None of this is sensible!
Waaaahhhhhhhh!!!
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Kosonen
1Corinthians 15:50-52 tells even about that opportunity, that some will be transformed.
"in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" those will be transformed from being humans, to be angels.
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Narkissos
I think it's methodologically safer not to read the notion of "resurrection" into texts which do not explicitly use it or require it. The so-called "intermediate state" may be in view (as is probably the case in most Pauline references above), but we must also allow for the possibility that "resurrection" (and its companion concept the "intermediate state") do not play any role in some texts (e.g. Hebrews, or the earliest strata of the Fourth Gospel where "resurrection" is used metaphorically -- at least before the orthodox additions of "last-day resurrection" passages). After all, only a part of 1st-century Judaism believed in resurrection, and we cannot take it for granted that it was a common belief among all early "Christian" groups, especially in the Hellenistic diaspora. From 1 Corinthians it is apparent that this belief was not shared by all, and from the later Pastorals that it was often taken figuratively of a present ("spiritual") experience (much like in GJohn, Colossians or Ephesians btw).
As to the Revelation scenario (which, again, should not be extrapolated onto other texts), it must be noted that the "general resurrection" actually occurs after the destruction of "heavens and earth" (20:11) and before the introduction of "new heavens and new earth" (chapter 21) -- in the gap between two worlds, as it were, but strictly speaking neither in "heaven" nor on "earth"...