Mystery Told: We’ll All be Changed

Last time we saw that at the Rapture, bodies of believers from all generations will rise.  They will also be changed.

 “So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable…I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed–in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15:42, 50-52)

Just as Jesus was raised from the dead and had His resurrection body, so too will we. These new bodies will not be “flesh and blood.”  This is important. In fact, it’s so important that Jesus reiterated it for us in 3 of the 4 Gospels. 

Luke 20:34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection.”

A corrective to Mormonism and certain other religions, Jesus says that these bodies will not reproduce or get married.  Jesus said that we’ll be “like the angels” in heaven.

Why is this important?  I was listening to Dr. David Jeremiah (who, by the way, I like) and he asked the question if the Millennial Kingdom is inherited only by saints, then who gets sent to hell along with Satan upon his release at the end of the Millennium?  He suggested it is the adult offspring…children, grandchildren, great grandchildren of the saints who survived the Tribulation since faith is not passed down.

This is a truly unfortunate downside of believing that the Rapture must happen before the Tribulation begins.  It limits the future outcomes so that people who refused to bow down to the beast and are powerful witnesses and true heroes of faith during the Tribulation don’t get to meet Christ in the air, their bodies are not changed even during the peaceful Millennial reign of Christ, and their sinful kids get thrown in hell after Satan is released. 

Just wow. 

I’m sorry, but I have a terrible time reconciling that with a God who shows no favoritism and whose own self-description says this: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 10 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.” (Deuteronomy 5:9-10)

Where is the love?  Are the Tribulation Martyrs substandard believers?

I do not believe that the Rapture gets all the good little Christians out before everything hits the fan.  I think that is a misguided evangelical hope meant to placate people who don’t want to suffer an actual test of their faith. I don’t know, maybe God will send them into sleep, and they’ll be part of those who are resurrected first from the dead.  But this I do know: my God didn’t spare the Israelites the Passover event.  They were passed over.  He protected them by their faith.  He didn’t spare the exiles but preserved a remnant…by faith.  Therefore, my evangelical hope is that God preserves us through it.  We witness by our faith in Christ despite persecution.  It calls for courage and bravery and most of all, shielding by the Holy Spirit on account of our faith.

It coheres with Revelation 20:4 “I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony about Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or its image and had not received its mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” (italics added)

If the rapture of all believers already occurred before the Tribulation begins, how did these Tribulation survivors end up in heaven? For faithful survivors of the Tribulation, these martyrs, their bodies will have been changed to reign with Christ and they won’t reproduce or have any new children to send into hell. So, who is left? There’s more to the story…