Has Jesus come from God the Father in Heaven?

Foreword: What is the purpose of my writing?

Has Jesus always been with the Father in heaven? Many mainstream denominations believe this and base their faith on Bible verses. Are they right?

Some years ago, I wrote short articles about Jesus and his possible pre-existence, that is, whether Jesus was in heaven with God before he was born the son of Mary and Joseph.

This is what the mainstream churches of Christianity believe. Interpretations by Catholic churches have become commonplace throughout Christianity. There are only a few small denominations that are not even counted as Christians by mainstream churches. Apart from being with the Father in heaven before the creation of the world, the Catholic Church developed faith in the Triune God and the doctrine of the two natures of Jesus. These are all intertwined, and doctrine cannot be piled up without all being believed to be true. The doctrine has remained essentially unchanged, but the Catholic Church has lost its monopolistic status, and the Christian Church has fragmented.

Indeed, I have often had to ask God why you have not taken care of the writers of your word so that their writings in the Bible would not be so open to interpretation. That’s what the fragmentation of the Christian faith is due to; The expression of the Bible is not unambiguous but requires interpretation. And people, even learned scholars, have almost everyone their own answers to Bible questions. The central problem that afflicts both ordinary church visitors and scholarly theologians is that it is not always possible to distinguish from the word of God what is literally true and what is a figurative expression. Even if something is ‘only’ figuratively true, it is nonetheless true. A figurative expression requires reflection to understand the expression correctly. This article also seeks to illustrate this problem with the help of examples.

I am not a member of any church but an independent scholar of the Bible and seeker of its truth. So, my reader, you don’t have to think about in whose bag I’m trying to put my flour in this writing.

About the deity and humanity of Jesus

As you read my writing, reflect on these thoughts as I did before I began writing. What result will you get?

• God is one who has always been and who is eternal.

• God has not been created.

• God is omnipotent, and he can do whatever he wants.

• Man is a created being; God created man as did the angels in heaven. Man is flesh and blood; angels are spirit beings and are more powerful than humans.

• God has made his Son Jesus Lord and Christ. Jesus has never been in such a high position before this.

• Jesus has always been human. He is also a man in heaven.

• God the Father has given all power to his son, both in heaven and on earth.

Jesus was the first man God the Father raised from the dead to eternity. God also gave Jesus the power to give life to whom Jesus deemed appropriate. Those who participate in the first resurrection will receive eternal life and not participate in the final judgment. Jesus had to be like other men in everything to be the High Priest in atoning the people’s sins.

Psa 33:6 By the word of Jehovah were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth. 9 For he spoke, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood firm.

Joh 13:3″ Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was returning to God,” “Was returning to God” suggests that Jesus would have been with God.

1 Joh 4:1 Beloved, don’t believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.

2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit who confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,

3 and every spirit who doesn’t confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God, and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of whom you have heard that it comes. Now it is in the world already.

What spirit is from God? “From God,” by no means does it always mean that the spirit has been with God in Heaven and departed from there.

Jesus exercises the same power in heaven as God the Father. His throne is to the right of the Father’s seat. Where can the throne of the Holy Spirit be? I have written that Jesus Christ is part of the divinity based on the high status and authority given to him.

The Annunciation of the Angel Gabriel to Mary

Luk 1:35 “The angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore also the holy one who is born from you will be called the Son of God.” – The angel Gabriel came to tell Mary about the birth of Jesus; Mary would become pregnant when “the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and the power of the Most High overshadows you.”

Why Gabriel couldn’t say, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and make you pregnant, and the boy child that will be born to you is the Son of God moving from God in Heaven, he is part of the Triune Deity.” Even a better wording would probably be found, but even this clumsy fabrication of mine would have removed the two-millennial controversy over the status of Jesus Christ.

Since the angel Gabriel did not speak anymore of this, can we infer from it that Jesus is ‘only’ the Holy Son of God? However, we know much more about the heavenly position of Jesus in the Bible.

Figurative expressions and literal expressions

Example of a literal expression: Joh 6:64″ But there are some among you who do not believe.” For from the beginning, Jesus knew those who wouldn’t believe, as well as the one who would betray him.”

Example of a figurative expression: Joh 6:53 “Jesus therefore said to them, “Most assuredly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you don’t have life in yourselves.”

The next verse sounds completely literal: Joh 6:38 “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.”

“No one has gone up to heaven except the one who came down from heaven, the Son of Man who is in heaven.” – A peculiar statement from Jesus (John 3:13). He told it in a conversation with Nicodemus, the teacher. He had not yet died (crucified) when he said it, let alone ascended to heaven. So, is Jesus talking about the future? Why does Jesus formulate his statement as if it were a thing of the past and what is mentioned has already happened?

Questions to consider

If Jesus has always been with Heavenly Father, he is most obviously God and cannot be human. The man was created, and according to the Bible, the man was not created to be in heaven as the angels, but man was created to dwell on the earth. Or was the doctrine of dual nature already valid in heaven?

If Jesus had been initially God in heaven, could God have already become man in heaven? For God, anything is possible. Would Mary’s child have already been a man and God?

Some believe that Jesus was a spirit in heaven, like everyone else, but an angel. Angels are called sons of God (Job 1:6, Now it happened on the day when the sons of God came to present themselves before Jehovah, that Satan also came among them. 38:7 When the morning stars sang together, And all the sons of God shouted for joy?).

– Was Jesus, such a boy? So should the doctrine of dual nature be the doctrine of triple nature: the angel-God-man?

According to the doctrine of dual nature, Jesus could change his nature at any time from man to God and vice versa. How often did Jesus do this? He could have changed to God whenever he needed supernatural powers, such as resurrecting a person from the dead. Jesus did not do this but said that the Father had done these miracles: “It is the Father who dwells in me who does his works.” (Joh 14:10). Why didn’t Jesus just switch to God mode?

Many believe that God’s sacrifice to atone sinful people is more correct than if Jesus gave his sacrifice as a perfect man. Adam and Eve sinned against God as human beings, which is why I think the sacrificial death of Jesus as a perfect human being covers the sin of mankind. God cannot die and cannot be tempted as Jesus was tempted.

If he was teased, tortured, and suffered, did he suffer as a man or God? Jesus is said to have learned obedience through suffering; wouldn’t Jesus as God have learned this obedience without suffering? It can also be stated this way: if he was either the Son of God [the second person of the Triune God] or a heavenly angel, he was probably perfect without developing himself to be perfect through suffering.

Why did Jesus have to be fully human to be the Savior of all sinful people? The Bible says that sin came through one person. That is why the power of sin (the power of Satan) could be removed through only one perfect man. Could not God the Father pardon all mankind without the sacrifice given by His Son?

How does Jesus’ sacrifice work for the benefit of the Gentiles who were sacrificed in the Old Testament times for the land acquisition of the tribes of Israel? I do not doubt the justice of God, but I find no evidence in the Bible of how the Gentiles, who once died, would be saved. After all, God himself commanded the Gentiles to serve the celestial bodies. Jesus came to earth only because of the lost sheep of Israel; could not, with the New Covenant, proclaim salvation for believing Gentiles as well?

What if Jesus on earth was just a man, a perfect man. After all, Jesus is a man in heaven. What a fantastic future for the people to be saved!

God’s advance plan

It is not always easy to distinguish from the expression used in the Bible, whether it is a figurative expression or an actual one. One such verse is Joh 17:5″ So now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed.” Those who believe that Jesus was really with God even before creating the world will find a testimony of this belief in this verse.

However, God made a plan (I call it an advance plan) even before anything was created. This plan included the Son of God, who was part of God’s plan. Indeed God foresaw the Fall and, consequently, the depravity of the world. The role of the Son of God was in the Father’s plans to deliver mankind from Satan. The disciples of Jesus were also included in this plan of God.

If one claims (as many indeed do) that Jesus existed before the beginning of time, then I have asked whether the apostles were also, for the Bible also describes for them the foreknowledge of God to glorification.

Is John 17: 5 translated correctly?

Many readers believe that this translation above fits the teaching of the Bible and the generally accepted notion that Jesus, the Son of God, existed in heaven before he was born on earth as a child of Mary. John D. Keyser says that when comparing the Greek text with the English translation and allowing other scriptures to interpret this verse, it becomes apparent that this traditional translation has been adapted to prevailing pagan conceptions.

Without going into the details of the translation work, I will only present here what he thinks is the right way to translate: And now, O Father, You glorify me beside Your own self, with the glory which I AM TO HAVE with You BEFORE the world to come.

Jesus Christ asks the Father that the Father will glorify him with Son’s glory with the Father before the world to come. “Future World” refers to that new world, the New Jerusalem, where God the Father descends from heaven and where the thrones of the Father and the Son will be.

Rom 8:29 “For those whom he [God] foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers; 30 And those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.“

According to this, God has foreknown and predestined his elect, such as the apostles, to be like His Son. Christ completes this: Joh 17:22 “I have given them the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one, just as we are one.” – Other believers in Jesus can become like this glory: 2 Cor 3:18 “As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are being transformed into the same image with ever-increasing glory by the Lord’s Spirit.”

The Apostle Paul teaches that predestination signifies God’s choice for eternal life. It is evident from the Ephesians’ Ephesians, which says that it is God’s purpose for the fulness of times to unite in Christ all that is in the heavens and that which is on the earth. 1:11: “In Christ, we were also chosen when we were predestined according to the purpose of the one who does everything according to the intention of his will.”

Eph 1:4 “even as he [God] chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and without blemish before him in love; 5 having predestined us for adoption as children through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his desire,”

Another part of the plan was for Abraham to become the father of the nations. Rom 4:17 As it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations.” Abraham acted in faith when he stood in God’s presence, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence things that don’t even exist.

Paul explains God’s statement as if it happened in Genesis.” I have made you the father of many nations,” God says to Abraham, even though such had not even begun at that time. God “summons things that are not yet in existence as if they already were.” Even then, Abraham had only one child, not to mention numerous nations. It was God’s plan and promise — as indeed fulfilled as it had already happened. This is illustrated by the clumsy translation “who makes the dead alive and calls the non-existent.” The end of it, on the other hand, is understandable “as if they were.”

Another biblical example of Jeremiah and God’s foreknowledge:

Jer 1:4 “Now the word of Yahweh came to me, saying: 5 Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

God sees the future just as well as people see the present. Indeed, God speaks of the future as if it had already happened. We see it just as clearly, but not the future, but only the past. So we may ask: if God sees the future as clearly as we see the past, why is God content with this course of events? Why is the Bible, the word of God, and the expression of the will so ambiguous? Sure, God has seen this, but He has accepted it. I have sometimes answered this question myself, saying that God wants us, humans, to strive to find the truth. Not that everything would be too easy and tray given to us.

God has made his plan even before the beginning of time. Future events were seen in God’s understanding and before the beginning of time become, in his language, as if certain and already happened.

Alan Hayward interestingly writes God’s (advance) plan in his article Did Jesus Christ come down from Heaven? For a brief account of the question concerning the interpretation of Proverbs 8: 1-23:

The Old Testament had a name for God’s plan. It called it God’s “Wisdom.” The New Bible Dictionary says that wisdom in the Old Testament means “God’s irresistible fulfillment of what he has in mind.”

That is a good definition and fits well with the following passage in the Old Testament: Doesn’t wisdom cry out? Doesn’t understanding raise her voice? “Jehovah possessed me at the beginning of his work, Before his deeds of old. I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, Before the earth existed. (Prov 8:1-23)

In other words, before God began His work on this world, He made His Plan — Wisdom, as the Jews call it.

Though not in the God of the Bible, the Greeks – who believed in God or gods – gave it a different name. They called it God’s “Word.” The same Bible dictionary says that the Greek word for “word” means “both God’s plan and God’s creative power.”

This helps because it allows you to understand the first paragraph of the Gospel of John. John seems to have combined the Greek idea of God’s Word with the Jewish idea of God’s Wisdom. His gospel begins, “In the beginning was the Word.”

Some people don’t make sense of this chapter. Some think they have, but they take the wrong view because they think Word is a living being. (This, incidentally, is the reason why the translators of this passage refer to the Word with the pronoun “he” when in the English Bible, the Greek word “he” also means “it,” and that is how it should be translated here.)

If we now think of God’s “Plan” instead of his “Word,” and use the pronoun “it” instead of “his,” then John 1 reads, “In the beginning was the Plan,” and the Plan was with God, and the Plan was God. [x] It was in the beginning with God; everything was done through it, and nothing that was done was done without it. In it was life, and life was the light of men… And the Plan became flesh and dwelt with us, full of grace and truth; we looked upon his glory, the glory of the Son of God from his Father.” (John 1: 1-14.)

[X] The beginning of the Gospel of John is incorrectly translated in many Bible translations, as follows: 1: 1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” The correct word order is “and God was the Word καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.” Hayward’s writing also goes wrong at this point, and it should read: And God was the Plan.

These words of John bring the teaching of the Bible together beautifully. Jesus was in heaven in the beginning, but not in person. He existed as a great thought in the mind of God, at the center of God’s Plan. He did not exist as a human being until he was born in Bethlehem. Then, in the words of John, “The plan became flesh.”

The Old Finnish Bible from 1776 translates the beginning of the Gospel of John correctly:

1 In the beginning, was the Word, and that Word was with God, and God was that word. 2 This was in the beginning with God. 3 All things are made through it: and without it is not anything made that is made. – Notice the phrases “that Word,” “this was in the beginning,” and “made through it.”

Numerous translations have personified the word and use the personal pronoun he. I have written in my opinion of the Word, saying that Jesus Christ became the word of God because of his acting according to the will of God.

God’s foreseeing and selection

The Bible says Joh 17:24 “Father, I desire that they also whom you have given me be with me where I am, that they may see my glory, which you have given me, for you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

This is considered by many to be a sure testimony of Jesus being with God even before the creation of the world.

Jeremiah tells (1:5) how God knew him even before he was born: “Before I formed you in the belly I knew you, and before you came forth out of the womb I sanctified you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.”

Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born of the mother I sanctified you; I have made you a prophet of the nations.”

We can read about Psalm 139:16 about David’s foreknowledge” Your eyes saw my body. In your book they were all written, The days that were ordained for me, When as yet there were none of them.”

Also, Paul had been foretold already in his mother’s womb Gal 1:15:” but when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me through his grace,”

The heavenly position of Jesus

Jesus has [eternal] life in himself

Joh 5:26″ For just as the Father has life in himself, so also he has granted the Son to have life in himself.” – Life in itself means eternal life, immortality. What is significant in this verse is that Jesus also has immortality, and especially that the verse tells us that God gave eternal life to his son. If Jesus had been God, he would have had eternal life of his own accord, and God the Father would not have had to give it to him.

The content of the doctrine of the triune divinity is that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are all God persons. God is one who is eternal, immortal without anyone giving God immortality. Thus, when God the Father gave his son eternal life, it proves that Christ had not previously had “life in itself,” i.e., Jesus was mortal. Jesus received the gift of eternal life from His Father when he was on earth, not when he was in heaven with the Father.

Having eternal life does not testify of Jesus’ past life in heaven. If Jesus had been before, that is, before he was born of the Virgin Mary on earth, as the Son of God in heaven, he would have been mortal. This is the logical conclusion that Jesus only got eternal life for himself as a man on earth. This verse does not tell when Jesus received eternal life from the Father; after all, in theory, it is possible that Jesus got it already in heaven.

What is essential, then, is that God the Father gave eternal life to His Son. It also means that the son was not God, at least before this, because God is eternal, without beginning and end, immortal. God can give man eternal life or immortality. Nor can God make man God because God has always existed. On the other hand, God can give man divine authority, as he gave Jesus by exalting him above all, both in heaven and on earth.

In addition to giving his son eternal life, God the Father exalted him as Lord and Christ (Messiah). Jesus himself said of his own position in heaven: Mat 28:18 “Jesus came to them and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.”

God has made or exalted Jesus as Lord and Christ (Messiah)

On Pentecost, the apostles testified to a large crowd: Act 2:36″ Let all the house of Israel, therefore, know assuredly that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” The apostles also testified to the High Priest and the Council Act 5:30″ The God of our ancestors raised Jesus to life after you hung him on a tree and killed him. 31 God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior (ἀρχηγός archēgós chief leader, prince), to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.

– God did not send Jesus for the whole world. Jesus himself said: “I wasn’t sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel.“ (Mat 15:24). – Pretty soon, Peter received a vision from heaven that led to intense missionary work to convert the Gentiles around the Mediterranean.

Jesus lived most of his life preaching about the kingdom of God and calling people to repentance. The people to whom he addressed his words were Jews. Jesus also lived his life in strict compliance with the Old Testament Law of the Covenant. Near his death, Jesus proclaimed a New Covenant, to which non-Jews could then join.

Heb 1:2 “has at the end of these days spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom also he made the worlds.” Young’s literal translates instead of the world, ages: … through whom also He did make the ages;

– What does the statement mean at the end of the verse “through which he created the world?” Isa 44:24, in turn, testifies: “Thus says Jehovah, your Redeemer, and he who formed you from the womb: I am Jehovah, who makes all things; who stretches forth the heavens alone; who spreads abroad the earth (who is with me?).”

This is a vision of the future based on God’s foreknowledge I described above. The earth was already “created, and the heavens stretched out, and the earth spread,” so it is not a question of creating the world.

It is a question of new earth and new heaven: Rev 21:1 “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth have passed away, and the sea is no more.” Isaiah had already foretold the same: 65:17 “For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth; and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind.” – The new heaven and the new earth describe the new world and new time after the Last Judgment, where the saved live and God himself dwells among them. This is the world that Christ creates as the High Priest of God.

Jesus is still human in heaven

1 Tim 2:5 “For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,“

– Jesus is an intermediary between God and man after Jesus ascended to heaven; first, God raised him from the dead after the crucifixion, and after forty days, Jesus ascended to heaven. God gave him all power both in heaven and on earth and planted him on the throne to his right.

The Catholic idea of the mother of Jesus as a heavenly mediator is not based on the Bible.Jeesuksen rooli välimiehenä voidaan nähdä näin:

Rom 5:17 “For if, through one man [Adam/Eve], death [Satan]ruled because of that man’s offense, how much more will those who receive such overflowing grace and the gift of righteousness rule in life because of one man, Jesus Christ! 18 So then as through one trespass, all men were condemned; even so through one act of righteousness, all men were justified to life. 19 For just as through one man’s disobedience many people were made sinners, so also through one man’s obedience many people will be made righteous.”

Jesus said: Joh 11:26 “Whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” When you think about this message, do you notice that it is a figurative expression? Even a figurative expression like this can be true! – The mediator Jesus Christ wipes away all the sins of man if you only ask for it in faith. It is no longer necessary to sacrifice life for the remission of sins as during the Law Covenant.

The future role of Jesus is the High Priest

Heb 2:17 “Thus he had to become like his brothers in every way, so that he could be a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God and could atone for the people’s sins.”

Heb 7:17 For it is declared about him, “You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.”

With the ascension to heaven, Jesus received the office of the high priest forever. I see the mission of this high priest as leading humanity saved by the Last Judgment before God. Before that, Jesus Christ has acted as a judge ordained of God because God has given him all the authority. Heb 4:15 says:” For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.”

Jam 1:13 “Let no man say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God,” for God can’t be tempted by evil, and he himself tempts no one.” – If Jesus had been God, nothing or anyone could have tempted him. He was a perfect human being.

Indeed, proponents of the dual-nature doctrine of Jesus claim that he was God, but he was fully human on earth. God cannot die. Therefore, according to this doctrine, Jesus was a man on earth, and Jesus died on the cross as a man.

Neither this doctrine nor the doctrine of the Triune God is based on the Bible. Over several centuries, the Catholic Church has been developed and confirmed by the Ecclesiastical Council for compliance at the risk of otherwise you will not be saved. People have believed these man-made doctrines to prevent them from going to hell, eternal torture in the lake of fire. Could you, like me, ask: shouldn’t the core doctrines of Christianity come from the Word of God, the Bible, and not over the centuries of quarrels and debates and finally accepted by votes of the majority of the Church?

If Jesus suffered, did he suffer as a man or as God? Jesus is said to have learned obedience through suffering; wouldn’t Jesus as God have learned this without suffering? It can also be stated this way: if he was either the son of God [the second person of the Triune God] or a heavenly angel, he was probably perfect without developing himself to be perfect through suffering. Instead, as he grew up, he grew and developed in wisdom if he was fully human. He also had to suffer death on the cross to atone for the sins of mankind.

Heb 5:8 “though he was a Son, yet learned obedience by the things which he suffered. 9 and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him,”

Heb 2:9 But we do see someone who was made a little lower than the angels. He is Jesus, who is crowned with glory and honor because he suffered death so that by the grace of God he might experience death for everyone. 10 In bringing many children to glory, it fitted that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.

– How should these verses be understood? Jesus had been made lower than angels for a short time. Much lower if lower means power and strength.

Jesus was just a man. He did, for example, raised the dead, but not by his own power, but by the power of God. We might ask, why couldn’t Jesus as a man be superior in power so that everyone could see the greatness of God and his son? However, it is a brief moment in the celestial scale of time. God saw fit to teach his Son all that man might have to experience, and thus “through suffering make the head of their salvation perfect.”

How does Jesus’ sacrifice work for the Gentiles who were destroyed in Old Testament times for the land acquisition of the tribes of Israel? I do not doubt the justice of God, but I find no evidence in the Bible of how the Gentiles who once died would be saved.

After all, God himself commanded the Gentiles to serve the celestial bodies. Jesus came to earth only because of the lost sheep of Israel; could Jesus not proclaim salvation to believing Gentiles through the New Covenant?

What if Jesus on earth was just a man, a perfect man. After all, Jesus is a man in heaven. What a fantastic future for the people to be saved!

The resurrection of the dead

1 The 4:13 “But we do not want you to be ignorant, brothers, about those who have died, so that you may not grieve like other people who have no hope. 14 For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so it is through Jesus that God will bring back with him those who have died. 15 For this we declare to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord will by no means precede those who have died.”

1 Joh 3:2″ Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.

Jam 1:18″ Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of first fruits of his creatures.

– James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes which are in the Dispersion: Greetings. This leads to the idea that there may be a relatively large number of “firstborn creatures,” and by no means just 12 apostles. The firstborns created by Christ are those Jacob speaks of.

There are two groups of those involved in the first resurrection: those who have died over time as believers in Christ, the dead over two millennia. Perhaps an even bigger group is the one who is alive and in faith when Christ arrives. Excluded from the first resurrection are the dead Gentiles and the Gentiles alive and surviving at the time of the Resurrection. This last group will receive the resurrection and the final judgment at the end of Christ’s Millennial kingdom.

In what kind of bodies are the resurrected dead? The general perception seems to be that in the same carcasses where they lived. Many see a problem here; where does God find and remember all the atoms of all human bodies? The Bible and the creeds based on it speak of “the resurrection of the body,” but one should not imagine that the resurrected body is flesh and blood.

1 Cor 15:40 There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the splendor of those in heaven is of one kind, and that of those on earth is of another.

41 There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars, for one star differs from another star in glory.

42 So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption;

43 It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power;

44 It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.

45 So also it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living soul.” The last Adam became a life-giving spirit.

46 However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual.

47 The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven.

48 Those who are made of the dust are like the man from the dust, those who are heavenly are like the man who is from heaven.

49 Just as we have borne the likeness of the man who was made from dust, we will also bear the likeness of the man from heaven.

50 Brothers, this is what I mean: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, and what decays cannot inherit what does not decay.

51 Let me tell you a secret. Not all of us will die, but all of us will be changed,

52 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed.

53 For what is decaying must put on what cannot decay, and what is dying must put on what cannot die.

According to the language of the Bible, man is a soul or a living being. The “natural body” (verse 44), or “flesh and blood,” cannot inherit the kingdom of God, meaning that the physical body cannot enter the kingdom of God; Those who live in the kingdom of God are all in the spirit body, the one God has given to each.

Verse 15:52 tells us that in the twinkling of an eye, with the last trumpet, the dead will rise, and people will change into spirit bodies. Verse 51 says that not everyone sleeps to death, but we all change. This touches those believers who are alive when Christ comes after the last trumpet. Then those who are in the faith will not die but will be transformed into spiritual bodies and will rise against Christ.

This is how the first resurrection takes place. Its participants gain a leading position in the Millennial Kingdom of Christ, which could be characterized as part of the Kingdom of God – in terms of its leadership and administration. The ordinary subjects of the kingdom are in the physical body, unlike Christ and the resurrected ‘saints.’ Ordinary people in the Millennial kingdom are still mortal, unlike resurrected leaders.

This description does not apply to everyone, and the resurrection of all the dead will NOT occur at the time of Christ’s arrival. Its time is only when the time of Christ’s Millennial Kingdom is over. THEN all the dead will be resurrected, and they will rise, as they have risen before, in the spirit body.

God’s purpose

The first people sinned and disobeyed God’s command. What followed? Deportation from paradise was not the significant consequence but the fact that man became mortal because of sin. God wants to return to the starting position and make all of humanity alive forever. To accomplish it, God gave his only Son, who, through his death on the cross, overcame the dominion of death that was in Satan’s possession.

God’s plan proceeds as follows:

1 Cor 15:22 For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ will all be made alive.

23 But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then those who are Christ’s, at his coming. 24 Then the end will come, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father after he has done away with every ruler and every authority and power.

25 For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.”

Christ is coming back to earth. Christ’s own will rise and rule with Christ the “Millennial Kingdom” on earth. The people who belong to it live in paradisiacal conditions, but even though their lives and health improve, they are still mortal. At the end of the kingdom, there will be another resurrection, and those who experience it will be brought before the judgment seat of Christ. Christ will give those who receive accepting judgment eternal life.

26 The last enemy that will be abolished is death.

27 For, “He put all things in subjection under his feet.” But when he says, “All things are put in subjection,” it is evident that he is excepted who subjected all things to him.

Kuolema on kukistettu ja kaikki ovat Kristuksen alamaisia, kunnes

28 When all things have been subjected to him, then the Son will also himself be subjected to him who subjected all things to him, that God may be all in all.

Christ gives all his power back to God the Father, from whom he received it. God descends from Heaven to live on earth in New Jerusalem, where he rules with the High Priest, Christ over the saved humanity — God’s co-workers.

The plan made by God before the creation of the world has finally come to pass as God intended. This is not the end of humanity, but its new beginning.