Dissonants in Morgenrood Brochure (II)

The Out-Resurrection

In the previously mentioned Morgenrood brochure, it is explained that in the realm of the dead there is no consciousness, and that the dead sleep until the resurrection. The first category of people to be vivified (after Christ as the Firstfruit) are those who are Christ’s, at His parousia (= presence). Fully agreed!

But now the dissonant. According to the brochure, Paul’s initial expectation regarding the future—as found before Acts 28—is now outdated. The next resurrection, they claim, does not take place during Christ’s parousia, but occurs individually whenever a believer dies. No longer a resurrection at the parousia and a collective “meeting the Lord in the air,” but instead a resurrection immediately at the moment of death. And here lies the crux: what is here called “resurrection” is not a resurrection. The believer dies and simultaneously continues living in a new body with the Lord—so goes the idea. What is overlooked here is that this is not a resurrection, but a relocation. While the bereaved mourn and bury the old body of their loved one, the believer is supposedly already, within days, in a glorified body above. What is buried is nothing more than “mortal remains.” It serves no purpose and therefore need not be sown into the earth. In this view, the funeral loses all its biblical symbolism. “The resurrection has already taken place”—that’s the underlying notion. And it involuntarily brings to mind what Paul warns against in his last letter (2 Tim. 2:18).

It must be clear that resurrection in Scripture is, without exception, the raising of the dead body. That applies first and foremost to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. He did not merely receive a new body—He rose! The old body became a new body. He left the tomb empty! That is how it will be in the future as well. “Marvel not at this, for coming is the hour in which all who are in the tombs shall be hearing His voice, and those who do good shall be going out…” (John 5:28–29). That is what resurrection is!

What arguments does the brochure provide for this idea of “resurrection”? Does Paul, anywhere in his prison letters, say that the expectation he had previously proclaimed by God’s commission had come to nothing? No—this must be inferred, primarily from two pieces of information. (Warning lights should be flashing.) The brochure concludes the “immediate resurrection at death” idea from the assumption that Paul, before Acts 28, was reluctant to die (2 Cor. 5:4), but later came to see his death as gain (Phil. 1:21). Let’s take a closer look at that.

In 2 Corinthians 5, Paul writes that he longed to be “clothed upon” – that is, to experience the Parousia while still alive, so that his mortal body would be clothed with incorruption (cf. 1 Cor. 15:51–52). That was Paul’s preference over dying first (“being unclothed”). There is no mention at all of reluctance or fear, only a preference for one option over the other. In Philippians 1, Paul says that he considers dying to be gain. Why? Because the next conscious moment (departure = resurrection) would bring him into the presence of Christ. Whether that was before or after Acts 28 has nothing to do with it.

The claim that Paul’s expectation changed after Acts 28 is further supported in the brochure by appealing to Phil. 3:11, where Paul writes that he is striving toward (lit.) “the out-resurrection from among the dead.” Since this phrase doesn’t appear in Paul’s earlier letters, the brochure concludes that it must point to a new expectation. That seems to me a fallacy. First, the conclusion is disproportionate—based on only a single occurrence. Second, the expression is not linguistically different in structure from, for example, “the exodus out of Egypt” (Heb. 3:16). The double use of “out” simply emphasizes the preposition but adds no new meaning. The exodus out of Egypt is, in essence, the same as the exodus from Egypt.

Moreover, the out-resurrection from among the dead in Phil.3:11 does not take place at death but, as stated a few verses later (Phil.3:20,21), when the Lord Jesus Christ will come as Saviour out of our celestial dwelling. Exactly as Paul had already written in the Thessalonian letters. And what happens on that occasion? Our humiliated body will be changed and made conformable to His glorified body. Note: He changes (literally: transfigures) our humiliated body (not: He relocates us from a humiliated body to a glorified body). Paul’s teaching here is exactly consistent with what he had earlier written to the Corinthians.

Paul had received his evangel through revelation. Not only after Acts 28 but already at the beginning of his calling (Gal.1:12–17). That is why he already writes about “the secret” in his early letters (Rom.16:25; 2 Cor.2:7; etc.). The message of being changed at the parousia was, according to Paul himself, also such a secret (1 Cor.15:51).

Regarding the hope laid up in the heavens, Paul writes in Colossians 1:5. Was that a hope he had never spoken of before? No…
“…of which you hear before in the word of truth of the evangel, 6 which, being present with you…”
In other words, it is precisely when we understand the prison letters that we hold fast to the expectation Paul had preached earlier.

Delen: