Sinking the Ship of "Hyper-Preterism"

 

 Torpedo #2

 

"The Resurrection of the Body"

 

(Response by Tyrone Cropper)

 

In order to truly comprehend our Bible we most see things through God’s perspective and not man.

 

Tyrone Cropper

In order to truly comprehend our Bible we most see things through God’s perspective and not man. Casting aside the traditional teachings of men, let’s look at Scripture.

To be dead, as used in the Bible, can mean different things.  It can mean to be dead physically; it can mean to be dead spiritually; or it can have yet another meaning that goes synonymous with spiritual death.  It is the last two interpretation of `the death' that is our subject of study. Let's look at a passage of Scripture that gives us a feeling for this third definition of death.

Then He said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They indeed say, `Our bones are dry, our hope is lost, and we ourselves are cut off!' Therefore prophesy and say to them, `Thus says the Lord GOD: "Behold, O My people, I will open your graves and cause you to come up from your graves, and bring you into the land of Israel. Then you shall know that I am the LORD, when I have opened your graves. I will put My Spirit in you, and you shall live, and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken it and performed it," says the LORD.'" (Ezekiel 37:11-14)

During the Babylonian captivity Israel was cut off from her homeland. They spent seventy years in another country. While Israel was cut off from the promised land she was in the sight of God, as dead! All these Jews were alive physically, but as the Lord showed Ezekiel they were a valley of dry bones in a grave nationally. Biblical death does not appear to be dependent on physical life or the lack thereof.

God in restoring His people to their own land uses the figure of graves opening and His people coming forth in national resurrection. Read again the passage form Ezekiel.

If you now understand this third meaning of death (national Jews cut off from the promised land), then you possess a valuable tool in the understanding of a term that is synchronous with spiritual dead. When God created man, He created him for relationship in his presence. Death was the result of man trying to be his own god leading him away from the law of God vs.5.   When Adam and Eve sinned, they were separated from God’s presence and exiled from the land God vs.23-24. By doing this God "guard(ed) the way of the Tree of Life." More on that later.

In Genesis 2:15-17 God told man concerning the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil "in the day you eat thereof you will surely die." God did not say however you are going to die, as brother Joe has suggested 3:19. It is obvious God see life and death independent of the physicality of man.

Man and woman ate of the fruit. Did they die that day? Amazingly, most people will say "No!" because Adam and Eve did not die physically after they ate the forbidden fruit. But this is not the whole story like most would have us to believe.

Death means separation, Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden the day they ate the fruit. Thus, Adam and Eve died spiritually because they were cast out of the presence of God. If Adam and Eve did not die the day they ate then Satan told the truth and God lied! God said you will die in the day you eat, Satan said you will not surely die, Genesis 3:1ff. Who told the truth to Adam and Eve? Unless one can find Adam and Eve physically dead in Genesis 2-3, then the death they died was spiritual and not physical.   It is no getting around this fact that either God lied or Satan lied.  Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely." die vs. 4.

What was lost in Adam, was spiritual life, not physical, life.   Physical death is a separation, of the spirit from the body and does not stop relationship with God, however spiritual death brakes relationship and separates man from God.  So He drove out the man and He placed cherubum at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life. (Genesis 4:24)  Sin and death go hand and hand. The soul who sins shall die, (Eze. 18:20a)    Instead, of focusing on the physical death of man the teaching of the Bible is focusing on the spiritual restoration of man from sin-death. 

Jesus also obviously saw life and death independent of the physicality of man.

Listen to what Jesus says to Martha: John 11:23-25 "Jesus saith unto her, Thy brother shall rise again. Martha saith unto him, I know that he (Lazarus the individual) shall rise again in the resurrection at the last day. Jesus saith unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live".

This verse is addressing the Old Covenant saints who had died under the Old Covenant of the law. While they may die they shall live. I have to say; this has got to be one of my favorite verses in the entire bible! Here is Martha saying to Jesus: that she knew that her brother would rise in the last day, as if she knew the nature in which he was to receive life. She believed that her brother was going to rise from the grave in his physical body and she was so sure of it. Then Jesus turns the tables on her, and attributes the resurrection to himself and he is incredibly emphatic about it (I AM). So no longer does the resurrection have to do with an event, but with the person of Jesus Christ.

Listen to next verse which confirm this: And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?'''' (John 11:26) This verse is addressing the New Covenant saints. Whoever lives and believes in Christ Jesus shall never die. (John 5:24) Jesus' view of life was spiritual and everlasting. If a person believed in Him the effect would be resurrection life and they would never die. vs.26. In addition, Colossians 2:12 speaks of people who were raised (resurrected) with Jesus. Those spoken of were not physically resurrected. Ephesians 2:1, 5-6 speaks of people who were resurrected from the dead, and the death was only spiritual. The life the last Adam gives is the life the first Adam lost THE DAY he eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Many of us do not put enough emphasis on why Jesus is called the last Adam.

The tree of life and Paradise

The Tree of Life and Paradise Theme runs throughout the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelation; but in order to recognize it we must first familiarize ourselves with what God's Word says about the original Garden itself. God has gone to the trouble to tell us some very specific information about why man was banished from the Garden, and forbidden to enter it again and the rest of Scripture is built on this foundation, which showing how man is restored by God to his original purpose.

In the beginning God created man in His own image, in order that man would have dominion (Gen. 1:26-28). That task of dominion began in the Garden of Eden, but it was not supposed to end there, for man was ordered to have dominion over the whole earth: But when man rebelled, he lost the ability to have godly dominion, because he lost fellowship with his Creator. While fallen man is still the image of God (Gen. 9:6), he is now spiritually dead (Gen. 2:17) and naked (Gen. 3:7) The image of God remains, to some extent, but men was disfigured, and broken as a result of sin.

Synonymous the earth, which was planned to become God's Garden has instead become a wilderness of thorns, thistles, sweat, scarcity, pollution, and death (Gen. 3:17-19; Isa. 24:1-3; Rom. 5:12). Man was banished from the Garden, and forbidden to enter it again. But that isn't the end of the story. On the very day that God pronounced judgment upon man and the earth, He declared that the Redeemer would come someday to crush the Serpent's head (Gen. 3:15) Accordingly the Apostle Paul repeatedly affirmed the belief that the God of peace shall bruise Satan under the saints feet shortly. (Rom 16:20)

The Apostle John tells us that "the Son of God appeared for this purpose, that He might destroy the works of the devil" (1 John 3:8). Christ came as the Second Adam, in order to undo the damage brought through the First Adam (1Cor. 15:22, 45; Rom. 5:15-19). Christ breathes into His people the Spirit of Life (John 20:22)—Eternal Life, which sets them free from the Curse of sin and death (Rom. 8:2), which ultimately resulted in the restoration of man to the paradise of God and his tree of life.

As we shall see in the following scripture the restoration of Eden is an essential aspect of the salvation that Christ provides. When the Old Testament foretold the coming of the Christ and the blessings He would bring, they often spoke in the language of Eden-restoration. Isaiah wrote: "Indeed, the LORD will comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places. And her wilderness He will make like Eden, and her desert like the Garden of the LORD, joy and gladness will be found in her, Thanksgiving and sound of a melody" (Isa. 51:3). And Ezekiel, many years later, prophesied:

Thus says the Lord GOD, "On the day that I cleanse you from all your iniquities, I will cause the cities to be inhabited, and the waste places will be rebuilt. And the desolate land will be cultivated instead of being a desolation in the sight of all who passed by. And they will say, 'This desolate land has become like the Garden of Eden; and the waste, desolate, and ruined cities are fortified and inhabited.' Then the nations that are left round about you will know that I, the LORD, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate; I, the LORD, have spoken and will do it (Ezek. 36:33-36).

Was there a spiritual truth being illustrated with the physical tree? Absolutely! The tree of life has been restored in Christ Jesus. Jesus (the tree of life) gave us the eternal life. Blessed are they that do his commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city. (Revelation 22.14 KJV:) The church at Ephesus is promised that if they overcome they would eat of the tree of life which is in the midst of the paradise of God (Revelation 2:7). ... Since all of these 7 churches are no longer in existence today, and they were real churches that John wrote to in the first century, wouldn’t all these promises have to be fulfilled to them before they ceased to exist? Or are we to believe that they are still awaiting their specific promises from Jesus to yet be
fulfilled?

So spiritual death was the result of  Adam's sin that day. God told Adam "in the day thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die." (Gen. 2:17)  When God created man he breathed into his nostrils the "breath of life." The Hebrew word here is "neshamah."  When Adam sinned, the divine image breathed into him perished and he became a"carnal, sold under sin." (Rom. 7:14) Physical death occurred many years later.  Christ the last Adam breathes into His people the Spirit of Life (John 20:22)—Eternal Life, which reversed the death of the first Adam.