Matthew 22:23-28 English Standard Version
Sadducees Ask About the Resurrection
23 The same day Sadducees came to him, who say that there is no resurrection, and they asked him a question, 24 saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother.’ 25 Now there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring left his wife to his brother. 26 So too the second and third, down to the seventh. 27 After them all, the woman died. 28 In the resurrection, therefore, of the seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her.”
If they do not believe why ask?
The same thing could be said of anything and everything within the bible. The simple answer is that we do not understand everything perfectly. Those of us in Christ understand resurrection.
Or is our understanding imperfect?
The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended. This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection! Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.
Since God’s Word is true, then is it possible that the millions of us that are hoping for the rapture to happen any minute now are to be disappointed that if it happens it isn’t a resurrection?
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.
What we commonly call the Rapture is not identified as a resurrection. Risen to be with the Lord is not described here as coming to a new life. Lazarus has risen to his old life, not a new life.
Matthew 28:6 He is not here, for he has risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay.
We call that Sunday Resurrection Sunday but according to His Word Jesus has risen, not to a new life but rather to the life He had with the Father in the beginning. Maybe we do not have a proper understanding of resurrection. Or are we right? God only knows.