The Resurrection of Messiah’s Community

Excerpted from Sam Nadler’s book: Messiah in the End Times

“But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. For if we believe that Yeshua died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Yeshua. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Messiah will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore, comfort one another with these words (1Thessalonians 4:13-18).

The Rapture and the Messiah’s Blood

Messiah promised that “in the world you will have tribulation” (John 16:33), but that seven-year period of God’s wrath is His Tribulation on the world. The nature of this world is described as “this present evil age” (Galatians 1:4). Ultimately, His blood assures all believers of eternal glory and not Tribulation wrath. This is because there is a direct correlation between Messiah’s finished work at Golgotha and the resurrection of His Community, as the following Scripture indicates:

For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection (Romans 6:5).

Paul here writes that our unity with Yeshua is in His death, which is His finished work for our salvation, but that unity with Him in His death guarantees that we are united with Messiah in his resurrection. Our resurrection as the Body of Messiah is guaranteed by His finished work.

Similarly, the writer of Hebrews states:

“For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things, and through whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings” (Hebrews 2:10).

Thus, we are assured that Messiah’s suffering – i.e., His finished work – guarantees that we will be brought to glory, which is both post-resurrection and excluded from God’s wrath in the Tribulation.

The Wrath of the Lamb

I have heard many unusual ideas about the Tribulation: “It is not God’s wrath but the wrath of man or the wrath of Satan”, it is Biblically specifically stated to be God’s wrath from the beginning, with the seal of judgements (Rev. 6:1-17) through the bowl judgements (Rev. 16:1-19:15). From beginning to end, the Tribulation is God’s wrath on the world. But Yeshua took the full wrath of God upon Himself in His finished work on the cross. In fact, this Tribulation-period wrath of God is stated to be the “wrath of the Lamb” (Rev. 6:16-17). If there is one thing that the blood of the Lamb would exclude us from, it is the wrath of the Lamb! His blood is our eternal assurance of being with Him in glorified fellowship and not ever coming under God’s wrath again.

Furthermore, to say that the Tribulation is partially, mostly, or fully the wrath of man or the wrath of Satan or merely the daily troubles for us in the world is to disregard that the seals for the seal judgements are all opened by the Lamb (6:1, 3, etc.), and they are all the Lamb’s judgements. And as the Lamb opens the seventh seal (Revelation), it contains all the seven trumpet judgements, and the seventh trumpet judgement, likewise, contains all seven bowl judgements. So, it is all the wrath of the Lamb on a rebellious world.

Perfect Sanctification

Secondly, to say that the Body of Messiah needs to be purified by God’s wrath is to insult the grace of God in the finished work of Messiah. He did enough for our salvation, for His finished work is our perfect sanctification, as the New Covenant writers clearly taught:

By this will [of God] we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Yeshua the Messiah once for all…For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified (Hebrews 10:10, 14).

We are perfectly sanctified in our perfect position as saints (“sanctified ones”) by the blood of Yeshua, though we are maturing and progressing in our perfecting practice as saints – albeit much more slowly than we would like to admit! And yes, I, like all believers, am chastened daily by my Father as I am spiritually maturing and being “conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29). But there is an eternity of difference between God’s chastening on His children for their benefit, and God’s wrath poured out upon a sinful, rebellious world. To say that the Tribulation will complete what we need to attain heaven is to deny the finished work of the Messiah as the perfect work of God.

The Purpose of the Tribulation

Thirdly, though I am Israel-centric in my expression of focused faith in Yeshua, and though I therefore teach that the Body of Messiah is of the Commonwealth of Israel and that the Olive Tree of service is a Jewish frame of reference, still I must recognize that the Tribulation period containing God’s wrath is for those who have not trusted in Yeshua’s finished work, both Jew and Gentile alike.

As we will see, the purpose of the Tribulation is really all about God’s continuing purpose for and promises to Israel – that is, to bring that nation (my beloved people) to trust in Messiah’s atonement. I fervently pray and teach that if only Israel would come to national repentance and trust in Messiah’s atonement, the Tribulation may not be needed for them. How do I teach that? When Jeremiah was predicting God’s judgement on Judah and many wanted to kill him, some of the elders stepped up and spoke on his behalf, saying:

Micah of Moresheth prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah; and he spoke to all the people of Judah, saying, “Thus the Lord of hosts has said, ‘Zion will be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem will become ruins, and the mountain of the house as the high places of a forest.’” Did Hezekiah king of Judah and all Judah put him to death? Did he not fear the Lord and entreat the favor of the LORD, and the LORD changed His mind about the misfortune which He had pronounced against them? But we are committing a great evil against ourselves” (Jeremiah 26:18-19).

Micah and Jonah

The elders are saying in Jeremiah’s defense that the prophet Micah prophesied against Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah, and no one killed Micah for it. Rather, with the people’s response of repentance to Micah’s warning, God stayed His hand. We see something similar in the ministry of the prophet Jonah:

“Who knows, God may turn and relent and withdraw His burning anger so that we will not perish.” When God saw their deeds, that they turned from their wicked way, then God relented concerning calamity which He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it (Jonah 3:9-10).

Though judgment on Nineveh was divinely proclaimed, yet when the Assyrians repented in response to the very limited preaching of Jonah, God stayed His hand. And if all the awful Assyrians had was a “Who knows,” how many more are God’s promises to Israel if only they would repent!

Pray for the Peace of Jerusalem!

So, I – and many others, I am sure – pray for Israel’s peace and their salvation, as God commanded through David (Psalm 122:6) and as the apostle Paul taught the mostly Gentile congregation in Rome (Romans 10:1), that Israel will nationally trust in Yeshua the Messiah and be saved. And since a main purpose for the tribulation is to bring Israel to salvation in Yeshua, if Israel repents beforehand, then that Tribulation may be useful to God for other purposes, but national Israel will be spared as the Lord stays His hand. Oh, may it be! Though this flies in the face of classic dispensationalism, which teaches that God will only work with national Israel in the Tribulation, nonetheless, may God’s Word be found true and every systematic theology be found inadequate. Please pray for the peace of Jerusalem!…

How the Rapture Begins

The Rapture begins with the personal appearance of Messiah in the air (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17). At the Rapture, Yeshua does not come back to earth but rather raises us from the earth to meet Him in the air and take us to heaven to the place He has prepared for us there (John 14:2-3). The second coming, on the other hand, has us coming with Him from heaven to the earth (Zechariah 14:4; 1 Thessalonians 3:13).

The Rapture Participants

As would be expected, the Rapture involves the bodily resurrection of the dead Messianic saints reunited with their souls (cf. Philippians 1:23, 1Thessalonians 4:16). For those believers in Yeshua who have physically died, their disembodied souls went to be with the Messiah in glory (2 Corinthians 5:6-8), and they receive their incorruptible, immortal and glorified bodies upon their resurrection (1 Cor. 15:50-53). Because they are disembodied during the intermediate state does not mean they are useless. For God is spirit (John 4:24), and He is quite capable of great and mighty works. The angels, too, are “ministering spirits” (Hebrews 1:14) and are mighty in their service for God. Therefore, being disembodied will not prove a handicap…

Conformed and Transformed

Then the living saints will be “caught up” as well. As we are now growing into conformity to the Son of God (Romans 8:29), this will be perfected as we each are fully conformed to the image of Messiah, transformed both physically and spiritually. While the word resurrection is generally used when referring to those who have physically died, the word translation is used for those that are glorified without experiencing death, as with Enoch and Elijah.

Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is (1 John 3:2)…

Messiah’s Order of the Resurrections

Since Scripture teaches us to do everything “decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40), it should not be a great surprise that the resurrections are in order according to Messiah’s determination. What John calls the “first resurrection” (Rev. 20:5-6) starts with and includes Messiah’s resurrection as the First Fruits (1 Cor. 15:20). Messiah’s resurrection is the beginning of His order of the resurrections:

But each in his own order: Messiah, the First Fruits; then those who belong to Messiah, at the time of His coming (1 Cor. 15:23). So, the resurrections will be for “each in his own order,” starting with Messiah’s resurrection, followed by all who belong to Him.

There are in general two sorts of resurrections, for those that are deemed either “good” or “evil.”

…and will come forth; those who did good deeds to a resurrection of life, those who committed the evil deeds to a resurrection of judgement (John 5:29).

The Great White Throne…

Those who are good are declared so by their imputed righteousness – by putting their faith in Yeshua. This would include all the resurrections referred to as the “first resurrection” in Revelation. “Those who committed the evil deeds” are consigned “to a resurrection of judgement,” which, rather than being called the “second resurrection” is designated as the “second death” (Rev. 20:14). Those who are evil are all those who did not believe on His atonement, for “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Yeshua taught that those who do not believe in Him remain under “the wrath of God” (John 3:36). These will be in the resurrection for the eternally lost at the great white throne judgement.

The Resurrection of the Righteous

After the first resurrection, Matthew records that a few of the Tanakh saints are resurrected (Matthew 27:52-53). Then comes Messiah’s Body, prior to the Tribulation. In the middle of the Tribulation, the two Jerusalem witnesses are killed and then resurrected (Rev. 11:11-12). Then, following the Tribulation and after Messiah’s second coming to earth, there is the resurrection of the Tanakh saints and the Tribulation martyrs (Dan. 12:1-2; Rev. 20:4). Then come the millennial saints, who do not die but are translated into the eternal state, to whom the phrase “the rest of the dead” (Rev. 20:5) may be alluding. This is the whole of the first resurrection, which is in the general terms the resurrection of the righteous.

To continue in this thoroughly Biblical study on the end times written by Sam Nadler, visit Word of Messiah’s Bookstore for your own copy of “Messiah in the End Times”!