The scriptures speak about the resurrection of both the just and the unjust. All will be resurrected. Paul teaches that although all will be resurrected, not all will be resurrected to the same glory. Even as there are differences in heavenly and earthly glories, variances exist throughout both. “So also,” he said, “is the resurrection of the dead.” (See 1 Corinthians 15)
But according to Jehovah’s Witnesses, there will be only two resurrections. One will be the resurrection of the just (“just” Jehovah’s Witnesses). The other will be the unjust. But how does that work? As I understand it, and please correct me if I’m wrong, all people who have died in the past will be resurrected and then given a choice regarding whether they support or oppose Jehovah in his great war against Satan. Those who go with Jehovah are saved and those who don’t...well, they will be destroyed.
So what about those who are destroyed in Armageddon? In every article it seems that the wicked end up dead...permanently. So are those destroyed in Armageddon resurrected or not? Paul wrote, “For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order....”
Jehovah's Witnesses don’t seem to make any provisions for those killed at Armageddon. Why? It also doesn’t make sense that God would bring the unrighteous back, then destroy them. Doesn’t that make Christ’s suffering and death ineffectual? At least for some...or most?
“All flesh is not the same flesh,” Paul writes, “but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead.”
Why, if only the righteous are resurrected (for good), would there be so many different degrees? Paul also declares, concerning the body, “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”
Keeping in mind that a “natural” body is mortal and a “spiritual” body is a resurrected physical body (animated by spirit), we have to determine why there should be many different types of resurrections if Jehovah is going to destroy all but the faithful.
Speaking of Jehovah’s enemies, a Watchtower writer gets a bit carried away. “If, as it were, they should go into the mountainous region of Bashan and onto its high peaks, from there the inescapable Jehovah God will bring them down and back to punishment. If, even in atomic-powered submarines, they should try to hide themselves in the depths of the sea, the unavoidable Jehovah God will bring them back. To what? To face slaughter, that their lifeblood might be poured out.” (Watchtower, November 1, 1967) I have this image in my mind of a giant stern-faced bearded man plucking a nuclear Seawolf-class submarine from the sea, shaking it a few times and smashing it against an asphalt street in a ruined U.S. city.
Is Jehovah-God is going to then resurrect those poor sailors and destroy them again? What sense does that make and, again, what does it mean about the efficacy of Christ’s sacrifice? How do the Jehovah's Witnesses explain this?